Night Owl Cards

  I have no idea who first came up with the two-for-one deal but they're not getting enough credit. I've been suckered into that pitch probably more than any other in my history as a consumer. It just happened the other day with -- no surprise -- cards. An ebay seller was selling two 1981 Topps Squirt panels for $2.99. I have no idea whether that's a deal, but for 3 bucks who cares? I needed that Dusty Baker, that's the whole reason I came across the sale in the first place. Yeah, I'll take two! It's amazing how often two of the same thing comes in handy in my hobby. As a set collector and a team collector, I can use more than one of the same card all the time. A couple weeks prior I ordered a 2023 Allen & Ginter Andre Ethier card that I needed as it's a short-print. I didn't read carefully enough and two showed up to my surprise. But I needed two anyway, to knock one off of the many SP's in '23 A&G! In the case of the Squirt panels, I do...

  I always feel a bit sheepish writing about upgrading cards in my collection. Most of my card upgrading happens "underground," meaning I usually don't write about it. It feels very much like a first-world problem. But I shouldn't feel that way. First of all, just about any card collecting "issue" is a first-world problem because the hobby is a first-world hobby. Anything that I write on here that I consider "a problem" is not really a problem. Secondly, I'm not encasing my cards in plastic and assigning them a random number based on condition. Since there are plenty of people doing that -- and I still have almost no idea why -- I shouldn't feel weird about upgrading. All I'm doing is finding a different copy that doesn't have wrinkles or worn corners.  A portion of my recent sportlots order was upgrades -- a few of them quite overdue. I'm going to show off each of them and explain why they were upgraded.     1978 Topps Reggie J...

(I've begun packaging some of the prizes for the giveaway. I believe I now have everyone's address except for Jeff S. Just send me an email!) For the first 35-40 years of my life, the word "goat" as it applied to baseball either meant the Billy Goat curse that followed the Cubs around for 100 years or a player who screwed up in a significant game. "Baseball's Greatest Goats," that was the kind of title used for books or articles and everyone knew that when they opened the pages, they'd read about the biggest gaffes, goofs and blunders in baseball history. Try searching that phrase now. "Goat" no longer means the opposite of "hero" in sports lingo. It actually means hero. G-O-A-T. Greatest Of All Time. Just about every internet sports reference to "goat" involves Michael Jordan or Muhammad Ali or some other athletic great. Somehow "goat" has come to mean completely the opposite of what it used to ...

When I was putting together yesterday's Never Have I Ever" post , I started to accumulate more "nevers" then I thought I would and before things got out of hand, I ended the post. Safe to say, there's plenty in this hobby I still haven't done. And likely will never do. But one thing I had intended to add to the "never have I evers" is contained in the photo above. Never Have I Ever: purchased a penny sleeve. Not one. I have stacks, as you can see, of penny sleeves at my disposal, stored in an old 1975 Topps box. There are also packaged sleeves (you can see one behind the box) that I've received as a gift. I never expect to run out and I never expect to buy any. Also, I have never bought a team bag, top-loader, card-saver, one-touch or screw-down. I've accumulated enough over the life of this blog that my inventory should last me forever. That's what a decade-plus of blogging and trading will do. When I started this blog, I had...

I was watching some of ESPN's Sunday Night baseball game between the Indians and Phillies the other day. As often is the case when the Indians' Carlos Santana pops up on the screen and I view his statistics, I quietly lament the Dodgers trading him away back in 2008. Then, sometime during Alex Rodriguez's pointless ramblings and awkward bantering, I started to fantasize about Santana's contributions for the Dodgers if he had stayed with the team. Perhaps he would have solidified the catching position back in 2011-13 or maybe helped out at first base. This "what could have been" thought process often happens during my fan reflections and I have a feeling it's a common part of being a fan. We always want the best for our team and we just hate it when a talented player gets away. The Dodgers have their fair share of "big fish" stories, some of the biggest, and I thought it would be interesting to put together a "One That Got Away...

There are baseball players throughout one person's career as a fan who always seem to be fighting for the right side. No matter how many times they switch teams (well, maybe this isn't the case if a player has worn 7 different MLB uniforms), they seem to land on the side of good. Unfortunately for Bill Buckner, I haven't exactly rooted for teams who are both "good" and "successful." Buckner, who died yesterday at age 69, came up with my favorite team, the Dodgers. He was a second-round draft pick of L.A. and played with them for eight years. I've stressed this on my blog: Buckner was a Dodger for as long as he was a member of any other team. Yet his time with L.A. -- when he was young, vibrant, talented and exciting -- seems to be forgotten. Buckner was a poster boy for 1970s virility, all chest hair and stache and bushy brows. That '77 Topps card came with its own sound effect when I pulled it as an 11-year-old. So many of Buck...

Today is National Left Handers Day. As a proud lefty, I feel it's my duty to post something leftyish on this day. Two of the last three years, I have. One was well-received. Another , which I might add involved a fair amount of time-consuming research, was not. Today there is no time for research. But there is time for something that I noticed that was interesting -- to me, anyway. Pat from Hot Corner Cards sent me some Dodgers in an effort to coerce a card out of me. This is always an acceptable procedure. As I often do, I separate the cards out of the envelope into ones I need and ones I don't. ("Need" is a subjective word in the hobby and sometimes I "need" cards I have already). The cards I needed were 1974 Topps Billy Buck up there -- a lefty through and through ... ... and this 2015 Archives card of Adrian Gonzalez, also a full-time lefty ... ... and this 2015 Allen and Ginter card of Hyun-Jin Ryu, who is actually showing you tha...

Other than being a consumer, I'm not qualified to give advice to a card company. And my dismissal of Panini baseball card products is well-established, so I'm not exactly objective either. I know some collectors embrace Panini products because Panini is the closest thing to competition for Topps. Anything other than Topps is OK with them, I suppose. Or maybe they're just so happy to see another option that they open their arms to what I view as an inferior product. I just know that when I saw a couple of collectors on Twitter recently exclaim what a steal a $20 box of 2013 Panini Prizm was, I was thinking, "I might buy that for a dollar." I just haven't been impressed. The only exception is the 2013 Hometown Heroes set. I received two more Dodgers that I needed from that set from The Junior Junkie . You saw Clayton Kershaw up at the top (come back soon, dude), and here is Billy Buck: Hometown Heroes is the only Panini baseball product that does n...