Night Owl Cards

    Just a short post, really just noting a milestone that I can't believe I missed.   The Dodgers won the World Series last week and I was really excited. I have been a fan for a long time and I have experienced all the heartaches and disappointments. I can recite the years: 1977, 1978, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1992, 1995, 2006, 2008, 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022, there are probably others.   I also know the really fun ones: 1981, 1988, 2020, 2024.   I know all these, some intimately, because as of this very year, I have been a fan for 50 years. How I didn't realize that on January 1, I don't have a clue. This also means that I have been a fan of the Dodgers for 50 years. And on the 50th year -- to commemorate my achievement as a fan -- the Dodgers won me a World Series title.   Cool.   There are not a lot of things that I have been devoted to for 50 years. I can't even say I have been collecting baseball cards for 50 years, because although I acquired my first cards in 1974,

  I know, or have come across, several fans my age or older who are no longer interested in major league baseball as it's played now. I've also read or written a good number of profiles on former players who say they don't watch the game anymore. It just doesn't look like the game they know and played. Whether you think that is a closed-minded way of thinking or a natural reaction as people grow older, it's very apparent to me that those who play MLB now are different than the players who played in the '70s, '80s and even much of the '90s when I was younger and much more of a fan. Just about every day -- especially now that it's the postseason -- the difference hits me in the face. As I'm scrolling through the limited number of photos available (a rant for another time) to use when I'm producing the sports section for my paper, I regularly see players screaming into the air as if they had just smote the enemy on a bloody battlefield. It strik

  Well, the timing for the start of this post ain't great after my Bills didn't show up last night. Thanks to the NFL's wild, any-and-all-days-and-times scheduling, that was the first time I've gotten to see them play on TV live this season (meanwhile I've seen the Ravens three times already). But I turned off last night's game pretty early. So in a slightly less triumphant mood, I just received a selection of Bills cards from Johnny's Trading Spot ! I'll get right to the weirdness. These are all from the same set, though it doesn't look it at all. Topps created something in 2023 called "Topps Composite". If you still have PTSD over Topps' Fusion baseball set from 2001, then look away. This is just like that -- except with football players. I suppose Topps had to do something -- it doesn't have a license to put out sets with current players, so I guess this was its idea to stay in the game? Aside from the wide variety of baseball-ce

  I've been pretty lax on writing about Shohei Ohtani's unreal run to 50-50 and beyond in the last week. Some Dodgers fan I am. But I'd like you to know that I've watched the highlights of the 50-50 game five times now. It's one of the great things about being a baseball fan -- seeing something you've never seen before even after 40-plus years of watching the sport. Obviously, Ohtani blowing past 40-40 like it was an every year occurrence has had an effect on the hobby, specifically hiking the price on everything Ohtani.   I am still in need of an extra 2024 Topps flagship Ohtani base card for my complete-set chase, but for anyone with a similar need, don't bother going on COMC for it.   Amazingly, the card is sold out. That's difficult to believe. Meanwhile, there are about 196 copies available of one of his 2024 flagship combo cards. I don't have very many Ohtani Dodgers cards, maybe a dozen, and apparently now isn't the time to look to add to

  Although I track milestones on this blog because it's a great way to see where I've been and where I am in the hobby, I don't think about my accomplishments in life very often. As a writer, though, I naturally look inward, so it's not difficult to come up with some on the spot. Some of my biggest are: establishing a career goal in college and making it work for me for 30-plus years, creating a family and raising a smart, well-adjusted go-getter kid, being a home-owner for close to 30 years, winning awards for my writing in my job and reaching a goal I had as a teenager -- writing in a national magazine. And here's another one: completing multiple sports card sets. Ha, ha, you say, that doesn't seem to fit with the ones above. But I say it does, very well. I am almost as proud -- really and truly -- of many of my finished sets as I am of the things above. This set-building ain't easy. I've heard more than one collector say that set-builders are a differ

  It's tradition around here at this time to select the best Dodgers card from the year's Topps flagship. I've done this post every year on the blog since 2017, although I skipped it in 2018 for an unknown reason. (Probably the prep work was too long). And it's rooted in me selecting my favorite Dodger card way back in the late 1970s and then continuing it each year. It's now time for the 2024 selection, and like last year -- and probably the last few years -- the candidates aren't too exciting, because Topps has to crop out everything exciting. I don't know the exact reasons, but I'm betting they're modern-and-stupid. So once again we have a lot of batters batting and pitchers pitching mixed in with a few yellers yelling but virtually nothing on the periphery or in the background. Here is my selection of finalists: Can you feel the excitement?! This year's design is so good that the lack of interesting photos doesn't bother me too much.  Un

  So, I went right for the 2024 Topps binder at dealer Tom's table at the card show and prepared to pull the final cards I needed for the set. I was under a dozen in wants, this should be easy. Sure, I didn't expect the Elly De La Cruz card to be in there, probably long-ago pulled by some rookie mojo dude who paid extra for the early-bird entry and doesn't remember when the hobby wasn't "exclusive." But I hoped to find the others and then maybe the De La Cruz somewhere else at the show. I ended up pulling all but five of the cards I needed. Fortunately, I had received some 2024 cards from Tony of Uncle Charlie's Shoebox not long before the show that whittled down my wants.   All of these were much-appreciated. I did get the Stone Garrett in a TCDB trade around the same time. The 2024 flagship was flying fast and furious for a period there.   Tony even found a couple of Dodgers I needed. Super-cool! But getting back to the show. After failing to find the D

  I went to the big card show at the state fairgrounds for the first time in almost a year yesterday.   Since I had completed 1970 Topps about a month ago, I didn't have a specific major quest for this show. But I knew there would be a lot available so I made some vague goals:   1. Finish the 2024 Topps flagship set 2. Focus on the Fleer Laughlin World Series cards 3. Upgrade a handful of 1970 Topps cards 4. Find some 9-pocket pages and maybe a binder 5. Find some more oddballs   Here is the progress report after going to the show:   1. Finish the 2024 Topps flagship set ✓ 2. Focus on the Fleer Laughlin World Series cards 3. Upgrade a handful of 1970 Topps cards 4. Find some 9-pocket pages and maybe a binder ✓ 5. Find some more oddballs   Pretty happy with that, although that's just 40 percent success. The only reason I put down pages/binder as a goal is because I knew I didn't have any real expensive goals and maybe I could fit that in. But of course I like too many card