Night Owl Cards

  Clayton Kershaw should reach 3.000 strikeouts tonight in the Dodgers' game against the White Sox. That's provided that he lasts more than two or three innings, but he's been doing pretty well since his return off the injured list, so chances are good.   Kershaw will become the first Dodgers pitcher -- who is known as a Dodger pitcher -- to achieve the milestone while a Dodger. There have been other pitchers who either started with the Dodgers and reached the milestone with another team or pitched briefly with the Dodgers and reached the milestone but are not commonly associated with the team.   Don Sutton, Pedro Martinez and Greg Maddux all pitched for the Dodgers but struck out their 3,000th batter with someone else.    In one case, a pitcher hit the 3,000 milestone while with the Dodgers, but is more well-known as a National or a Tiger or a Diamondback or even a Met.     In fact, Max Scherzer is the most recent pitcher to reach 3,000 strikeouts. It...

  Joey Votto announced his retirement yesterday in his usual quirky-and-lovable way . It was another sad reminder that my old gang is breaking up. First Evan Longoria and now Joey Votto. I'll explain. I feel an odd kinship with the rookie class from 2008, at least those players who received rookie logos in 2008 product. That's because I started when they started. I began a blog in 2008, and that was the first year that I was fully into modern cards since the early '90s. I returned to modern collecting in 2005 and 2006 but 2008 was when I became aware of everything, every last dumb product available, because the wonderful blogging world had told me so.   So I knew all the rookies that were around that year, hot or lukewarm. You couldn't miss them, card companies were shoving them down our throats. Ross Ohlendorf, Brian Bass, Kevin Hart (no, not the comedian), Chin-Lung Hu, I knew all their names.   There were some decent players, too, guys like Jay Bruce, Carlos Gonzalez...

  That is my Christmas tree. It's still up. We're not militant about insisting that the decorations stay in bloom through the 12 days of Christmas (Dec. 25-Jan. 5), it's more like there just hasn't been time to take them down. But I do like that they're still there and the lights still on outside. I don't feel delinquent at all. It's always depressing to see Christmas trees dumped on the curb on Dec. 26. (I know I have some nerve, as my tree is fake and has been for years). Seeing the Christmas season last into January helps take away the bleakness of the month. If we didn't have the final few days of the season and football, January would be a lost cause. So I like celebrating the last day of Christmas on this day (I used to get a bit jealous of the Orthodox who celebrate Christmas around Jan. 6-7, but then I found out they often celebrate with beet soup and that's almost as sad as ditching your tree).   Today I'm celebrating with my just-arrive...

  When I was in college, I worked the hamburger grill at one of the on-campus restaurants my first semester or two.   The cooking area was connected to the nearby cafeteria and one of the cooks who worked next to me was named Cliff. He was probably in his 50s or 60s, a cheerful Black man who enjoyed working around young college students and had a smile for everyone, even a couple of notoriously grumpy people who worked there with him.  Cliff loved to play the lottery and everyone knew that. He would always respond to jokes about him throwing money away every week by saying, "You've got to be in it to win it!" I'm sure that wasn't the first time I heard that phrase, but it really stuck with me with Cliff uttering it so often. And it's what I think of now every baseball trade deadline or offseason. You've got to be in it to win it. Once I used to rag on the Yankees, like a lot of people did, because they "bought their championships." But that was a...

I've heard a mention or two of this past World Series being "one of the greatest ever." I'm not 100 percent sure where I heard such a sweeping statement but if I had to guess, it would be Twitter, that all-or-nothing social media outlet that I do enjoy but also shake my head over when I read the extreme reactions that occur daily there. It was not "one of the greatest ever." I'm not sure if I'd even call it "good." Keep in mind, I've been watching World Series for more than 40 years, so I've seen a few good ones and bad ones and have a little perspective. But I'd say about the only thing this World Series had going for it is that it lasted seven games and that the road team won every game. It was fine. If you like baseball it was fine. But that's about it. You know how I can tell? I didn't panic at work over a single game this Series. Usually, the most exciting World Series games -- the ones every fan root...