Night Owl Cards

  It seems like everyone's accepted the latest configuration of the postseason schedule, including me. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised that we began the playoffs in September as in ye olden times, though I know the reason for it is very modern.   But I think that this year's wild card round might show that we don't really need it. Yeah, yeah, I know, more games is good, but the Red Sox, Cubs, Astros and Phillies didn't look like playoff teams to me. We could've just skipped that round to what we've got right now.   Which is what I'm going to do. It's been tradition the last three years to feature the oldest, newest and a random card from my collection for each of the teams remaining in the postseason once the wild card has finished.     As in previous versions, several teams appear year after year, so I've already covered their oldest card in my collection. In those cases, I go to the second-oldest, third-oldest, etc.   RAYS VS. YANKEES   Tamp...

  You know, I forgot all about how I hated the current wild-card set-up last year. I complained last year that division winners shouldn't be involved in such chaos. I guess I still agree with that, but I didn't think of it once during this past week and that's even with my team involved in it.   I'm never going to get to Grandpa Simpson status at this rate.   But I like my postseason attitude this year. I don't feel like hiding behind the couch like I've felt for decades when the Dodgers are in the playoffs. We'll see how it goes when they're playing the Phillies in Philadelphia this weekend (most likely I'll just be pressing "mute" a lot).   Meanwhile, with four games on the docket tomorrow, I've got my current postseason tradition cued up and ready to go. This is where I pull out the oldest, newest and random-est card in my collection from the remaining playoff teams. This is the third time I've done this (well, fourth as I did ...