Night Owl Cards

I was at the big box place yesterday, fully expecting to grab my first packs of Chicle. But the card aisle at Target was just as barren as it was a week-and-a-half ago. Wal-Mart's was, too. Then I went to the card shop to see if they even had Finest in yet. Nope. Next week. Bare shelves directly behind the counter. This would be very frustrating except for two things. The first is the card shop had switched its basket of oldies packs from '92 Stadium Club, etc., to stuff from the late 1990s/early 2000s, an era that is better known to me as the "why is the baby crying NOW??!!"  period. I changed a lot of diapers, but I didn't collect at all during this time, so I grabbed 10 packs of stuff. Most of it was Topps Gallery: This will take care of my artsy fix that I can't satisfy with National Chicle. I like these cards. I also grabbed a couple of packs of 2000 Chrome and a late '90s Bowman pack. I'll probably open this pack on APTBNL: My goal i...

This is an actual baseball card. It was a promo card issued to coincide with the release of Orel Hershiser's autobiography, titled "Out of the Blue," back in 1989. After 1988, Hershiser was the biggest thing in baseball, so lots of people wanted to read his book. Right when it came out, I either bought it or someone gave it to me. I read it back then and haven't read it since (I don't re-read a lot of books). I still have it and was going to scan the book cover, but the book is actually propping up the shelf above it. If I removed the book, the whole shelving unit would come crashing down. Yeah, I'm a master craftsman. For some reason, the photograph is of Hershiser back in his Albuquerque Dukes days. Maybe they couldn't get MLB approval or something. Here is the back of the card: That makes it official: it's an oddball card. And I love oddballs. Even though I pounced on the book when it was released, I knew nothing about the promo card. But David...