Night Owl Cards

This is my seventh straight day of work. The dog's sick, too. So I'm pretty exhausted. But I have just enough energy to name some set designs. I haven't done much of this lately, other than name 2015 Topps the sonar set, and I feel like being pretty random. So let's start randomly with 2002. 2002 Topps could be all about the ribbons, but it's not because of the remarkably off-putting gold color on every card. The border color is the overwhelming "star" of this set. I could be mean and call it the "vomit set," since it's probably what an entire binder of this set looks like -- like someone puked all over the binder. But let's have a bit of decorum. To me, this set reminds me of one thing: Brown mustard. I love mustard. And now I like 2002 Topps a little bit better. I'm calling 2002 Topps the "brown mustard set." If Gulden's or French's or Gray Poupon want to sponsor Define the Design then I...

So, I was talking to Clayton Kershaw the other day. I was telling him how I had signed up with the Wax Heaven directory as the designated Clayton Kershaw collector. Any Kershaw card that Mario pulled would go to me. "Great," Kershaw said. "How's that turning out?" Well, I said, it's nice and all, very generous of Mario, but it's getting off to a rough start. Clayton gave me the eye. "How's that?" he said. Well, the first card I received in the mail was damaged, I said. It was a relic and it came out of the envelope with a crease. "That sucks!" Clayton said. Yeah, it does, but I've written about that already . It was kind of my fault. I sent down a plain, white envelope as the return envelope, and you really shouldn't do that with cards. The post office apparently makes paper airplanes out of those things. "But things are better now, right?" Clayton said. Um, not really, I said. What's great ...

Greetings, from Jacob ... er, Progressive Field in Cleveland! (I can never keep the names of corporately sponsored stadiums straight). Actually, I wasn't in Cleveland. In fact, I've only driven through Cleveland. I've never stopped at the stadium. I just know that it's nice, from what I hear. And these are some nice night game photos provided by Baseball Dad (a.k.a. Jack) of All Tribe Baseball . He took his camera to the ballgame against the Tigers last week and was thoughtful enough to think of me and email some night shots! Great photos. You really have the feeling of being at the park with these pictures. I tried to make one of them into a 1978 Topps baseball card with my fledgling MS Paint skills. But the most basic issues throw me for a loop, so I scrapped that plan until I can figure it out. I will settle for showing you some of the photos he sent. My favorite might be the scoreboard shot up top. But here's another scoreboard shot with the infield a...

Cards arrived from both Andy of 78 Topps and David of Tribe Cards on Friday. I'm grateful for all of the cards they sent, because honestly I didn't deserve any of them. Andy's cards came in response to me sending him that sweet Mattingly '93 Upper Deck hologram card. I had promised him something Mattingly-related a few weeks back as part of his contest winnings, and he insisted on sending me some Dodgers in return. David's cards came after I was the only one to wager a guess on the packaging that came with his cards from Treasure Never Buried. Only my guess wasn't a guess. It was an admission of cluelessness. And for that, I received the above David Justice bat relic card -- quite nice -- and some even nicer cards to be featured in a minute. Some wonderful stuff, indeed, from some very nice folks. I'm throwing the highlights of both Andy's and David's cards together. I hope that's OK. And again, the cluelessness card factor is high here. But I ...

Maybe this doesn't happen to everyone, but it did to me. At some point in my life, probably during my adolescence, I arrived at a vision for what my life would be like as an adult. I would have a house and a car, a wife and children, a dog and a decent job. I loved sports at the time, and I figured I'd still enjoy them as an adult, but maybe not quite as much. When I was old enough, I'd find more mature pursuits. I'd golf, or sail, or carve wooden ducks or whatever greeting card companies are always depicting as Mr. Dad-ly pursuits on their Father's Day cards. My vision came true, for the most part. I have a beautiful and sweet wife and a nice home and a decent job. I'm an adult. Have been for awhile. I'm old enough to have a daughter who is old enough that when she's in the living room and the TV's on, I cringe when the endless Viagra and Cialis commercials pop up between innings of a baseball game. But that's the thing. I'm not watching go...