Night Owl Cards

  Greetings, my lovely readers.   There is one thing I love to do most when collecting cards. I think you know what that is.   I love to complete sets.   It's not easy to do and it's getting more difficult. But that's OK, I've completed plenty in my time. Even if I never completed another, I'd always have the dozens and dozens perfectly finished sets to view at my leisure.   Still, I press on.   Just yesterday I completed one. It was pretty easy. I finished 1989 Score.   It took not even a couple of months once I received a pile of them from Bru . And then the final handful showed up this week.    First, these three cards from Detroit Tigers Cards and Stuff . Ol' Boobie Maine happened to open a box of '89 Score at the same time I was trying to complete it! I guess that's not all that coincidental. Even 37 years later there's probably someone opening a box of the stuff almost every day.   The Brian Harper was the gremlin in the set that s...

  We card bloggers aren't the mushy type. If we're going to blog a Valentine's Day-themed post, it better be about Bobby or Ellis or Fred. Or at least show some red or pink parallels.   I've done it all before and don't have anything else clever to write about this fake holiday. So I thought I'd lean in all the way and show most of the cards from Bobby Valentine's career.   I collected Ellis Valentine's cards as a kid, I was always a fan. Fred Valentine was before my time. But Bobby Valentine has been there for the duration. His Topps card career (excluding the Mets managing days) nearly syncs up with my run of Topps complete sets, from 1970-92. He's only missing from 1970 and 1981-84.     He also reappeared in Panini Donruss last year with this weird thing in which it appears his uniform number slid down his jersey.   Finally, I have a connection to Valentine, as tenuous as it may be. I interviewed him just over five years ago , in a banquet hall, ...

  How much do I love O-Pee-Chee? I love it this much: 💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖 There are so many great sets for O-Pee-Chee variations and the 1981 one is one of the very best. Not only do the changing colors on the border frames make these cards as exciting as seeing an amusement park at night, but the set spelled out the position names on the front so you get to see the wonderfully wacky-to-us-Amuricans spellings. "Premier-But?" Like so: I can't believe how cheaply I landed this Eddie Murray. Sure, it's off-center, but who is picking up OPC cards looking for perfection? I also added some Dodger needs. There is still quite a ways to go on finishing the team set. But that's OK, I have a lot to do in the O-Pee-Chee area. And I'm looking forward to all of it. There is so much to love.

We'll see how this post goes. This was the kind of stuff that killed about 10 years ago or so, but I don't know anymore. It's Valentine's Day, and in the online baseball world, that means showing a picture of Bobby or Ellis Valentine and moving on with your day. I try to do a little more than that. Even though it's delightful to show this familiar card of Bobby Valentine on the blog (has anyone else noticed the elbows photobombing Valentine from either side?), there's so much more to this holiday when it comes to baseball cards. Practically nobody knows that you could fill an entire outfield of Valentines. There. I just did. But, how about forming an entire team of Valentine-themed baseball names? Ah, yes, this is where it starts to involve a little bit of effort. Not only is there some additional thought, but there is all the pulling of cards from the collection and then scanning them all and then forming a lineup that would make sense and t...