Night Owl Cards

(A lot of fuming on the blogs lately. Trying to understand it. I understand some of it. Not all of it. I think what it says mostly to me is: stay with vintage and the base sets you can afford. And wear sensible shoes. Time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 98th in a series): An often repeated conversation. Only the name of the set changes: Night owl: Got it. Got it. Need it. Need it. Got it. Got ... Little voice inside Night Owl's head: Uh-oh. Night owl: What-oh? LVINOH: I don't remember seeing that Stadium Club Fernando card before. Night owl: Of course you have. LVINOH: Yeah, I know I should have. But it really doesn't look familiar. Something in the back of your mind told me it's new. Night owl: You need to stop talking to him. ... So, what -- you're saying that I don't have this card? LVINOH: Please don't get fired up, but I think you might not. Night owl: That's ridiculous. Of course, I have this card. It's ...

I watched the MLB Network's countdown of the top 50 prospects in baseball last night. I don't normally care much about prospects, but there is so much talk about them that I figured I should at least know the name when I hear it. Basically, what I gathered from the show is that there are tumbleweeds blowing through the Dodgers' farm system (something I already knew), and the Braves and Rays are ridiculously stocked with baseball studs. But it all doesn't matter, because there were SIX Royals in the top 50 and Kansas City is going to chew up all the major league teams, turn them into fuel for domination, and win the next 46 World Series. One day people will actually hate the Royals, which I don't think has ever happened in history. I'll be thrilled if K.C. becomes a perennial winner. It's always been one of my favorite teams. It's the reason that I don't really mind when collectors send me Royals cards, thinking that they're Dodgers cards. ...

About a year ago or more, I learned of the collecting term "trifecta." I don't know who came up with that, but I first read about it at Drew's Cards . I thought it was a great little collecting category. The best part of tracking down a rookie card, auto card and relic card of a single player is it's a little bit of a challenge. Going through my collection, I found lots of examples of completing two of the three categories. But coming up with all three was more difficult. Finding a rookie card and relic card of Manny Ramirez was easy. Finding an autograph card, not so easy. Same with Shawn Green. Finding a rookie card and an auto card of Sandy Koufax was doable. But I don't know if I've ever seen a relic card of Koufax. Finding an auto card and relic card of Duke Snider was achievable. But it takes big cash to land the rookie card. In the end, I found 15 Dodgers for which I have the rookie card, autograph card and a relic card. That's much m...