Night Owl Cards

  I used to get writer's block when I was a young sportswriter. This was maybe 30 years ago, every once in awhile I would struggle with how to start a story, whether it was after coming back from a game or beginning a feature. It was the worst. I'd stare, get up and walk around the office, type out a few sentences and then delete them. And I was on deadline a lot of those times, too, so the stakes were a little high. That doesn't happen to me anymore. Hasn't for years. Just yesterday, I had to pound out a feature story the afternoon before I went to work -- I had just done interviews the day before. So within 24 hours, I did the interview, transcribed the notes and wrote the story, this while doing my other job -- and life -- duties, too. I had zero trouble coming up with a lead, I knew how I was going to start as I was driving away after the interview. The story just flowed the next afternoon. And that night, looking it over, I caught just one typo (although there'

  Earlier this year, I wrote a post about some clippings I found in our newspaper morgue that pertained to baseball cards.   I featured only one of the clips because it came with half-tones of two old baseball cards, the 1975 Topps Bert Blyleven and the 1976 Topps Pete Rose.   But the envelope was filled with other clippings related to baseball cards. So I pulled a few of them that I thought were interesting to show here.   The most interesting one to me is from 1970 (that's why there's a 1970 card here).   You can see this is from the New York Times and I was greatly amused by this because it reads like the new-fangled thing that kids like to do is -- gasp -- collect full sets!!! "A Willie Mays is no more valuable than say, an Ed Spiezio to these kids." I guess this article is talking about me! I'm the "new sophistication"! But it's certainly not talking about most of the collectors I come across today or probably for the past 35 years or more. I a

  So, I went right for the 2024 Topps binder at dealer Tom's table at the card show and prepared to pull the final cards I needed for the set. I was under a dozen in wants, this should be easy. Sure, I didn't expect the Elly De La Cruz card to be in there, probably long-ago pulled by some rookie mojo dude who paid extra for the early-bird entry and doesn't remember when the hobby wasn't "exclusive." But I hoped to find the others and then maybe the De La Cruz somewhere else at the show. I ended up pulling all but five of the cards I needed. Fortunately, I had received some 2024 cards from Tony of Uncle Charlie's Shoebox not long before the show that whittled down my wants.   All of these were much-appreciated. I did get the Stone Garrett in a TCDB trade around the same time. The 2024 flagship was flying fast and furious for a period there.   Tony even found a couple of Dodgers I needed. Super-cool! But getting back to the show. After failing to find the D

  I went to the big card show at the state fairgrounds for the first time in almost a year yesterday.   Since I had completed 1970 Topps about a month ago, I didn't have a specific major quest for this show. But I knew there would be a lot available so I made some vague goals:   1. Finish the 2024 Topps flagship set 2. Focus on the Fleer Laughlin World Series cards 3. Upgrade a handful of 1970 Topps cards 4. Find some 9-pocket pages and maybe a binder 5. Find some more oddballs   Here is the progress report after going to the show:   1. Finish the 2024 Topps flagship set ✓ 2. Focus on the Fleer Laughlin World Series cards 3. Upgrade a handful of 1970 Topps cards 4. Find some 9-pocket pages and maybe a binder ✓ 5. Find some more oddballs   Pretty happy with that, although that's just 40 percent success. The only reason I put down pages/binder as a goal is because I knew I didn't have any real expensive goals and maybe I could fit that in. But of course I like too many card

    A couple of weeks ago I drove to the hardware store down the street for some painting supplies. This hardware store is not a chain, it's one of those corner store local places, the kind that my dad took me to as a kid on one of his many home or car improvement projects that bored the urge to do the same right out of me. (When I was a teenager, there was this particularly dark hardware store near the shopping district with a grumpy elderly woman as the owner. I've forgotten her name but every teen boy knew it because she was always glowering in the shadows just waiting so she could accuse us of stealing nails because that's what teenage boys want).   I still have no desire to do things that require a trip to the hardware store, and am still somewhat intimidated when walking into this one, but this was easy -- just a paint roller and a couple rollers and I'd be on my way.   I approached the counter, which is high up and contains all kinds of doo-dad, impulse items of

  I completed the 2024 Heritage set a week ago Tuesday. It is amazing to me that I finished the set that quickly. I was showing off my hobby box of Heritage back in mid-April. They were the first of the set's cards I had acquired, and four months and a couple weeks later I had the set done.   That was even faster than the six-plus months that it took me to complete 2023 Heritage last year. Is this the same guy who took more than a decade to finish 2008 Heritage?   It took me so long to finish '08 Heritage that I was convinced that it would take that long to complete any Heritage set and therefore I had sworn off trying to complete Heritage until I hit the glory years -- which is the mid-1970s for me.   I knew I wouldn't be able to help myself when that time came, and now here it is, and apparently I'm a maniac. It really was not that difficult. Sure, I had to pace myself and make sure I had cash set aside for the 20 bucks per week I'd spend on short-prints, and I co