Night Owl Cards

I was supposed to take at least two days off from this blog so I could travel in order to enjoy some more holiday merriment. However, I live in lake-effect snow country, which, every year means: "here comes a storm that we didn't know about even 12 hours ago and it's going to dump 3 inches to 3 feet on you depending on your 'locale' and, oh, by the way, if you're driving, you're F'd!" This is the message that travels across the bottom of your TV screen in lake-effect land, except they don't use "F'd," they use the actual word. ... or maybe that's just the vibe I get. So, we had to cut our merriment in half and I have returned safely to the home nest, and, lucky you, you get an extra blog post out of this affair -- I'm going to tell you how I got scammed over my Christmas vacation. Well, actually, my sister-in-law got scammed, but there's no way I'm telling her that. My sister-in-law bought a bunch of cards...

So I've been doing this blogging thing for probably too long. Way back at the beginning, I made a trade with a collector in England. I couldn't get over how cool that was -- that someone, first of all, collected baseball cards in Europe, and second, that you could swap cards with someone who was that far away. Well, it's been years since that first transaction with Jack Plumstead and there have been several others since . And the thrill is no less diminished. In fact, since it's been a little while since John and I last exchanged cards, this latest deal may have been as exciting as the first. It strikes you right when you see the outside of the package, which is like no other package outer-covering that comes to my home. The words "documents enclosed," from a package mailed within the United States would either freak me out or send me into a state of depression. But not with something overseas. Overseas, "documents" means cards! Of course, ...

It's been almost nothing but vintage on this blog since the first of the year, so I thought I'd change it up a little bit with the very latest and greatest. Yup, the 2013 Phungo Cards have hit the streets, and you're seeing them here first. It's the only chance I get to have a card exclusive (stupid Beckett), so humor me on this one. The best thing about Phungo Cards, outside of annually beating the pants off of Topps as the first cards of the year, is that the packs contain a nice mix of original Phungos and cards from other card companies. It's all a big happy family in those packs. No arguments about exclusive licenses or copyright infringements. Just a nice orgy of cards. So, let's see the original Phungos first since they came out of the pack first (by the way, that's the wrapper up top. Not liking the Buster Posey cover boy). That's the design for this year. I like it. Blue borders always go well with the Dodgers. Oh, no. How ma...