Night Owl Cards

  I have a bias when it comes to the month of July. Naturally I am going to like it because it's my birthday month. It is also the month for the All-Star Game, one of my favorite sports events. It's also a month in which baseball is the primary sport in action and every one of those other sports that dominates the calendar loudly -- football, basketball, hockey -- isn't playing. Even my next favorite sports event after anything baseball, Wimbledon, is mostly in July. I'm not done. July is the slowest month of the year at my job. Therefore it is the month in which I take the most vacations. I am always off in July. Always. And July is the height of summer, probably my favorite season, just edging out fall. Finally -- and this just occurred to me about a week ago -- it is the month in which I regularly acquire the most cards. It's been that way for the last three Julys. Thanks to TCDB, I can chart my month-by-month progress and July is the only month from last year fo...

  Last week I thought I had a post idea for this week about how I wanted to collect. I thought it was time to give up on modern cards. I had done my best to ignore a lot of the extras and gimmicks that come with modern cards, sticking primarily with base cards and perfectly happy to do that, sometimes even completing the set. But even the base cards aren't like they once were -- and I'm not talking about card stock. It's all stuff I've complained about before. The images are samey-same, pitchers pitching, hitters hitting, runners running, celebrating ballplayers celebrating. The photos are cropped so tight that you know Topps or MLB is trying to hide something. When there are backgrounds, sometimes they aren't actual backgrounds, they're stock photos. The sheer amount of City Connect uniforms in sets the last couple of years has to be a concerted marketing effort to get fans to buy them and they also take away from true representation of the team on cards. And, ...

  I have a competitive personality. That conflicts with my low-key demeanor and probably explains why nobody expected anything out of me in gym class and then out of the blue I'd make some diving catch in the outfield and everyone was like "where'd that come from?"   I'd get competitive at work. When we actually had a sizeable sports department, I'd want to be the best writer on the staff. And that motivated me to get better. In grade school I'd want the best report card grades (but there was always someone better). My want to compete has played out in a variety of circumstances, including here on this blog. It's part of the reason I have the collection I do as well. I'd like to have the biggest and coolest -- without going into debt or jail or being obnoxious. During the first few years of this blog, blogs were where you'd find out what the first cards of the year looked like. Anytime there was a new set, you'd check the blogs. So there wa...

  I didn't mean to duck out on you and turn what I speculated about at the end of Monday's post into something immediate. But that's what work can do to you these days and why I wrote what I did Monday. Yesterday I drove nearly 200 miles so I could interview someone for a story. You're asking why. Well, the reasons are: 1) Our newspaper coverage area is insane for being east of the Mississippi; 2) Young people don't like to talk on the phone anymore; 3) People no longer want to get their information from professionals. Hey, you asked. I've been driving and writing and then interviewing some more and writing some more, and that's why I wasn't writing here. But I am now.  On long trips I like to see if I can find some cards anywhere. I stopped by a Walmart in the sticks. And, lo, I found some blasters of Series 2, a day or two after release even! Normally I wouldn't be that interested in Series 2 -- there are plenty of posts of me bagging on it in yea...