Night Owl Cards

  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 ...

  When I completed the 1969 Topps set eight months ago , I was certain that I was finished with trying to build vintage sets. I had been through my share and I wasn't getting any younger and it wasn't getting any easier.   That's still where I'm at -- not going to take on any other set big projects, nope, not doing it, not never, not never again.   Still ...   If I was to build a vintage set again, there is one that makes the most sense -- 1968 Topps is right there.   Now, before you get all "but the Nolan Ryan rookie" on me, here is why this set makes sense to build:   -- It's the next set in the line of complete Topps sets in my collection. You can go in either direction for that. The next set on the front end is 1993 Topps, which is far easier but also holds zero interest for me. 1994 is more interesting but not enough to leap over another year. So, the back end is 1968 and finishing that would wrap up 25 complete sets in a row for me.   -- It woul...