Night Owl Cards

  I can't say there was ever a time when I liked every card that came out of a pack or into my collection.   Even in my youngest days of opening packs, between 1974-76, there were cards I didn't like. That was based entirely on the goofy whims of little kids -- what the player looked like, whether they wore a hat, whether they had a "weird" (to us) name.   As I grew older, my dislikes were based on other ideas: what team they played for, whether their team had wronged my team and sometimes the behavior of the player on the field, which was mostly confined to Reggie Jackson and Pete Rose.   Now my card dislikes can come from a host of reasons: certain teams and behaviors, sure, but also what card brand it is, what ridiculous parallel it is, and -- here's something we never considered as kids -- what those players say and how they act off the field. It's safe to say that we know too much and it's affecting the way I feel about the cards that arrive at my hom...

  A couple of weeks ago, I enjoyed a pretty good day. It was Friday, February 5th to be exact. The day brightened with the arrival of the mail just after noon. The magazine in the mailbox confirmed that I had indeed made the cover of Beckett Baseball Magazine! Or my article had anyway. I haven't checked to see if it's now available in stores. Maybe I'll look tomorrow. An hour or two later, I learned that the Dodgers had landed the biggest free-agent catch of the offseason. I was quite thrilled. I'm not one of those Dodger Twitter hand-ringers who is conflicted over this signing. For most of my baseball-rooting history, we knew next to nothing about baseball players' views or behavior outside of what happened on the field. Bauer's fondness for social media doesn't make it easy for things to remain that way. Twitter doesn't make it easy. But I miss that time before social media. When our team acquired someone talented, we rejoiced. Period. Therefore, send...