Night Owl Cards

   I've made many references about my sister-in-law's ability to select exactly the right box or packs of cards when she's picking out a gift.   It's happened over and over. The cards I get from her, I never pull myself.   But this time it was even more impressive. She didn't even have to pick out the box herself.   She sent a Target gift card for Father's Day. It took me awhile to decide what kind of cards I wanted. I ended up settling on a Topps Series 2 box, it was the only thing in my wheelhouse and I almost always purchase some Series 2, particularly if it's a set I like, and that's the case for 2026.   The box arrived a few days ago and right from the first pack I knew it contained my sister-in-law's magic touch. Yet she didn't touch the box!   I don't think most people are interested in seeing every card -- it's Series 2 -- so I'll offer a highlight from each pack. That'll be enough to show that this wasn't the ordinary...

  The other day I received one of those pink postage-due-your-cards-are-waiting-for-you-way-down-at-the-post-office slips.   I always go and pay the postage because CARDS, and even being down to one vehicle -- that also needs work done kind of immediately -- wasn't going to stop me. It was a little surprising how much "postage due" has gone up for simple PWE, but after seeing the contents, I was happy I made the effort.   The cards arrived from reader Casey, all 13 of them stuffed into that one envelope, and some required extra protection, too. But this wasn't 1991 Donruss, or even the average modern cards I usually receive. Certainly worth the cost.     I'll start with one of the many parallels in products these days. This is one of the acceptable ones because it involves color, and also I'm always grateful when someone sends me an Ohtani card.     My first team logo border parallel. I've seen plenty of these online over the last couple of years but n...

  I slept 9-and-a-half hours last night/this morning. I don't even come close to that kind of sleep most days now. Probably average around 7.   The combination of the World Series and my cold shredded my sleep cycle all last week, and Sunday night was the first chance for real rest. Not only was I coming off the hangover of the Dodgers' Game 7 victory but the Bills had their biggest game of the season thus far, beating the hated Chiefs in another tense affair. We can't space this stuff out a little more, sports leagues??   I woke up today feeling better than I had in more than a week. I still don't think I'm quite there yet (see: coughing fit just 10 minutes ago), and with that amount of sleep today, I had barely any time to do anything before having to work.   A package from Dime Box Nick has been waiting for my words for 10 days now and I'm finally squeezing it in right now. As you know, Nick stopped writing on his blog nearly a year ago, but this is the seco...

  The Hall of Fame announced its 2024 class this evening (once upon a time this was held much earlier in the day) and thanks to the constant vote tracking online, there wasn't much of a surprise about who was selected. The most I heard about this class in the lead-up is whether Billy Wagner will make it (He didn't).   Wagner didn't play for the Dodgers. Neither did official HOF selections Joe Mauer or Todd Helton. I'm looking for Dodgers to get in the HOF, pretty much all I care about when it comes to HOF votes.   Fortunately, there is one who got in easily this year, Adrian Beltre. He won't get a Dodger hat on his plaque, but he played for them first and for more years than all but one team and even then it's just one additional year. I'm not irked by this as much as when Mike Piazza went in as a Met in 2016 (even "irked" is too strong a word, heck, "mildly miffed" is too strong). The key thing is, just like with Piazza, the Dodgers are ...

  I hit the road for the fourth time in a week yesterday, wrapping up my vacation with a card show. Interestingly, I did the exact same thing at this time last year, and just like last year, Angus, of Dawg Day Cards , joined me. It's the perfect way to finish off a vacation, because usually I'm in a downer mood that final day and a show is the perfect pick-me-up. There's nothing like a card show. There's nothing like it to get your mind off of despair and drudgery and there's nothing like it for, well, a lot of things.  Let's explore.   There's nothing like a card show to get you out of bed early   The show at the state fairgrounds has been starting and ending earlier than in the past. They also have that VIP thing now in which you can show up even earlier for whatever exclusives I don't care about enough to lose sleep for.   But since this show came during my vacation, there was no late-night shift the previous night. We could get started a whole hour e...