Night Owl Cards

(Last day of August. For me that means the official start of the busy season. Yuck. Wasn't it just June? At least the postseason is around the corner. Time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 46 th in a series): On the occasion of my 600 th post, I thought I'd carry out on my threat. Sort of. I have theorized, in a half-serious way, that Hideo Nomo has the best baseball cards of anyone to have played the sport. Something about the period in which he played, his popularity, his pitching motion, made for great cards. He is one of my favorite Dodgers to collect. Today is Nomo's birthday. So I am going to show a bunch of Nomo cards. My threat was to show all of them, but I don't have the patience for that, and I don't think Blogger does either. So, instead, I am going to show one for every year Nomo has walked the earth, plus another one to commemorate his birth. Cardboard Appreciation is 42 cards strong this time. Happy 41st birthday, Hideo ! 1968 - Hideo

One of the things that I have noticed since my return to the hobby is how often I keep stumbling across cards that are new and different. When I say "new and different," I mean new and different to me . Everyone is coming at this hobby from a different perspective. While I know all about cards from the '70s and early '80s, others know all about cards from the '90s or the insane number of sets during the early 2000s. A lot of bloggers know quite a bit about cards from the late 1980s. They were kids then and that's when they first started collecting cards. I didn't collect a lot of cards in the late 1980s. My collecting was very sporadic, and even when I did collect a bunch, in 1989, it was Topps and only Topps . So there is a lot I don't know from that time period. But I still get curious. For example, my interest in 1989 Donruss had been non-existent. Only several months ago did I find out that there were several other Donruss sets in '89

I've reached a road block in my selection of the worst cards of 2009. The problem is that I must obtain the card before I can feature it as a candidate. Because part of the ridiculousness of these cards is being forced to pull them from the pack. But I haven't pulled this card from a pack yet: Seriously, how can I even go on with the Worst Card Candidates if this card isn't going to be included in them? I can't. Unless a kind reader would send the card to me. Then, I'd be happy to continue with the wild and wacky of 2009. What's that? You want me to continue anyway even without the Young card? No, I couldn't do that. Didn't you just hear ... Oh, all right. Here we go. Contestant #10, Francisco Cordero. But I'm not feeling good about this. OPC photographer: All right Mr. Cordero , if you'll step over here, we'll have this done in a matter of seconds. Cordero : Aren't we going to do this outside? OPC photographer: No. We've got a

I have already mentioned that I am a set collector above all. Player collecting is not something I think I'll ever understand. Team collecting is something that grows more and more interesting by the day, and it may one day supersede set collecting for me. But for now, like it's always been, I am a set-builder. That said, I've never figured out exactly what my five favorite sets are of all-time. I've always known my absolute favorite -- 1975 Topps . But the rest just kind of hovered around in my brain under the general heading of "I LOVE these cards!" It took a card package from reader Randall to pin down my absolute top 5. He sent me card wants from two great sets -- 1993 Upper Deck and 1971 Topps . That caused me to stop and figure out which sets ruled above all. And this is what I came up with -- in no particular order, except that 1975 Topps is the undisputed king: 1956 Topps 1971 Topps 1975 Topps 1983 Topps 1993 Upper Deck That's the