Night Owl Cards

  Last month when the Reds called up Christian Encarnacion-Strand, he broke a record the minute he stepped onto the field. Encarnacion-Strand became the major league player with the longest full name in history, 27 characters. Encarnacion-Strand doesn't have many cards yet, it's mostly all Bowman, Panini Elite Extra and Pro Debut. But they've already got his name down in terms of squeezing it onto a card. This one, I can kind of hear the panic in the graphic artist's voice -- it barely makes it into the name slot. It's pushing the Mighty Mussel guy a little more into the border than on other cards in the set. But with graphic design programs, I'm sure fitting a name into a space is a lot easier than it once was, even with the longer and longer names -- as far as baseball is concerned anyway. Encarnacion-Strand (whose uniform just reads "Encarnacion") broke a record that hadn't lasted very long, only a year. The previous record-holder was Simeon Woo...

I've got a lot of disconnected thoughts about the upcoming World Series, so I thought I'd throw a few of them together here. But these aren't all of my Series thoughts. I have at least two other posts prepared concerning the Rangers v. Giants. Fortunately, Major League Baseball isn't in any kind of hurry to get the World Series started, so I can get all the posts finished before the thing starts. (Here's a plus for you, Fox. You may not have gotten New York vs. Philadelphia, but at least it's not going to snow on your broadcast). First off, even though I am a Giants hater and I want that team to die an ugly four-game death while clueless San Francisco fans puzzle over how Aubrey Huff couldn't lead them to a championship, I am enormously pleased about this matchup in one aspect. It kills the notion that money can buy a title. Money can buy a title sometimes. But not all the time. Yet, people are always ragging on baseball because teams like the Yankee...

I am coming up on the one-year anniversary of two happenings that have developed into an everyday fact in my life. The first is becoming a dog owner. The second is the discovery of sports card blogs. You may not think dogs and cards have much in common. In fact, I've documented more than a couple of times that the two are pretty much mortal enemies. But the past week has emphasized how useful they are in my life. I experienced probably the most heartbreaking week on the job I have ever endured. I won't go into it here, because I don't feel like rehashing and I'm sure many readers don't care. But what helped me avoid coming home and plopping on the couch in a depressed lump was a dog that greets me ecstatically each day and an army of card bloggers to take my mind away. Oh yes, and there are new cards to take the edge off, too. It took the experiences of this past week to finally succumb to buying the blaster of Upper Deck Timeline that I have been staring at for mo...