Night Owl Cards

  Even though Mason Fluharty has pitched in 40-plus games for the Blue Jays this season, I first discovered him at the start of the Dodgers' recent losing streak just this past Sunday. (The Dodgers are not repeating).    I'm not a Blue Jays fan, but his arrival in MLB this year is notable for me. He is the 18th major league left-hander to be born on International Left-handers Day, which ... uh ... was yesterday.   I've written tributes to lefties on Left-handers Day in the past (I'm left-handed). I'm going to do it again. Today. A day late. Because that sounds like something a lefty would do, right?   I figured out all the MLB lefties who were born on Aug. 13, Left-handers Day, and will go through them now, with minimal commentary because all you righties aren't going to read this anyway. (The guy can't even do this on time!)   1. WINGO ANDERSON Years active: 1910 Position: Pitcher Teams: Reds Card shown: 1910 T210 (Old Mill Cigarettes) I don't own this...

  A number of years ago I received some cards cut off a cereal box from a set that I had never heard of prior to seeing the cards.   I showed off the cards and said they were from the 1997 Wheaties set. That's about all I knew about them, but noted the Topps logo on the front and figured that it was one of those Topps-food issue partnerships that I knew so well growing up in the '70s and '80s.   Well, this is a '90s set, so it's got to be more complicated than that.   A week or two ago I claimed some more '97 Wheaties cards from the operator of the Baseball Cards Fan blog, who was offering them up through the great trading card giveaway thread on Bluesky. I figured I had 12 of the 30 cards in the set, I should do something already about the rest of them.   I didn't notice right away a difference between these cards and the ones I had already. I'm often not very observant.   But once I started entering these cards into TCDB, I figured it out. A couple o...

  I found out about a monthly card show in town just coming up on three years now, and already I'm wondering how soon it will be before there's nothing there for me anymore.   I went this past weekend fully aware that I'd see more tables dedicated to TCG stuff. When I walked in I thought I would try to count how many tables were selling Pokemon/Magic/Yu Gi Oh and how many were selling cards of actual humans. But after spotting the three tables to my immediate right all selling it and knowing the table to my immediate left always sold it, I gave up on that and tried to focus on someone, anyone selling something I could use.   It's pretty clear that kind of dealer is taking over this show. Without doing the count, I'd guess that at least half of the tables were TCG this time. Then, out of the other half that's sports cards, cross off the dealers focusing only on graded stock and also the dealer or two selling nothing but boxes they got through a month's worth ...

   Trading cards takes a lot of time. Also, sometimes it takes a lot of work.   Everyone collects differently and sometimes it's difficult to match up with another collector. That happens all the time. No big deal really. Then there are the fellow collectors that drag out trades for too damn long.   I never participated in collectors forums, but I've heard that trades were often like that there. I have no problem trading away nice cards, but I'm not going to send a couple dozen messages back and forth to come to an agreement on an exact accounting of precise compensation. I've dealt with this in the past with a couple bloggers. It's not fun. Trading is supposed to be fun.   That's why I gravitate to super simple trades. My favorite are: "I'll send you some cards whenever and you send some cards whenever." That's how most trades go on the blogs. It's about the only ones I make these days.   It's also why I participate in stuff like Diamo...