Night Owl Cards

(Welcome to the first day of Gerrit Cole as a New York Yankee. In true Yankee fashion, the Cole news not only annoyed me on a baseball level, but from a job perspective as well, announced after midnight, approximately 30 minutes before deadline, forcing absolute chaos in an attempt to get it  published in the paper. So those of you who woke up to the news and announced it as if it was a new thing, I have one thing I wanna say: I KNOW!!!!!!!! Welcome to Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 287th in a series): Eleven years ago, I did a dumb thing. I decided to attempt to complete the new Topps Stadium Club set, which was released in early November of 2008. I liked the look of the cards. It was the first Stadium Club set in five years. And, I was attempting to complete a lot of 2008 sets that year because that's what I did then. Got to complete what's on store shelves, right? Well, 2008 Stadium Club showed me the error of my thinking. The set is basically impossible to...

I just finished producing the annual high school football special section for the newspaper. It's always a month-long project capped by a day-long finale that's sure to drain from you any will to be productive for the next 48 hours. I have the energy left to show just two cards. Fortunately, when I came home, there was a plain, white envelope sitting on the dining room table that contained -- unbelievable -- just two cards. The cards arrived from Joe , who has sent me many nice cards in the past. It's been awhile since I've heard from him, but I'm glad to learn that he's still collecting. It's some very fancy stuff, by the way. And speaking of fancy, if you're going to send two cards, then this is the way to do it. Here is the first one: This is my first "book" card. It's two mini cards, so that makes it a mini book. But I'm not complaining. What I will complain about is how card companies never see the problem with p...