Night Owl Cards

I completed another set. I know nobody seems to care about that lately (apparently, if my experience Monday is accurate. every human being is out back-to-school shopping and not blog-readin'). But it's still exciting stuff to me and I'll continue to post about it until even the crickets go silent.   This one is the team set for 2004 Upper Deck Timeless Teams. This is one of the more attractive retro sets of this time period and Upper Deck liked it so much that the theme returned in its Timeline set a mere four years later. These were the last two Dodgers cards I needed to finish it: There are a whopping 39 cards in this team set and that's not even including the Memorable Moments cards, which are also part of the base set but look nothing like the rest of the cards. The Timeless Teams set is not  equal opportunity  focusing solely on the best teams of the '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s. So while the Dodgers have 39 cards and the Yankees also have 39, the Astr...

There is no 2017 Stadium Club at my neighborhood big box outlets. There is no Bowman of any kind. There is no Archives, for crying out loud, which appeared and disappeared in a month (or less) without me seeing anything except rack packs. At Target, the same stale offerings have been available for weeks -- Series 1 and 2, a smattering of Heritage and Bunt (plus all the non-baseball products you could ever hope for). At Walmart, there is the same, plus large gaping holes where product should go. I've stopped at the card aisle to soothe my periodic ripping fix three or four times now and left empty-handed each time. These are not cards I want. Today, we're holding a yard sale. I quickly boxed up some sports cards that I'm sure none of you would want and added them to the sale. Usually cards vanish at yard sales instantly. But the boxes are still sitting in the yard untouched. These are not cards anybody wants. What's going on? Can't we find a card match...

In 2004, my knowledge of the card-collecting landscape was as it was in 1993. I knew Topps was still around. I grabbed a couple of packs of those. I figured Fleer and Donruss and Upper Deck were still kicking, too, although I had no idea how to obtain those cards. Not that I had any desire to do so. But I didn't even think that there was much more to the story. I was freshly back into the hobby, and my only interest was completing my 1975 Topps set. Little did I know that a cardboard revolution/war had sprung up a couple years after I left the hobby. Not only were Topps, Fleer, Donruss and Upper Deck still around, but each was producing about 12 different products apiece. There was Heritage and Cracker Jack and Total. Platinum, Tradition and Ultra. Studio, Team Heroes and Elite. Play Ball. Legendary Cuts and Vintage. Then throw in Bowman, which I had wiped from my memory, and Bazooka, and I can't believe this all went down without getting my attention. I did discover T...

I've done a lot of reminiscing on this blog the last couple of days, and with all the work I've put into nostalgiazing, I suppose you think there's been no time for trading. Ha! There's always time for trading. That is if you define "trading" as taking forever to respond to a trade request, taking even longer to find some cards for your trading bud, taking even longer, longer to send out those cards, and taking even longer, longer, longer to post about them. If that's what you mean by trading, then, yeah, I'm all over that. This is a deal made with GCA of The Collective Mind . In my usual backward way, I am posting the cards before I get his return package in the mail, so I've already turned what I wrote two paragraphs ago into a bold-faced lie. But disorganization aside, isn't it nice to see some present-day activity from me instead of wallowing in memories of the '70s and '80s? Here are some relatively recent cards fr...

I am late on this, as I tend to be. Oh well. Brian, of 30-Year-Old Cardboard , asked bloggers to relive the most memorable games that they had ever witnessed, either in person or viewed on television. Living where I do, I have not been to a lot of major league games. Less than a dozen, I think. If I had to rank them, off the top of my head, it'd go like this: 4. Clemens vs. Pettitte, Toronto, April 1998 3. Gagne comes home to Montreal, Montreal, August 2002 2. Eck vs. Palmer, O's win in 10, Boston, August 1982 1. Royals beat Yankees in my first MLB game, New York, July 1978 In the general scheme of things, these games have the most meaning to only me. A couple have very personal memories that I won't relay here. But to the masses, none of these are particularly special. For that, I have to go to TV. Even some of the TV games are here only because of personal memories, but most are pretty familiar to all fans: 10. Red Sox & Brewers pound out 6 HRs in 14-10 Bost...

I have fallen hopelessly behind in just about every area of my life. March does that to me every year. But it seems even more pronounced this year. There's really no use in trying to catch up. I'm never going to do it. I'm even slacking in the blog arena, which is usually the only area that escapes neglect in times of frenzy. But people are holding contests and box breaks all over the place and not only do I not have the time or the cash to join them, but I can't even keep track of which ones are which. At the risk of getting this all wrong, Offy's Sports Site is holding a contest, Nachos Grande is holding a box break, Crawford Cards and Sewing Machine Cards is holding some joint monthly box break thing, Mojo and Beardy are asking people both to pick winners in the NCAA Tournament and RAP FOR CARDS , while madding is just asking for people to pick winners in the NCAA Tournament . Damn, I'm winded. You guys have to do all of this in MARCH? (Yes, I know...