Night Owl Cards

  Starting a Blog Bat-Around these days is kind of like announcing in 1989 that you just bought a vinyl record. Nobody cares, everyone's moved on to compact discs/TikTok.   But records came back, and are dumb expensive, so maybe blogging will, too. Anyway, this is a Blog Bat-Around for the seven of you that blog and care about this topic.   Not Another Baseball Card Blog has already kicked it off . This theme came from a Bluesky discussion and was specifically mentioned by Shlabotnik Report , I think. What are cards you like that feature a team you don't like?   This could get very involved for me. There are a lot of cards I like, often showing teams I root against. And my dislike for teams can spread like a disease covering two-thirds of major league franchises. It all depends on the baseball scene at the time, whether playoffs are involved, etc.   But to keep this manageable, I'll cover four or five teams. And most of the cards I'm showing are coming from ch...

 (Hey, fellow Northeasterners, are you enjoying the special edition two-month long March this year? I hear things are going to turn around in a matter of days. I'll believe it when I feel it, but right now there's a freeze warning. Time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 369th in a series):   There is no end to the cards that I've read about and promptly forgotten due to my brain's attempt to keep the real important stuff in -- and there's only so much room!   Topps Cards That Never Were mentioned this particular card a couple of weeks ago and I was immediately intrigued. It is one of nine 1992 Topps Pre-Production gold cards, cut off a sample sheet that Topps issued ahead of the 1992 set.   Jeremy wrote that this card leaves out the word "manager" on the front of the card and that was enough for me to think: "I need that card."     Here is the regular 1992 Topps gold Lasorda (such a great card) with "manager" mentioned.     It...

I may be an adult who collects trading cards but I don't like my trading cards to remind me I'm an adult.   Here's how:   Most of the cards I value, almost all my favorite sets and all my favorite players, come from three decades -- the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. These are the cards that produce the greatest memories when I look through them in my collection.   But looking for memories after that gets a little dangerous. The 1990s is full of adult concerns, worries and incidents ... and all that angry music. I can say the same for the 2000s, 2010s and 2020s. Best just look at the cards and be done with it, don't start dredging up memories, you're not gonna like it.   So when I looked for cards that interested me in the latest Diamond Jesters' Time Travel Trading post, I instinctively picked cards from the '60s, '70s and '80s. I didn't even realize I was doing it. They were just naturally the ones that appealed to me.   '60s     First up, a 1961...

  Have you heard, or noticed, that the American League as of this writing has just two winning teams?   I'm sure interleague play is to blame for that and it will straighten itself out during the season but it might be time to break out the old "junior circuit" label for the moment. That's a very National League fan thing for me to do.   Seven years ago I wrote a couple of posts about National League and American League MVPs. I wanted to update those posts while the National League and American League are still a thing. Also the Dodgers have won two MVP awards since I last did this.   In 2024      And in 2025   Also, since I last did this, two Braves, a Cardinal and a Phillie have won the NL MVP, so here are the updated NL MVP team standings:   Cardinals 18, Dodgers 14, Giants 13, Reds 12, Cubs 9, Phillies 9, Braves 8, Pirates 7, Brewers 2 (NL Brewers, we'll get to AL Brewers), Astros 1 (NL Astros), Marlins 1, Nationals 1, Padres 1, Rockies 1...