Night Owl Cards

I have no time for Halloween this year. I have a sick kid. I have a super, mega-intense night of work ahead of me, and World Series Game 3 is approaching. Can't we postpone Halloween a few days? Somehow, I do have time to post. And just as oddly, it's a trade post. I've been falling behind again on these. To illustrate, the cards that I'm showing arrived more than a week ago. They're from Dan of It's Like Having My Own Card Shop and Duane of Democratic Roadkill . Both arrived at my door on the same day, and it was quite a day because both of them knocked down some set needs. In fact, they hit four of my set wants in all, and I'm very close to completing all of those sets now. So that was a very big day. Whatever day that was. Wednesday, I think. Maybe Thursday. Anyway, it was big. First the cards from Dan. He noticed I was still foolish enough to want '08 Stadium Club cards and sent me some. I now need just 14 more of the diabolical divisible-by-three

I've mentioned before that I don't care for the 1987 Topps set that much. I seem to be in the minority because a lot of folks kicked off their hobby careers with this set, so it naturally means a great deal to them. But the 1987 Topps set, for me, is the only '80s Topps flagship set that does not have its own binder. It's also one of only three '80s Topps sets that I have not completed (the '81 set is about 10 cards short. The '82 set has some work to do, but I'm far enough into it that I may complete it one day). It just doesn't interest me enough to make the effort. The look of the set is just meh . I know the Captain is with me on this. But the other reason is I was at a weird time in my life with baseball in 1987. Collecting was only a sporadic thing. I was in college and it just wasn't something to do. College is all about -- well, you know what college is all about. I was doing that. Also, my baseball world was turning upside down. Th

Last year I went through all of the World Series champions of the last 20 seasons and listed the players that were traded away in the year prior to that team winning the World Series. I always felt sympathy for those players. They were on a team bound for a World Series championship but never joined the celebration because they were deemed disposable at some point along the championship run. For the most part, these players are fringe guys -- backups, relief pitchers. But there are some prominent examples: Pedro Guerrero traded by the 19 88 Do d gers; Nomar Garciaparra, traded by t he 2004 Red Sox; and Carlos Lee, traded by the 20 05 White Sox. I'll list those unfortunate souls from 1988 to 2008 again. (If you want a little more -- but not much more -- detail, it's on this post ): 1988 Dodgers: Pedro Guerrero 198 9 A's: Greg Cadaret, Eric Plunk, Luis Polonia 1990 Reds: John Franco, Ron Robinson 1991 Twins: none 1992 Blue Jays: Jef f Ken t, Rob Ducey, Greg Myers 1993 Blue

I am almost certain that the Yankees are going to win the World Series. I've been certain for quite awhile. During this postseason, I have always rooted for the other team, and felt real disgust when they didn't succeed, or -- like the Angels -- make dumb mistake after dumb mistake. But I always knew that the Yankees would prevail. I'm not the greatest evaluator of talent, but I can see what the Yankees have and how they are playing. I don't think the Phillies have a real shot of winning the Series. It could go six games. But I don't see a seven-game series or a Phillies win. Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE a Phillies win and I would love to be wrong, but my gut says it ain't gonna happen. Given that, what I'm saying here shouldn't annoy any Yankees fans, too much. Your team is going to win the World Series, so who cares about what some blogger thinks? It's well-established that I do not like the Yankees. I come from a family of Yankee