Night Owl Cards

   This is the 6,000th post on Night Owl Cards. That really feels weird to type.   That is such a big number that I could barely find a corresponding baseball statistic to go along with it, which is what I like to do when I reach a round-number milestone on this blog.   I did find one -- career total bases. Just four players in major league history have reached 6,000 career total bases. Hank Aaron is the king of total bases with 6,856.   The others are Albert Pujols, Stan Musial and Willie Mays, in that order.   I couldn't find much more to say about that, so I dug out a favorite card of each player in my collection to go with the respective player's total base total.     1. HANK AARON, 6856 total bases   Naturally, I pulled out my 1956 copy. This is one of the '56 cards landed during the summer of 2020 that kind of let me know I could actually finish this thing.     2. ALBERT PUJOLS, 6211 total bases   This card amuses me beca...

  Yay, you're seeing another one of these!   As you've no doubt have read already, Chris of The Collector sent out some generous giveaway packages to celebrate a couple of milestones in his collecting life -- 40 years of collecting and 10 years of blogging. Today is the exact day he started his current blog. The baseball card blogging world is more interesting for it.   As you know, I love milestones, in fact I have one coming up with the next post (it was a little tricky coordinating programming). When I look back, my 10th year of blogging arrived in 2018 and I hit 40 years of collecting in 2015.   The Collector said he's stepping away from collecting at the end of his anniversary year but I believe he'll still be writing on his blog, which is great news as I enjoyed some of his researched-themed series, particularly the All-Time Teams one.   But this is not about the future or the past, it's about round numbers and goodies!   I have 10 separate images ...

   Yesterday, Shohei Ohtani hit his 30th home run of the season, and became the seventh Dodger to hit 30 home runs in three straight seasons.   There was some online fanfare for the feat, but it's more muted these days for Ohtani, not like his first few years in the league when Ohtani hysteria was high and I almost had to cover my ears with all the yelling.   Ohtani has been in the majors for nearly 10 years now and that'll happen. He's not the new thing anymore, even while he continues to do new things. But I think along with that, ever since he came to the Dodgers, people are more reluctant to sing his praises. There may be more Ohtani fans than ever, but there are an awful lot of brain-dead gambling jokes from Barstool acolytes and grumbling about deferred money to go along with it. I seem to read about that more on social media than any cool thing Ohtani has done.   It causes me to wonder where all the Ohtani fans went -- I'm still seeing his cards sell for ...

  I could cite several factors that led to my beginnings as a card collector.   - In the summer of 1974, I was playing baseball in the backyard with my brother and a couple of boys in the neighborhood. We played with a tennis ball because regular baseballs broke windows and dented siding (or so we were told). It's possible we were playing ball the previous summer but I'm not sure.   - I was a reader. Loved books and magazines and those Peanuts comic books you could get on loan from the library. I liked stories. I don't recall reading specifically about baseball at that time, I think that came later.   - The 1974 Topps design is ideal for a young collector for focusing on the individual photos. It's not loud like 1972 or 1975. It's not dull like 1970 or 1973. It has fun flags and cartoons on the back.   But those are secondary reasons. The main reason I became a card collector is because of two people.   My mom and Tommy John are where it all started.  ...

  As you know I have another online life aside from the blog world. I've been on "social media" as far as the hobby since 2010, first on Twitter and then in the last couple years on BlueSky.   Social media is weird no matter where you are but I like my online friends I've found over there and it's nice to have a place to show cards that doesn't take an hour of dedicated writing.   Still, it's a weird place. When I moved to BlueSky I tried to carve out the niche I had created on Twitter with more than 4,000 followers. I was figuring out the lay of the land. BlueSky is not Twitter -- and thank goodness for that -- but it's not exactly the hobby hub that the old Twitter was.   In an effort to have something to say -- because, brother, I don't care about most of the stuff that is discussed that isn't cards -- I posted a "late night card of the day" from my collection. Just a random card, uploaded after midnight. I have a lot of cards -- w...

  I don't spend a lot of time checking how many cards I have of each player but it's fun to do from time to time.   As someone who collects sets first and then my team, player collection totals are a natural subset of those and easy to categorize on TCDB or on whichever favorite counting spreadsheet you prefer. Also, unlike set or team collecting, the totals change fairly often.   When Johnny's Trading Spot sends out one of his "inventory cleanser" packages, I can't help but notice those player totals because the guys he's scrapping stand out.   Alex Verdugos   Up to 87 cards. 153rd on the list.     Dalton Rushings   43 cards. 471st on the list.     Tony Gonsolins   75 cards. 189th on the list.     Walker Buehlers (still haven't come to terms with his Padre-ness)   287 cards. 20th on the list.     Duke Sniders   318 cards. 16th on the list.      Shawn Green and (tiny) Fernando Valenzuela...