Night Owl Cards

I am confident enough in my collecting personality to know that I will never be this kind of collector. There is nothing wrong with that kind of collecting -- I'll always defend the "collect how you wanna collect" philosophy. I just can't bring cards into my collection that have been intentionally defaced, whether through cigarette burn holes, or an attempt to give a card more than four corners, or good, old fashioned doodling. Cards that have been altered through normal effects of time and handling -- scuffing, creases, paper loss, rounded corners -- are a different matter, especially for older cards. I'll take those every time. They are cards with character that have been allowed to age gracefully. But defacing is usually a no-no to my sensitive sensibilities. Or so I thought. While reading through this  Dime Box post from yesterday , I came across a comment from beefman, who runs Baseball Cards in Oz . He said that he bought a 1989 Bowman Dodgers te...

(Welcome to part 2 of The Most Defective Sets That I Know. Read, reflect, be grateful that you're not as defective as these sets are. Or at least I hope you're not). 5. TMDSIK: 1989 BOWMAN I have a box of 1989 Bowman. In the original box issued that year. I bought it at a department store for super cheap. The return of Bowman was a big deal in 1989, which is probably why it was such a disappointment. We expected so much more. But the look is only part of the problem. The problem is THAT  look on THAT card size. 1989 Bowman is too ugly to be featured that large. I was so frustrated when I found out that '89 Bowman wasn't 2 1/2-by-3 1/2 that I have left most of the cards from that set in the very box that I purchased. The vast majority of my completed sets are in binders. But I didn't bother with '89 Bowman. In fact, I cared so little for it, that I broke up the set. I have only about half of it now and I'd have even less of it if I could find...

Have you ever woken up in the morning already equipped with the knowledge of how the day was going to go? Stuck in a rut, you know the ritual. It is a day like every other. Breakfast is the same. Seeing the kids off to school is the same. Kissing the spouse is the same. When you arrive at the office, it's the same. Same emails. Same co-workers. Same stories. Same stupid projects. Same stupid meetings. As the day wears on, it doesn't get any different. Same old lunch. Same workplace jokes. Same workplace arguments. Same after-work trip to the bar/grocery store/workout place/kid's sporting event. As evening arrives, it's the same. Same dinner. Same "how was your day?" Same route walking the dog. Same prime time laugh track. Finally, you turn in for the night. Same trip upstairs. Same bathroom ritual. Same toothpaste. Same wash cloth. Same book to read in bed. Same day. Just like the day before. Yeah, you're stuck in a rut. But ...

(The United States is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation or holidays. Facts like this just happen to pop into my brain when I'm entering my third straight 12-hour day of work. So, I'm appreciating the free moment I have right now, between work and sleep. This is Cardboard Appreciation. It's the 105th in a series): I have mentioned many times that Russell Martin can not take a bad baseball card. He's been featured on numerous great ones and very few duds. I'm not the only one who has noticed it. A number of bloggers have said the same thing. But here's the thing about Martin: Almost anyone can look good on a card set like Masterpieces or Stadium Club. It's not even all that difficult in this year's 2011 Topps, which is a well-executed set. And now that Martin's a traitor -- good luck appearing on another tremendous card while wearing those hideous pinstripes, Russell -- I need to find the real master ...

This is what is known as "lowering your expectations." It's a tried and true Night Owl tactic. I have been quite good at this since I was a youngster. This weekend I am supposed to pick up another box of cards purchased for me at a flea market by my brother-in-law. I'm told it's a big box. I don't know what is in it other than that there are baseball cards and non-baseball cards (that's narrowing it down, huh?). There are no football cards because my brother-in-law removed them for himself. He is a football fan, yet he knows nothing about cards and is under the assumption, as all non-card collectors are, that every card ever made will make them rich. But I am just as guilty as hopeful anticipation as he is. I can't wait to see what's in the box. Perhaps there is one fool out there who has no idea of the value of 1951 Bowman cards and threw them in a box for public review, and my brother-in-law just happened to be the first one to walk by, a...

Not a lot of love for 1989 Bowman is there? First of all, it's pretty damn dull. Secondly, it's too big to store in standard pages. Thirdly, it's pretty damn dull. ... Oh, did I mention that already? Sorry. It's just that it's dull. Also, 1989 Bowman -- ressurrected by Topps after an absence of more than 40 years -- seems quaint compared to what we know of Bowman today. Bowman is now synonymous with rookie card madness and is basically crack for Strasburg searchers. So, that gives the '89 Bowman set a little bit of charm, at least for me. But only a little. The other thing that draws my attention to the set are the backs: Bowman went with backs that were constructed in a way that I had never seen in 15 years of collecting to that point. Instead of the standard year-by-year statistics, Bowman presented the statistics in terms of how a player performed against each team. At first glance, this was confusing. But once you knew what you were looking at, i...

A few notes before I launch into the previously threatened  countdown of what I believe are the worst 1980s baseball card sets. First, 1987 Topps is very lucky. It just missed the cut. I went back-and-forth over including it in the bottom 10. I don't like it much . Not only was it overproduced but it is vastly overrated. But in the end, I decided it had just a little too much character to deserve perpetual mockery on my little list. Secondly, this list is based solely on the look of the set. I don't care how many quality rookies are in the set. I don't care how much it is worth. I don't care if it was mass produced or difficult to obtain. I am basing everything on looks. It's one of the few times I won't get in trouble for admitting that. Thirdly, I know that Dinged Corners did something similar to this last summer. But DC simply threw it up for the readers to decide. I welcome comments, but I'm doing the deciding. Also, DC focused solely on Topps. I...

Glenn Hubbard's facial expression sums up the day ahead for me. It's a day/night filled with Responsibility at my job. And I'm bracing for the grim tasks on the horizon. But I'm not going to get into it. I'll just say it involves talking to people who were put on this earth to haunt others, and doing things that I loathe. As an added bonus, the work day will be exceedingly long. And when I get home, I won't be satisfied with a job well done, because I will be too exhausted to think. So, there's no time for a proper post for the next 15 hours or so. But I do have a moment or two to avoid Responsibility. So here are some random cards and my thoughts on them: I don't have a lot of special cards that aren't Dodgers. But I have decided that when I come across the few that I do, I will offer them up in exchange for something that I am collecting. A black-bordered mini Granderson card from 2008 A&G may not be that exciting. But I know there are Grand...