Night Owl Cards

History is made today as I enshrine another card into the Cardboard Appreciation Hall of Fame. It's been more than three years since a card first entered those hallowed, cardboard halls. The '71 Vida Blue card was the last one at the end of August, 2013. Card #542 of the 1973 Topps set will now join the few honored to be elected. By the closest championship vote since Cardboard Appreciation Hall selection began, Pat Corrales of the San Diego Padres is the C.A. The Review 4 champion. The final votes: 1973 Topps Pat Corrales, 37 votes 1970 Topps Jose Laboy, 35 votes For a little while there I thought I was going to have to cast the deciding vote. The two cards were even for the first few days of voting before the Corrales card eventually pulled away. Then Laboy made a brief rally near the end but it wasn't enough. Corrales in the champion. If I was required to cast the tiebreaker, I would have chosen the Corrales card. Although the Laboy is special for its vib...

I don't know about you, but I'm quite pleased that football is done for another year. I like football. I enjoy watching it and can appreciate good games and skilled players. But there is so much extra garbage with football that there didn't used to be that at this time of year I have just got to get it away from me. Yesterday's game made me long for classic teams in classic uniforms with absolutely no regard for halftime shows or commercials. But you know how I feel. I can tell by your choices in Cardboard Appreciation The Review 4. We are now down to the championship round and the two final candidates speak to the "good old days" as well as anything. First, let's see the results of the second semifinal round: 1. 1970 Topps Jose Laboy, 35 votes 2. 1976 SSPC Luis Tiant, 14 votes 3. 1976 SSPC Joe Hoerner, 10 votes 4. 1972 Topps Traded Steve Carlton, 4 votes The Laboy card enters the championship easily because it's filled with things we...

Yesterday after work, while strolling through youtube, I came across the first "This Week In Baseball" episode ever aired. As a diehard TWIB fan in the late 1970s, I watched the episode fully enthralled. The first episode, from May 31, 1977, stuck entirely with highlights and Mel Allen's narration. There were no odes to baseball's funny side, which would later be a hallmark of TWIB. There also were no interviews. The familiar part of that first TWIB that remained, aside from Allen's voice of course, was a recap of the past week's games, focusing on the most notable teams and events. This initial episode focused on the Dodgers and Reds, the Cubs, the Orioles, and the Red Sox and Yankees, who were a big deal when they faced each other even way back in the '70s. Allen mentioned that every time the Red Sox and Yankees faced off it was an event, and it had been that way for a long time, ever since he could remember. (I started wondering when exactly did t...

I delayed the Cardboard Appreciation Hall of Fame search one day because of the unfortunate news about the Royals' Yordano Ventura. This means there will be one less day to vote in the first round of the semifinals. Just six mere days to cast your vote. Think you can handle it? Before starting on the semifinals, though, I must show the last of the eight finalists to make the semifinals. It was a close vote, one of the closest since this vote-off started. But in the end the 1976 SSPC Luis Tiant prevailed. I think Luis believes he should have won by a larger margin. Here is how the vote went: 1. 1976 SSPC Luis Tiant, 15 votes 2. 1983 Topps Dan Ford, 12 votes 3. 1998 Pacific Omega Mike Piazza, 11 votes 4. 2014 Stadium Club Sandy Koufax, 9 votes 5. 1965 Topps Sam Bowens, 8 votes 6. 1977-84 TCMA Galasso Greats Larry Lajoie, 3 votes 7. 1987 Topps Turn Back the Clock Maury Wills, 3 votes 8. 1998 Skybox E-X 2001 Cheap Seat Treats Mike Piazza, 1 vote Thanks to the vote...

I thought yesterday's post of a player being pictured in two different uniforms on the same card was pretty cool. Apparently I was one of the few. But that's why Night Owl Cards is close to a daily operation. You don't like one post, I got another one for you. That's why they play a baseball game every day. You have a bad game, you can redeem yourself the next day (not that I think yesterday's post was bad. If I might say so, I think it was stellar). Today is the last segment of the first round of Cardboard Appreciation The Review 4. After this segment, we head into the semifinal round with two segments of four cards each. But, as the local weather guy says, "I'm getting ahead of myself." Let's see which card advanced from the seventh segment of the first round: The 1972 Steve Carlton Traded card grabbed the honors. I kind of figured he would. There wasn't a lot of competition. Here are the vote totals: 1. 1972 Topps Steve Carl...

This used to be the week that the Baseball Hall of Fame would reveal the year's induction class. I've always been able to count on the Hall announcement to fill what is usually a pretty ho-hum second full week of January in the sports world. But this year, the Hall announcement isn't arriving until Wednesday, Jan. 18th. I've been asking "why" in frustration ever since I heard the news. I decided to research the date of the Hall announcement going back 25 years. Here is what I found: Baseball Hall of Fame announcement date: 2016: Wednesday, Jan. 6 2015: Monday, Jan. 6 2014: Wednesday, Jan. 8 2013: Wednesday, Jan. 9 2012: Monday, Jan. 9 2011: Wednesday, Jan. 5 2010: Wednesday, Jan. 6 2009: Monday, Jan. 12 2008: Tuesday, Jan. 8 2007: Tuesday, Jan. 9 2006: Tuesday, Jan. 10 2005: Tuesday, Jan. 4 2004: Tuesday, Jan. 6 2003: Tuesday, Jan. 7 2002: Tuesday, Jan. 8 2001: Tuesday, Jan. 16 2000: Tuesday, Jan. 11 1999: Tuesday, Jan. 5 1998: Mond...

There once was a time when all that was on TV on January 1st was bowl games. I was never so bored in my life. Things are better now. They've spread out the 4 katillion bowls over a seven-month period and traditionalists complain that nobody plays on New Year's Day anymore, but I don't care! I can avoid the scattered bowls, and there is NFL on my TV on January 1st! Something to watch! I'm liking 2017 already. I'm in a pretty good mood today because I received cards to open for New Year's Eve. You might see some of them tomorrow, although the packs didn't reveal much worth broadcasting. But today I'm getting the new Cardboard Appreciation The Review poll out of the way so I can watch a little more football and start getting some card packages together for the first time in two weeks. First, I'll show you last week's winner: Jose "Coco" Laboy fought off a challenge from Ernie Banks, but it's 2017 now and the Cubs don...