Night Owl Cards

  Who am I kidding here? I can't evaluate the card year in 1995! There were 33 major releases in 1995. There were two sets with rounded corners! Two! Apparently card companies didn't hear that the World Series was canceled the year prior. But I did. I bought three packs of Topps in 1995. And then I exited, closed the door and didn't return to the hobby for a decade. My enthusiasm for this year in card collecting is very low. But it's not as low as for 1996 (foreshadowing). I'm incapable of an exhaustive breakdown of most of the sets from '95. I refuse to cover all 33. There were some suggestions to break it down in various ways, maybe cover the basic sets, and then a separate post for the premium sets and super premium ones. Yuck. I don't even like referring to sets as "premium" and "super premium." So this is the problem. I want to evaluate a year by old-collecting means that doesn't fit into those standards. In 1994, I tried to take...

There are some cards that cause me to emit an audible "ugh" when I see them. This is one such card. It is definitely not "awesome." I'd much rather call it an "unfortunate night card," a "disturbing night card," or a "jerk-face night card." Let's get the "jerk-face" part out of the way first. My dislike for Will Clark is well-established. Prickly, shrill, Giant-loser, these are some of the words I use and have used to describe Clark over the years. I'd like to say he was more enjoyable as a Ranger, but there was too much Giant stink on him by then. Kenny Rogers, meanwhile, was a plain idiot. I will never forget his unprovoked assault on cameramen before a game in 2005. Terribly inexcusable and it blackened my perception of him forever. Don't like the guy. To a lesser degree, there are a couple of other guys on the card who have never been my favorites. Ivan Rodriguez, while an admirable player, fre...

I like to think of myself as a simple man. I look around me and everyone everywhere is making things complicated. Complicated lives. Complicated policies. Complicated world. I like things simple. But sometimes I look at my blog posts and they aren't simple at all. A lot of them are long and over-the-top. The opposite of simple. That disturbs me sometimes. So I thought I'd do something about that and write a simple post. Here it is: Today was rather complicated. There were computer problems. There was an accident in the city that knocked out power during rush hour. There was my daughter's homework in which I had to teach myself a math concept that I hadn't thought about in 30 years. And this was all on a day off for me. The day was frustrating. Infuriating even. But it was a good day. You know why? Because I crossed off the last card I needed to complete my 1995 Score Dodgers team set. There is Tom Candiotti now. The card arrived to me from Ma...

Here is a little secret about me that you didn't know: I want to write a book. But I don't know how to go about it. "Yeah, so?" you're saying. "You and about a million other people." Fair enough. But I know that I have the stuff to be an "author." I can write. I write professionally. I have ideas periodically. I've won awards. My stories have appeared in public on the blog, in print and elsewhere for the last 25 years. I have the tools. Here's what's holding me up: 1. I know nothing about the publishing side of things. To me, the publishing world is a strange, foreboding and exclusive place. How do I get published? How do I find a publisher? It's all so nebulous. Getting published in a newspaper? I know how to do that inside and out. But a book? I'm absolutely lost. I know there is self-publishing and all that, but I'm looking for your traditional, mainstream, distribute to the masses, published book. 2....

This might be short. I haven't gotten any of the sleep that I so desperately wanted 16 hours ago. So I'm not too perky. Why not wait until I've had sleep to post again? Because about 15 hours ago I scanned some cards I received from Bo of Baseball Cards Come to Life! I had planned to feature them here after writing up a post at dinner time. But I came home for dinner and realized that somehow in my bleary state I had not saved the cards. They were nowhere to be found. So I returned to work, came home just now, and now I've scanned the cards again. And before I do a face plant directly into my keyboard, I will now POST THESE CARDS, DAMMIT!!!!!! In fact, I'm showing them two at a time, in a tribute to my deja vu scanning experience. OK, not really. I paired them up just to save time so I can get to sleep faster. Observe: The highlight of this particular trade were cards from the best Donruss set ever, the 1984 set. Still got a little ways to go to co...

Perhaps you have read about the latest incident involving former Dodger shortstop Jose Offerman. It happened Saturday night in a Dominican winter league game. If you are unaware, you can read about it here . And you can watch the disturbing video here . I don't know what the umpire said, but he certainly didn't deserve THAT. If Roberto Alomar missed making the Hall of Fame because he spat on an umpire, Offerman's chances of making the Hall are definitely out. Well, for the punching-the-umpire reason, and all of the, um, errors.