Night Owl Cards

A number of bloggers have observed that Topps has zoomed out a bit on their subjects in the 2017 flagship set, and isn't it about time? After five years of viewing every bead of sweat on a batter and every nostril hair on a pitcher, we mercifully are starting to see almost all of a player's limbs again. Here are a couple of examples of the difference between this year and last year: That's not to say that it's a drastic change or even close to what I'd like to see, but it's progress. How much progress there will be in the future in this area, I have my doubts. You see, Major League Baseball is obsessed these days with action. They are trying to convince people -- people who barely watch the sport, I might add -- that baseball is nonstop action. And to force that action, it wants to artificially speed up the game by adding pitch clocks and other such nonsense. Baseball, by its nature, is full of ebb and flow. That's what baseball is . If...

(Greetings on "Waffle Day". A week or so ago I read about somebody putting brownie batter in their waffle maker and I haven't been able to think about anything else since. It's time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 253rd in a series): Yesterday was Garry Templeton's birthday. Ballplayers' birthdays are always a nice occasion to dig out the birthday boy's card and showcase it on social media. I chose this particular card because everyone had already shown the rookie cup Templeton card and because who doesn't appreciate the very cool stat of one player getting 100 hits from each side of the plate in a single season? I've known about Templeton's feat since it happened, it was kind of a big deal. And the record breaker card always helps hammer the achievement home in my memory. I started to wonder what other switch-hitters had achieved 100 hits on both sides of the plate since Templeton. I had known that Willie Wilson had accompli...

By work and cards! March has always been an assault on the senses around here and as I continue to climb out from underneath job and family demands, I am now facing a bombardment of cardboard. I was greeted by an entire year's worth of cards a couple days ago. I'll explain what I mean in  more detail next week but the whole thing is taking awhile to process. Then, yesterday, I was tackled by a maxi package of minis (again, I'll explain more next week). And today, I was warned that I would be visited by 1984! As a reader of Orwell in 10th grade, I don't like the sounds of that. But I've been assured it's good news. In between that deluge and a spring sports special section that must be completed by Monday at work (spring! ha!), I thought I should squeeze in some smaller packages that I've received over the last week or two. Besides, it's been an entire week since I've written a Dodger-centric post. How are people going to know I collect Dodge...

I finally requested shipment of this card today. It had sat in my COMC cart forever and there is no reason that it should have escaped me for so long, too many card interests or not. This card, to me, is confirmation -- proof, if you will -- that Mark Fidrych did, indeed, smooth the mound from his knees in the middle of pitching a game. My brain, even without this act appearing on a card, knows that Fidrych did this. I read about it in the newspapers and The Sporting News when I was a kid in 1976. I saw it on television. I can go back and watch his mound maintenance on youtube. There might be even be a picture of him doing it in an old Baseball Digest I have stashed somewhere. But you know the media. Fake news. They lie. Cards is where you can find the truth. OK, I'm being facetious. But, really, as a kid growing up in the '70s, visual evidence was limited. There were pictures in the newspaper -- and let me tell you, photos of Detroit Tigers in upstate New York wer...