Orange

I am conflicted about the color orange.

Do I like it? Am I annoyed by it?

Orange gets a bad rap. Some people consider it ugly, too bright. But where would October be without orange? Pumpkins, leaves, Chrome refractors. You need orange at least one month out of the year.

Orange food is excellent. Oranges, sweet potatoes, sweet potato fries, sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie, carrot cake, orange sherbet, notice how I gravitate toward desserts. Ever since I was a rug rat, I favored orange-flavored food over any other flavor.

Orange-themed sports teams? There is good and bad. The old-style Tampa Bay Buccaneers' creamsicle (yum!) uniforms need to come back --- now. The Houston Astros caps and unis of the late 1970s are a classic from the decade. Today, the Astros and Baltimore Orioles exhibit excellent use of orange, yet the San Francisco Giants never know what to do with the color and soil it with their very presence.

The Padres tried orange in the 1990s. It didn't work for me. The Padres are gold and brown. Lots and lots of gold and lots and lots of brown. No orange.

Marcus from All The Way To The Backstop addressed this very topic a couple of days ago. I was happy to see that orange is his favorite color. When I think about it, it's actually one of my favorites, too, and no surprise, I'm wearing an orange T-shirt as I write this. (Also, there's the whole matter of an owl and a certain orange-themed restaurant).

Marcus sent me some cards a couple of weeks ago that I'm just now displaying. It included the orange-bordered Carl Crawford card you see now. The border reminds me of an orange popsicle, but I'm old enough to be able to refrain from licking it.

Here is another orange-flavored card from the package. It's from my favorite set, 1975 Topps. I think one of the reasons I like orange is because it was a prominent color in the 1970s, in fashion, in design, in my mother's kitchen. If anyone asks me "orange you glad you grew up in the '70s?" I respond with an enthusiastic "Right On!"

No orange on this card, but yellow was pretty prominent in the '70s, too, just ask Dan Spillner. I acquired these cards, even though I own the full 1975 set, because I'm always seeking upgrades to all my '75 cards. These looked like worthy specimens. Unfortunately, neither surpassed the quality of the Hardy and Spillner I already own, so I have a pair of dynamite dupes to lay on any '75-collecting cat.

Marcus had a few Dodger Konerkos to send my way, just as I was saying goodbye to Konerko with an abundance of cards with him in an L.A. uniform.

These two were both needs because ---- weeeeeeeeeeeeee! 1990s parallels!!!!!!!!

Speaking of parallels, these are all modern-day parallels, right down to the card back parallel on Puig.

I suppose the yellow-bordered and orange-bordered parallels in 2014 Topps are going for insane prices at your friendly online card outlet because both of those appeared in hanger boxes only (I think) and you can't find a hanger box anywhere around me anymore.

(P.S.: Someone is welcome to send me the base version of that Uribe card. What a fine photo).

I am hoping, for Pat Stover's sake, that he makes the majors, if only to bury the memory of this card.

Hanley Ramirez posted on Twitter yesterday something about his "spirit animal". This is proof that I don't understand modern day athletes.

Anyway, his "spirit animal" apparently is a tiger. And tigers are known to be orange!

The baseball Tigers, however, are out of the playoffs. And I'm currently rooting against the two teams left that feature orange as a team color.

Like I said, I'm conflicted about orange.