Night Owl Cards

I knew it would happen. After all that talk of shopping this past weekend and avoiding stores at all cost, I knew I would get the urge to buy some cards. Personally, I blame a couple of online orders for Christmas gifts I placed for other people. That will always set off the desire for a little something for myself. So it was that I found myself driving to the giant Walmart on the edge of town at 11 at night after a Sunday of working on my day off (it's a long story you don't want to read). I figured all of the Black Friday shoppers were safely nestled in their beds by then. But not quite. As I walked toward the store, I noticed a typically smokey car pulled up just beyond the entrance doors with its motor running. This is always annoying to me, but I figured it was Walmart, something like that is practically part of the decor. As I approached the doors, a guy from inside the car yelled out to me, "Hey, sir! Sir!" I glanced over instinctively. He gestured a...

Welcome to another series of votes to determine the latest member of the Cardboard Appreciation Hall of Fame . It has been over three years since I have conducted one of these. I think the blogging world has moved on from one-card posts, unless it's really a knock-out card, which is why it's taken three years for enough Cardboard Appreciations to add up. But it's not right that Carlton Fisk, Lindy McDaniel and Vida Blue have been hogging the Cardboard Appreciation HOF buffet every day for the last three years. It's time to include a fourth member. And I think the candidates are pretty good this time around. Once again, there is a poll on the sidebar that will allow you to vote for a week. There will be eight candidates to vote on over the next eight weeks. Then we'll pair it down some more, March Madness style, until we end up with a winner. So let's see the first eight: 1. 1982 Fleer Darrell Jackson: This card that features three different cap vers...

Not a lot of cards have come to the house the last couple of weeks. It's that end-of-the-year busy time, and money is devoted to various holiday expenses instead of cards. As mentioned before, I don't get involved with the Black Friday hobby deals, because spending money on myself at this time is not recommended if I know what's good for me. I have just two cards on my desk that I have received that are waiting to be shown. Each arrived as a one-card package. Each has a tale to tell. The first is a jersey card of Jim Kelly sent to me by Matt of Bob Walk The Plank . It is my first jersey card of Kelly, and probably only my second or third jersey card of an NFL player ever. My NFL collecting is very limited. But if you're going to throw a jersey at me, make it of the quarterback when I covered the Bills back in the late 1980s. This card is from 2006 Donruss Elite. The back assures that this swatch was taken from an actual jersey worn by Jim Kelly in an offic...

I don't know if you're aware of it or not, but we're in the middle of a border war. Topps doesn't think we need them anymore. It scrapped the borders from its flagship set this year for the first time in ... well, ever. And it plans to do the same thing in 2017. As I've said before, I don't think lack of borders is the biggest problem with 2016 flagship, I have so many other issues with it. But taking the border away from flagship is just plain wrong. I know people born after 1985 don't know what I'm talking about -- they were six at the most when Stadium Club first showed up for crying out loud -- but borders give a set character. God, I hate how many times I've said this, but, look at 2015 Topps. That set had character out the ever-living smokestack because it had fat borders in a rainbow of colors. In 2016, we have fog and smoke and slashy TV graphics to give our sets character. Doesn't do it for me. I've got to have that border. ...

Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers and friends. Tonight, I have for you a quick look at a quirky little oddball set from Mr. Turkey. Mr. Turkey, for those of you who may not know, was/is a division of Sara Lee Foods and a trademark for the company's production of turkey and other meat products. I've never seen its food products for sale and don't know if it's still around. Most of what I turned up online was about a scary listeria outbreak in the late 1990s. Sorry to bring that up on this holiday. The Mr. Turkey Superstar set was issued in 1992 and featured a star player from each of the 26 major league teams at the time. Cards were printed on the meat carton and also sold individually by mailing into the company. (That seems a little more sanitary). As you can see, the cards are gloriously unlicensed with a pinstripe design. But the best part is it brands some well-known unpleasant players as certifiable turkeys! Darryl Strawberry is the Dodgers' ...

This is a continuation of yesterday's post concerning Topps' All-Time Fan Favorites sets from 2003-05. Check it out if you want to get up to speed. While tackling the opposite end of the All-Time Fan Favorites spectrum -- the least favorite of the favorites -- I realized something: If being well-liked is important to you, do not become a baseball broadcaster. Looking for "least-liked" in a set of supposed favorites isn't the easiest thing to do, but the cards that jumped out at me as people who have been criticized a time or two were almost always announcers. People are willing to dismiss your travails or faults if you play on a baseball field, but you better damn well be Vin Scully or Ernie Harwell if you are broadcasting. That was interesting to me. So, anyway, these are the 10 least favored fan favorites from the set, the "what the heck is this guy doing in here" people in the set. The "honorable mention" picks that just missed...