Night Owl Cards

  Happy Canada Day to my Canadian readers.   I haven't written a Canada Day post in four years when once it was a semi-regular occurrence. This is no oversight, just someone writing a blog for two decades and running out of ideas.   For inspiration I went back to a post I wrote 10 years ago in which I researched a few MLBers who I didn't know were from Canada. I wondered if I could find some others. And I did.   This surprised me. I've lived near Canada for two-thirds of my life -- in three different places. I've attended baseball games in both Toronto and Montreal (and Welland, Ontario). And I've interviewed MLBers in one of them (Montreal). Maybe I should know more Canadians than Larry Walker, Joey Votto, Terry Puhl and Vlad Jr.   So here are a handful more of Canadian players I didn't know were Canadian. Although it's possible I did know at one time that they were. Facts are falling out of my brain all of the time these days.     JOHN AXFORD (Simco...

I received this card in a trade a little while back in my quiet quest to complete the 1981 Topps set (it's not on my want list. Maybe someday I'll get it on there). I knew nothing about Gordy Pladson when I received this card. In fact, I didn't even know he existed until I did inventory on my '81 set trying to figure out who I still needed. This happens to me quite a bit. If it wasn't for baseball cards, I wouldn't know half of the major league players that I do. Somehow, by obtaining a card, the knowledge of that player is catalogued into my brain in a way that doesn't happen if I merely see that player's name in an article or even watch him in a game. When you own the card, the moment is no longer fleeting. The card is there forever, and you have forever to learn about that player. Pladson was nothing special as far as his major league career is concerned (his wikipedia entry is exactly one sentence long, and they spell his name "Gordie.") C...