Night Owl Cards

  I recently returned to my plan to chase down the Dodgers I'm missing in old Heritage sets.   In almost all cases these are short-prints, and I quickly lose enthusiasm after seeing prices and drop the chase for months before coming back to it. But this time when I visited, the prices weren't bad -- it's just there weren't a lot available.   I added the Kaz Ishii short-print from 2004 Heritage. Look at him roll his eyes at those short-printing ways.     I also added another famous Japanese pitcher for the Dodgers, maybe you heard of him. Heritage short-printed his card, too, in 2005 Heritage.   While I was searching for other Heritage SPs from this time period I happened across an insert from 2005 that I didn't have, so I threw that in my cart and called it a night.     This card recognizes his two home runs on the final day of the 1956 season that clinched the pennant for the Dodgers.      I knew the photo used on the front seemed ...

  March is kicking my ass per usual. But I have a hobby to off-set that, and when I get the time, I dig into the greatness and realize my life should consist of nothing but sorting all the goodies people send me!   I've been swimming in new-to-me cardboard for the past month or so and it was ramped up when my friend Greg ( @grogg.bsky.social ) sent another amazing package -- rather a big ol' box -- that I knew was coming, and even knew some of the contents, but was still not prepared for the greatness.     There's the box now (with the dreary winter backdrop -- right now the wind has decided to howl for three days straight). Inside that box were several smaller boxes, with lots of variety but with one thing in common -- I collect that stuff!!   Now whenever I show off an arrival this size with this kind of variety I usually go for the big finish. But I realize some readers don't care about the old stuff (although I've probably driven away all the people who only...

  For the first time since debuting this series here 17 years ago, I considered not running it this year.   Ranking MLB's teams in order of how I like them seems like something who's time has past. There are people on social media -- baseball fans -- who don't root for any team (and I assume that means they don't root against any team). They just root for good games. That's a pretty foreign concept to me. Part of sports for me is rooting for and against, having a favorite, and because of that, having certain non-favorites.   It may be silly -- players have been jumping ship for money for as long as I have been a fan, they have no allegiance -- but I need an attachment to the game that goes beyond "hey, baseball is fun, you guys."   There are still a lot of fans who think like me though. The Dodgers have won one World Series title in a row and so many are outraged. What would current fans be doing if social media was around during the Yankees' run of ti...