Night Owl Cards

  OK, "childhood" is a stretch. I graduated from high school in 1983. But "first collecting period" doesn't mean anything to anyone but me. Also, it's amazing how those cards issued in my senior year still give me some of the same feels that cards issued in 1976 -- when I was in grade school -- do. 1983 is the cut-off line for that first collecting period. I want all the sets from that time complete. I have all the major ones done ... except for one. That one is 1983 Donruss and cards from that set are starting to roll in now that I've made my interest known (still haven't posted my wants on TCDB but that's coming). I've mentioned many times before that for the longest time I had just a handful of '83 Donruss, the two or three packs I bought that year and then all the Dodgers. For almost as long, that's all I wanted from it. But that's silly. There are guys in that set that I watched avidly every single weekend before we had cable...

  The operator of the Number 5 Type Collection blog, Matthew, is touring The National in Cleveland as I write this. But before he went there, he happened upon a free box of 1980s cards and asked if anyone could use any. My '80s wants are slim as I've completed nearly everything I'm interested in for that decade, as far as large sets. But one set immediately popped in my mind because I'm so aware of how inadequate it is compared to other '80s sets in my collection. I requested whatever 1983 Donruss cards he could spare, stressing I needed more than 80 percent so no worries about dupes. I soon received 13 cards from the set, a little dinged in a corner on most but I don't think it'll be a concern when building the set. There was a note that accompanied the cards: OK, me, too! That's always the goal: 100 percent needs, 100 percent completion. So let's see if that was accomplished.   Bill Almon NEED? Yes. Donruss factoid you'd never see today: ...

 Do you ever stare at some recent card arrivals and think that they have absolutely nothing in common enough to write a post about them and then think, 'nah, I'll come up with something." They sit on your desk day after day waiting for the light bulb to go off. You think you might have the glint of an idea so that keeps you going for a few more days. Then you forget about it because life says, "you think coming up with a post idea is hard, THIS is hard" and then that shelves any thought there was about these uncommon cards. * Cards are so varied and come from so many different eras and my interests are somewhat eclectic but maybe there's an idea there? Something about variety and who wants the same old super-shiny, super-prizmy card over and over? Something that I haven't written about before? But I come up with nothing. Nothing. ** I do feel bad about this. Ideally, for the cards that arrive from a fellow collector, I'd devote a whole post to just th...

I'm not the most positive person. I suppose a slight negative bent is a common character trait for a writer. Inward thinking tends to highlight the pitfalls and road blocks along the way. That's why you hear a lot more about writers drinking themselves to death rather than meeting their demise when the rip cord fails on their parachute. This mind-set trickles into the hobby a lot and you've heard me whining in the past about how I don't have a decent card shop, how card shows are few and far between, how new product doesn't hit here first the way it seems to in certain other spots. I can't help but feel a tinge of jealousy when someone misses a card show because, hell, there's another one next month. But although I'll never be what you would call "perky," I'm not morose either. And I work very hard on seeing the positive side of things. Infrequent card shows create greater appreciation. Lack of a card shop helps me find better deals ...

I don't keep up on the current major league baseball scene as much as I should. There are fantasy geeks and seamheads and stadium junkies. And then there's me -- a lover of baseball who tries to keep pace in a crazy, modern world, but knows it's impossible to memorize the No. 4 starter for the Oakland A's. When I get a chance to review the league leaders -- which happens about, oh, once a month (I remember when it used to happen once a day) -- I am perpetually amazed by who is in the top 10. Josh Willingham has 35 homers? Paul Goldschmidt has 42 doubles? Marco Scutaro has 180 hits? Fans of the teams who field those players may chortle, but it's a damn, fine feat that I even know who they are given what blows up on a daily basis around here. Mostly what I do is try to grab a few names as I rush out the door, hoping that they'll stick in my brain. Like Jurickson Profar. That name stuck. And I'm lucky it did. Because Matthew at Number 5 Type Collection...