Night Owl Cards

  It's a periodic tradition around here to find a Labor Day theme and blog about it on Labor Day. Heck, I'm working on the holiday most years (this year included). so might as well fully embrace it.   Showing the Mike Marshall buyback card the other day gave me the idea. There was a time when relievers were described as "workhorses" -- I don't know, maybe they still are -- implying that they were so reliable that you could call on them as often as you wanted and they'd get the job done. I thought it'd be fun to feature the most dedicated workhorses in MLB history and find a card for each of the pitchers who have appeared in the most games in a single season in major league history. You probably know the first two, but I bet you're kind of hazy on who comes after that. I know I was.     1. Mike Marshall, 106 games played (1974, Dodgers)   As remarkable now as it was then. Marshall appeared in 65% of the Dodgers' regular-season games in 1974 and al...

So, some cards arrived from Zach of Autographed Cards just the other day. He told me he had a few of the 2003 Fan Favorites cards on my list and shipped them off. The Kent Tekulve is the highlight, of course. Believe me, fellow Teke fans who may not have been old enough to see him at his height, we were baffled that this guy was actually getting real major leaguers out. Here are the rest that Zach sent. These five get me down to six to complete the set, and then I would have all three Fan Favorites sets finished off. That would be a nice point of pride in my collection, something that the current Archives product could never hope to match. Zach sent two other cards that I didn't expect. It seems he got suckered into buying the 65th anniversary Archives product at Walmart, too. And he unearthed two Dodgers in his box. One was a Koufax rookie replica. How weird is it to see a 1975 Topps back on the reverse of a 1955 Topps card? The other card is another one ...

"Maybe the motion evolved from my pitiful body. ... I've never been strong. I can't throw using my chest and shoulder muscles -- what muscles? -- so I drive my arm by using my legs and lower back. It's a pivot-like swing. And today, where typical fastball pitchers get sore arms, I will occasionally get an ache in the back of my thighs, of all places." -- Kent Tekulve, Sports Illustrated, May 5, 1980 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Night card binder candidate: Kent Tekulve, 1989 Upper Deck, #207 Does it make the binder?: Of course

The Pirates are in the playoffs and everyone seems to be happy about this. Every last baseball fan is dusting off their Kent Tekulve references, although personally I'd be more impressed if someone mentioned Bruce Kison or Steve Nicosia. I'm pleased to see the Pirates back, too, because I remember a time when Pittsburgh was in the postseason consistently. I especially remember 1979, the first postseason in which I stayed up to watch every last World Series game. It was my first experience with the totality of the postseason, what it meant and who the players were. And what an introduction. The "We Are Fam-i-lee" Pirates are one of the most beloved championship teams of our time. They had style, character and talent. They had the underdog thing going (down 3 games to 1 in the Series). And they were led by their Papa Bear, Willie Stargell, who distributed gold stars for good performance. This year's Pirates, although a crowd favorite, can't compare. The...

Alright, I've been threatening to do this for months, so I finally had an hour to kill and went through my cards to find 20 bespectacled candidates for "The Best Glasses in the History of Baseball Cards, the Sequel." The last countdown was Topps only. That didn't seem very fair to me. So I'm doing another countdown of non- Topps cards to see if the claim still holds up: does Kent Tekulve have the best glasses in the history of baseball cards?" He easily won last time, against what was probably much tougher competition. My non- Topps cards only go back to 1981, so there are none of the wacky frames from the '60s and '70s to challenge Tekulve . Also, I limited it to 20 players, instead of the 25 I went with the first time. I realize that no glasses countdown is complete without this card . But I don't have it, so as far as this countdown is concerned it doesn't exist. On with the countdown. Hope you enjoy it as much as the first: 20. Jeff ...