Night Owl Cards

    I'm long overdue in showing off the latest card bombing from Johnny's Trading Spot . Per usual, he's been updating his collection alphabetically and finding the guys no longer of interest to him and using me, and others, as the circular file.   Judging by what I received, he's recently gone through the P's and Q's ... well, there were no Q's, but that's how we get to the R's and S's (essess), which were also in the box.   I should have shown these earlier because my pattern is to post them to the blog before I file them away. But I just completed a big Dodgers binder sort (there's about two of those a year), so now these are going to have to wait until the fall to get added.   Oh well, something for everyone to look forward to -- the cards, me, and you, the reader, who just loves to read "here's more stuff I got" posts!! You know you do!   To keep this manageable, I'm just showing off 12 key cards for the collection, tho...

  I posted this card on my 1993 Upper Deck blog yesterday . If you're in the habit of reading that blog maybe you missed it as blogger just got around to getting it on the reader list nearly a day after I uploaded it.   When I wrote it, I noted that the shot of Navarro yelling was a precursor to the cards of today, in which it seems there's a guy shouting in every pack. And just to be sure, I checked the 1993 UD cards I've already posted and at card No. 237, it's the first yelling shot in the set.   I didn't check the rest of the set but I'd be surprised if there are more than five cards of guys shouting in the set. It's definitely a more modern thing.   As someone who grew up in the '70s and also someone who recoils at the thought of drawing attention to myself, the performative yelling that pro athletes do is still foreign and unnecessary to me. I'm a quiet guy, mostly, who doesn't mind sitting by myself in the quiet -- in fact, I prefer it. I ...

  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...