Night Owl Cards

  As you've probably heard/read by now, this year's World Series teams have a few things in common.   It is a matchup of two "small-market" teams. It's two teams that play "small ball," or at least "smaller ball" than most of MLB teams have been playing the last several years. Both teams are based on pitching, speed, fielding, smart base-running and each have a couple of phenomenal hitters.   Also, both play in domed stadiums.   But there's more than those things that make them similar for me. For the longest time, my brain has frequently considered them the same team. I've often thought of the two teams as mirror images, the Rays as the "American League Brewers" and the Brewers as "the National League Rays". Maybe it wouldn't be that way if they were in the same league (they probably should be, shouldn't they Mr. Selig?). I mean I do the same thing with the Brewers and the Mariners. The main reason I tend to...

(Greetings on National App day. I can recall the carefree days when I didn't know what an app was. Now I am wondering if there is a National Delete Your App day. I would like to celebrate that. Time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 360th in a series):   It came. My one card to recognize and remember the Dodgers' World Series title in 2025.   Sure, there will likely be a Heritage card or two to remember it next year (1977 Topps had three World Series cards). But this is it for something immediate. Topps isn't producing any blaster with a commemorative set anymore, and I refuse to throw cash at any of the other Topps Now cards.   I was prepared for this after last year. I looked and looked for a nice World Series set to remember the 2024 Series victory but just ended up being horrified by the price of the online-only set of 15 ugly cards.   I decided one card would do and I got something appropriate.   I think I like this way of approaching it. It saves me ...

  I admit I might have purchased this card for too much money the other day. It's what sellers are counting on from fans of the team that wins the World Series. And when the card shows a photo of a play you don't ever remember seeing before -- or at least don't remember seeing in a do-or-die situation in the bottom of the 9th inning of Game 7 of the World Series -- you buy it.   It's not going to get into my hands until next month, but I know how that goes, having experienced the same thing when I bought one Topps Now card to commemorate the Dodgers' win in the 2024 World Series.   While I'm waiting, I'll have more time to think about whether what I just saw was the best World Series game I have ever witnessed.   This has been a popular topic among national commentators and fans in general. When I first thought about it, I tried to rank the best World Series games in my head but quickly gave up. However, yesterday at work I was wandering through my Facebook ...

  As a Dodgers fan, I haven't said much about the World Series while it's been going on. So on the one-year anniversary of the Dodgers winning the World Series over the Yankees, and while this year's Series teams are traveling back to Toronto (boo!), I'll write about it a little.   First, Game 2 and Game 3 -- the two most interesting games in the Series, per me -- are now two of my most favorite World Series games in my almost 50 years of watching the Fall Classic. Yoshinobu Yamamoto's complete-game victory on Game 2 was marvelous, and while not very unusual in the annals of World Series starting pitchers, the performance was a rarity in the last 20 years and a call-back to pitchers like Hershiser, Reuss and Sutton. Very exciting.   Game 3 was even better -- a repeat of Game 3 of the 2018 World Series, filled with so many wonderful, exciting moments that it was difficult to remember them all. I thought I would only be able to watch Game 2 of the whole Series, thanks...

  Just a short post today. Fridays are always busy and it doesn't help that MLB starts the World Series on a Friday now. We sat through three off days so we could get to a day when I absolutely cannot watch. The current configuration means that I will get to see exactly one game live even if it goes a full 7 games. Also no World Series game on a Sunday is appalling. Makes me want to write a strongly worded letter to the commissioner.   So there's not nearly enough time to relay my complicated thoughts about my Dodgers going for a second straight World Series title for the first time in my life as a baseball fan. It's already a weird space to be in, having to constantly bat away "anyone-but-the-Dodgers" spewing on the usual sites. (I spent part of the morning deleting any youtube video suggestion that has to do with "the Dodgers are ruining baseball". Why would these be in my suggestions?)   The Dodgers can do something in the 2025 World Series that has b...

  Just a short post today. I seem to be in a period where the ideas aren't coming as quickly and also time is limited.   I finally -- FINALLY -- received this Topps Now card of Walker Buehler's reaction to recording the final out in the 2024 World Series. I ordered it almost immediately after the World Series ended and it didn't show up until yesterday. So about a month-and-a-half. I shouldn't have been impatient because it was a preorder deal, which I didn't notice right away (too much partying). But even then, shipment was marked for Dec. 2 and that didn't happen.  In general, it seems to be taking awhile to produce a card set of the Dodgers' World Series title. The 15-card Topps Now commemorative set has just hit the online sites and after taking a brief stroll through ebay to gauge pricing -- well, this card of Walker Buehler will do nicely for now. Spending $150 for 15 pretty ugly cards is wild. This card isn't part of the commemorative set, it'...

  ... but I had to. What a time to be on this earth for both times.

(Greetings on the first day of Daylight Spending Time. I don't know why we're still doing this time change thing, but I'll take the extra hour of sleep. As for all of the Facebook memes about how dark it's going to be now ... I think you know, the night owl doesn't mind at all. Time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 328th in a series): I checked to see if this "Pocket Profile" Corey Seager is listed on Trading Card Database. I couldn't find it. I suppose it's not "card enough" but it seems more card-like than some things that are listed on TCDB. It's not like I'm looking to pad my Seager collection on there. I have plenty of his cards (277) and now that he's with the Rangers, he won't be climbing up from his No. 16 ranking among the players with the most cards in my collection. I am happy though that his Rangers won the World Series. I haven't said anything about the Series here since it ended, mostly because, li...