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...

  There are a lot of baseball card poses that were common on cards when I was collecting as a youngster that have mostly disappeared from cardboard.   One of them is the pitcher's "hands-over-head" wind-up pose. This pose used to appear on dozens of cards every year but it's been a long time since I've seen it in a current set. Maybe a one-off here and there.   Pitchers mostly have scrapped the long, drawn-out wind-up and did so beginning with the 1970s, or so I'm told. But I just reviewed a small sampling of game footage from the 1970s and here are the pitchers that were using that wind-up in the videos I watched:   Bruce Kison, Jerry Garvin, Steve Baker, Vida Blue, Jerry Koosman, Rudy May, Andy Hassler, Bob Knepper, Don Sutton, Dickie Noles, Jim Bibby, Eddie Solomon, Jim Rooker, Mike Cuellar, Don Robinson.   Here are the ones who weren't:   J.R. Richard, Jim Merritt, Steve Rogers.   So it was still prevalent in the 1970s.   Today it's still used...

  Ever since the local monthly show (and many other shows throughout the country) has become overrun with TCG cards I've debated skipping or at least not automatically attending every month. It's become less and less productive over the past 9 months to a year.   But like they say in the majors, "that's why you play the game." I was pretty surprised when I walked into the usual hall Saturday.   First, it was packed. I normally attend closer to 1 p.m. when typically the crowd has thinned out. But I could tell driving into the parking lot that there were still many people there. Second, the show was overwhelmingly sports cards. Any Pokemon, Magic, etc. seemed limited to a handful of tables. I don't know what caused the sudden shift back to sports cards but I was glad I got up off my recliner.   The change affected my mood more than my shopping. The tables were still overrun with graded football and basketball and I'm sure I heard "PSA" uttered 25-5...

   One thing that has become very clear to me over the last year is that my way of collecting cards -- the way that was the established primary way of collecting for as long as I've been alive -- is being phased out.   There are a variety of reasons -- and forces at work -- for this. I am reminded of one of them every time I attend the monthly card show.   In the past year, the show has moved from primarily sports cards to primarily RPG/TCG cards. I have less than zero interest in these. When I paid my entrance fee at the table, the guy there asked if I wanted to enter the raffle and gestured toward a gift basket filled with TCG stuff -- don't ask me what it was, I couldn't tell you. I gave the guy a flat "no" that sounded like "of course not."   But I'd say more than half of the tables was Pokemon, Magic and whatever else there is in that fantasy realm. Just about the rest was graded football and basketball of mostly modern cards. But I've writt...

  Just a short post today. Fridays are always busy and it doesn't help that MLB starts the World Series on a Friday now. We sat through three off days so we could get to a day when I absolutely cannot watch. The current configuration means that I will get to see exactly one game live even if it goes a full 7 games. Also no World Series game on a Sunday is appalling. Makes me want to write a strongly worded letter to the commissioner.   So there's not nearly enough time to relay my complicated thoughts about my Dodgers going for a second straight World Series title for the first time in my life as a baseball fan. It's already a weird space to be in, having to constantly bat away "anyone-but-the-Dodgers" spewing on the usual sites. (I spent part of the morning deleting any youtube video suggestion that has to do with "the Dodgers are ruining baseball". Why would these be in my suggestions?)   The Dodgers can do something in the 2025 World Series that has b...

  I don't know how many more times I'm going to visit my local monthly card show. I can feel my interest waning.   I skipped last month's show, mostly because there was a bigger, better show the next day. But another reason is the content of the local show is just not interesting to me. I've already mentioned how it's now dominated by RPG cards (Pokemon, etc.) and graded slabs of mostly modern football/basketball, but today it was particularly dire.   There was one table that I found dedicated to sports cards as I knew them as recently as 25 years ago. Just, plain, good, ol', unslabbed cards from the '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s. It was the usual table I visit. But often there are some other smaller tables with the same stuff, or dollar boxes I can sift through.   But not today. My dealer friend, of course, was not there, having passed last month . The other guy I know who used to work in my office hasn't been there for at least a couple shows....