Night Owl Cards

  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...

  It hit 90 degrees today. I'm not someone who is bothered by the heat, but once it's 90 I take notice. It's not super rare around here -- I'd say we're in the 90s about 5 times a year -- but I was still tempted to stay inside.   Fortunately I didn't.   I was in a yank to get to the monthly card show. I've been frustrated lately by the lagging arrival of my online card purchases the last couple of weeks. I don't know if this is a traditional July thing (sellers and postal workers on vacation), but shipments are not appearing on the days I was told. Also, I have received back-to-back postage-due slips on orders, which seems a little outrageous.   So it was one of those times where I thought "I can't get anyone to send me my cards, I'm going to go get them myself ." Crank the AC, I'm coming for you, show!   I had no expectations for this show. With just five 1969 Topps cards needed, and none of them available the last time I visited, ...

  I had viewed enough 2024 Archives pack openings to know I needed to open some myself. Not that I liked the cards -- Archives and I have never seen eye-to-eye -- but I wanted to see the content for myself so I could comment on it on my own blog instead leaving irked comments all over everyone else's pack breaks. Also, there was one aspect of 2024 Archives that folks kept bringing up, but actually there is nothing wrong with that aspect ... well, in the general Archives realm anyway. But I'll get to that. First let's open those three packs. (By the way, these came from Walmart on Thursday -- a place that has barely offered cards for the last couple of years, but in a constant give-and-take with the Target across the street, Target is now devoid of cards. It's odd how neither can be decently stocked at the same time).   PACK 1   I have been opening Archives since its current version began in 2012, I know what to expect -- three past designs, totally unrelated. This year...