Night Owl Cards

  Father's Day ended in pretty sucky fashion yesterday. Right in the middle of a dinner prepared to my specific requests, I heard hushed voices coming from my laptop over in the living room. I ignored it for a little bit -- I really like burgers and deviled eggs -- but it kept hushing and I had to go and check it out. There I saw people hunched over Mookie Betts, who was having difficulty getting up. I couldn't see the number so I couldn't tell who it was, I just knew it was a Black man. It didn't seem like Jason Heyward, not large enough. It didn't seem like Teoscar Hernandez, not enough beard. Finally I saw the name and, well, that's how you ruin Father's Day. Thanks a lot, Dan Altavilla, who I had never heard of until yesterday. I used to write about the Dodgers as a fan quite a bit on this blog. A lot of rah-rah rooting stuff. I moved away from it because I never felt comfortable with it and focusing more on cards seemed more natural. But I am still a Do...

A couple of weeks into starting a blog for the first time, I received a comment from someone I didn't know. It said something to the effect of (I can't find the comment now): "Finally! Another Dodger collector! Let's trade!" I didn't know what to make of it. I hadn't traded with anyone through the blog yet and the concept of trading without being able to see the other person was weird to me, plus a little unnerving. Besides, my reasons for writing the blog were based almost solely on expressing my love for cards. I didn't want to get much more involved than that. Two weeks after I started my blog, that commenter started his. He called it "garvey cey russell lopes" and I discovered exactly how serious he was about his commitment to the Dodgers, particularly to the Dodgers that I grew up with as well. My reservations melted away. Jim and I were the first Dodger card bloggers that I knew. When I started, there were fans of the Braves,...