Night Owl Cards

History is made today as I enshrine another card into the Cardboard Appreciation Hall of Fame. It's been more than three years since a card first entered those hallowed, cardboard halls. The '71 Vida Blue card was the last one at the end of August, 2013. Card #542 of the 1973 Topps set will now join the few honored to be elected. By the closest championship vote since Cardboard Appreciation Hall selection began, Pat Corrales of the San Diego Padres is the C.A. The Review 4 champion. The final votes: 1973 Topps Pat Corrales, 37 votes 1970 Topps Jose Laboy, 35 votes For a little while there I thought I was going to have to cast the deciding vote. The two cards were even for the first few days of voting before the Corrales card eventually pulled away. Then Laboy made a brief rally near the end but it wasn't enough. Corrales in the champion. If I was required to cast the tiebreaker, I would have chosen the Corrales card. Although the Laboy is special for its vib...

(Help! I've been kidnapped by the Olympics! And college basketball! And local high school playoffs! And Derek Jeter announcing he's retiring! I hope to have thoughtful blog posts when this is all over! ... In April! Time again for Cardboard Appreciation -- didn't I just do this? -- this is the 199th in a series): I haven't made a lot of headway on compiling a list of the 100 greatest cards from the 1970s . It's a bad time of year for time-consuming projects and we all know how much time research consumes. But I've made progress in one area of the countdown. I have at least landed one card that I know will be on that list. It's the 1973 Pat Corrales card you see here. Mark H. sent it to me, and I think I'll finally get out from underneath a bunch of stuff long enough to send some Red Sox his way this week. Plenty has been written about this card and it's been determined several times that the man who bowled over Corrales is none other than...