Night Owl Cards

Hey! How about that! I was told to "give it a rest" in the last post! Yay me! That's got to be worth some blogging points doesn't it? Do I get a certificate? I mean, how do you know if this blog thing is even on unless you're pissing someone off! Heh. Serves me right for going into a subject that I said I wasn't going to address again. But then I got into an ornery mood for a variety of unrelated reasons, and it just all came out. You've got to love projection. Or displacement. Or whatever the term is. I could continue to project, and say this is my own damn blog and I write it for my own damn amusement and if you don't like it then read something else, and that I wasn't talking to you anyway . But that would be rude and counterproductive. So instead, I'll just write about the Topps Giveaway site some more. You know one other thing that I like so gosh darn much about that ... Just kidding. Instead of going into something divisive ...

This "card" finally got me off my perfectly reasonably-sized ass so I could add Andre Ethier to my "Dodgers I Collect" page. It is "card" No. 107 in my Ethier collection. It's not a big number, but then I'm not exactly a player collector either, so it works for me. Jonathan of NatsTown sent me this "card." He knew I'd love it, and I do, even though I keep using "card" in quotation marks. This is one of those patch thingies. You know how I felt about them . I still feel that way about them. They puzzle me, and I cannot figure out why collectors place a value on them like they were made out of gold. It's stitching. It doesn't even come from anything once worn by anyone. To me it's a like a card that came from a craft fair, and, well, I'll just say that a craft fair is good way to figure out what I sound like when I scream in terror. But enough of my regurgitation. This "card" works much ...

I've been thinking about this for some time. In fact, I've been thinking about it so long, that I've lost all perspective on whether it's a good idea or just plain morbid. It has to do with patch cards. I've mentioned a couple of times that I don't understand the fascination with them at all. I especially don't understand manufactured patches, which don't have any connection to an actual patch worn on baseball uniform. But one thing that might be intriguing would be related to patches that were used to commemorate a ballplayer or other baseball figure who had recently died. The No. 21 worn here by Rennie Stennett to honor the late, great Roberto Clemente. The No. 19 worn by the Dodgers throughout the 1978 postseason. The No. 10 worn by the Yankees after Phil Rizzuto's death a couple years ago. Is it too callous for me to suggest that it would be a good idea to later feature patch cards of the deceased player, in which the card consisted of pieces ...

Who was the first person to come up with "The days are just packed" saying? Was that from the "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip compilation? Or did Mr. Watterson take it from somewhere else? At any rate, it accurately sums up things around here. The busy season at work and at home is winding down, so now I'm trying to catch up. I have lots of card packages to blog about and lots of trades to straighten out. One request: if you don't have a want list on your blog yet, please, please, think about adding one. My brain is getting older by the minute and without a want list to check, I lose track of exactly what everyone needs. That's especially true with certain teams, like the Mets and Red Sox and Orioles, in which I'm dealing with multiple fans. (Meanwhile, I'm trying to add to my want list bit by bit to hopefully give all you friendly folks a few more options). I'll be sending out a couple packages later today, a few more later this week ...

I went and bought myself a 2009 Topps blaster today. Don't worry, I didn't go to Wal-Mart. Nothing but white-bordered cards for me. As God intended them to be. I landed a bunch of regular old cards that I needed in my bid to complete Series 1, as well as one of these patchy thingies that come with every blaster this year. I have mentioned this a couple of times, but not on this particular blog: I do not understand patch cards. I know some collectors eat this stuff up. And some other collectors who don't eat this stuff up like these particular ones because they're replicas of logos from actual events, in this case the 1985 All-Star Game in Minneapolis (the only All-Star Game to take place on my birthday, by the way). And I will say that they're better than those inexplicable letter patch cards in which you can spell out names or sayings or curse words or whatever the heck people do with them. I don't have anything against patch cards. Their appearance is...