Night Owl Cards

  Greetings, my lovely readers.   There is one thing I love to do most when collecting cards. I think you know what that is.   I love to complete sets.   It's not easy to do and it's getting more difficult. But that's OK, I've completed plenty in my time. Even if I never completed another, I'd always have the dozens and dozens perfectly finished sets to view at my leisure.   Still, I press on.   Just yesterday I completed one. It was pretty easy. I finished 1989 Score.   It took not even a couple of months once I received a pile of them from Bru . And then the final handful showed up this week.    First, these three cards from Detroit Tigers Cards and Stuff . Ol' Boobie Maine happened to open a box of '89 Score at the same time I was trying to complete it! I guess that's not all that coincidental. Even 37 years later there's probably someone opening a box of the stuff almost every day.   The Brian Harper was the gremlin in the set that s...

I recently received some pretty cool want list cards from Steve, The Chop Keeper, a Braves fan and operator of The Card Chop . He saw that he was from a state that I had yet to fill in on my trade map and graciously shipped me some cards so I could do some more coloring! Here it is all updated and purty: I love fake drawing. The Card Chop, if you can't tell, is located in Idaho. Which is a long way from Georgia. The things TBS did to people. Also, for those of you who are following the trade map closely -- and I don't know why you'd do such a thing -- you may notice that I had Louisiana whited out the last time I showed the map, and now it's filled in. That's because I forgot to fill it in the last time, and I must make things of absolutely no consequence right. So now that this is done, I'm down to needing to transact with eight more states (I recently received a Listia card from Montana, but that doesn't count). Vermont is still bugging t...

Back in the early stages of this blog, I wrote about the concept of a player not being able to take a bad baseball card picture. They're photogenic, but on cardboard. They're "cardogenic." Some players just have a knack for appearing on excellent baseball cards every single time. No awkward portraits. No strange expressions. No weird action shots. My favorite in this area was Russell Martin -- before his Yankeefication, of course (his cards have taken a downturn that corresponds with his batting average) -- particularly his  2008  cards. But I've mentioned other players who have this ability as well. Hideo Nomo has gobs of fantastic cards. Just about every card he graces is a work of art. I'll even grudgingly admit that Eric Young Jr. can light up a baseball card every time. He's never been a Dodger -- like his papa was -- but he somehow acquired skills in the cardogenic category anyway. Good genes, I guess. But before these guys, there were oth...

Back in 2008, I was still a regular in the toy department. As a parent of a young child, toy departments are a necessary evil. At first everyone is thrilled to be there because, for the young parents, they haven't been in a toy department in years. They finally have an excuse to relive their childhood. "Don't look at me all weird-like, I'm with the little one." But after a few months of that, the only person still thrilled is the child who is begging -- the instant you step into the store -- for a party in the toy aisle. During one of those "parties" three years ago, I spotted some Topps baseball card team boxes, similar to what you see here. I was momentarily thrilled because that kind of stuff -- different photos on a familiar design -- has fascinated me since the days of Burger King and Topps Traded cards. To my disappointment, all that was available were Yankees and Red Sox team boxes. Whoopee. With that, I returned to my daughter hyperventila...

Greetings, from Jacob ... er, Progressive Field in Cleveland! (I can never keep the names of corporately sponsored stadiums straight). Actually, I wasn't in Cleveland. In fact, I've only driven through Cleveland. I've never stopped at the stadium. I just know that it's nice, from what I hear. And these are some nice night game photos provided by Baseball Dad (a.k.a. Jack) of All Tribe Baseball . He took his camera to the ballgame against the Tigers last week and was thoughtful enough to think of me and email some night shots! Great photos. You really have the feeling of being at the park with these pictures. I tried to make one of them into a 1978 Topps baseball card with my fledgling MS Paint skills. But the most basic issues throw me for a loop, so I scrapped that plan until I can figure it out. I will settle for showing you some of the photos he sent. My favorite might be the scoreboard shot up top. But here's another scoreboard shot with the infield a...

Easter greetings! In honor of the greatest comeback in history (rising from the dead kind of puts the 1978 Yankees in their place, doesn't it?), I've done a minimal amount of research on the Dodgers' greatest comeback players. All of these players won the annual Comeback Player of the Year Award, which began in 1965. So take a moment between the ham -- or if you come from an Italian family like me, some amazing pasta -- and the chocolate bunnies and read about a few players who experienced their own rebirths. Their own little Easter on the ballfield. Phil Regan, 1966 Comeback Player of the Year. Regan, after some pretty good years for the Tigers, had an awful 1965 season. He was 1-5 with a 5.02 ERA for Detroit and also spent a lot of time playing for the team's minor league affiliate in Syracuse. The Tigers got rid of Regan in a trade with the Dodgers for infielder Dick Tracewski. That turned out to be a mistake because Regan had one of the most dominant seasons for a ...