Night Owl Cards

  As much as I've complained about the pokemonification of card shows the last couple of years, when they are right, they are very right. Nothing else can compare, certainly not the online options that I rely on way too frequently.   This past Saturday's monthly show was quite right and I think not be able to get to it last month is only part of the reason I enjoyed it so much.   I know I've gone through the plusses for card shows before but I'm doing it again because it was very apparent this time.       1. OFF-CONDITION VINTAGE   Can you get off-condition vintage online? I don't know. Maybe. All I know is that I've stopped trying because it either stopped being available or the prices got mind-numbingly stupid.   But at a show that's not the case. I go to one table all the time and great vintage cards are waiting for me every time. This is what I picked up this time. The Ron Fairly I thought was an upgrade in my team set but it's not so now it'l...

  Since I don't prioritize autographs in my collection, I don't have a lot of them that aren't Dodgers.   The ones I do have sit in the back of my autograph binder, filled with 99 percent Dodger scribbles. There are a handful of Bills and Sabres scribbles, too.   But those autographs have meaning, too, and every once in awhile I will come across one that I need to include in my collection.   One of those times happened yesterday. I went to the monthly card show -- I'll have a post all about it tomorrow. The last card I picked up there was an autograph card. I saw it at the first table I was at -- and I told myself that if I still had money left and the card was still there -- I'd add it on my way out the door.   And that's what I did.   I had to -- it's The Mad Hungarian! This is one of the exceptions. Al Hrabosky is from my early days as a fan. I remember seeing him when the Cardinals played the Mets in the mid-to-late 1970s. Hrabosky, as you may know or h...

   As you know, I completed the 1956 Topps set five years ago. It happened in April. Wonderful day.   Two months later, I bought a car. Not much to connect the two events at the time, except I had some extra cash floating around that allowed me to do both things.   But on Thursday -- five years later -- the end of a long, winding journey arrived for both. Here's how:   Yesterday afternoon, finally, FINALLY, I picked up that same vehicle from the body shop. This is the one that was attacked by ice three months ago, rendering it undriveable. Through a combination of factors -- overloaded and understaffed body shops, the backwoods in which I live, way more damage than originally anticipated, incredible wait times for shipment of parts -- I was without that vehicle for three months and six days.   Because of various other issues, some of which I mentioned earlier, the only traveling I did for a month was to and from work and to and from the grocery store down t...

   Every once in awhile I like to re-evaluate my favorite players as a Dodgers fan. In my now 50 years of rooting for them, my choices aren't going to change a lot. But they do change.   Nine years ago I wrote a post titled " My favorite Opening Day lineup ". It corresponded with Opening Day and I arranged my favorite Dodger at each position in a lineup. This was only for Dodgers that I've witnessed as a fan, so as much as I like Campy, Pee Wee, Robinson and Koufax, they're not included.   For those of you who don't want to click the link, this is what the lineup looked like then:   2b - Dave Lopes ss - Corey Seager rf - Reggie Smith 1b - Steve Garvey lf - Pedro Guerrero cf - Matt Kemp 3b - Ron Cey c - Mike Scioscia p - Clayton Kershaw   Nine years later there are a few changes -- and the lineup has a designated hitter now. I'm still not thrilled with an across-the-board DH but we're long past arguing about it and I can't complain too much as my cu...

(I admit I've never been a major Rush fan, though "Moving Pictures" was the theme music -- thanks to a boom box in the back -- to my bus rides home from school. But I've been kind of obsessed with news of the reunion tour. I heard last night's show was pretty cool. Anyway, time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 370th in a series):   I received this Tom Seaver variation card from 1985 Donruss in a TCDB trade the other day. I usually don't chase error cards for '80s sets that I'm building. It depends -- it's kind of a case-by-case basis. But picturing a completely different player is a pretty big error. I couldn't say no. That is Floyd Bannister on Tom Seaver's card.   I already owned the corrected version of the card:    That's a major flub actually. Tom Seaver is a huge name and had been in the limelight for nearly 20 years at this point. I can hear Topps chortling over four-year-old Donruss making such a goof. Or maybe it grumble...

   The Dodgers are playing the Angels this weekend in another "Freeway Series"/interleague clash. This doesn't mean a whole lot to me. I've lived on the east coast my whole life, and was a baseball fan for more than 20 years before interleague play started.   But the Angels have popped up a couple of times recently in my fan and hobby pursuits. I've been struggling for blog topics lately. It's not just lack of time that's caused me to slow down here -- inspiration's been elusive when life is one demoralizing incident after another.   Then I received a quick envelope in the mail the other day from Batting Out of Order . Tom was clearing out some duplicates of the Angels, his favorite team, and sent a few from the 2005 Topps Update set.     That's fun. Remember when the Angels were good enough to beat the Yankees in the playoffs?   I haven't done much with my 2005 Topps set needs the last year or so. I'm only 29 cards away from finishing the ...