Night Owl Cards

I'm still a little bit obsessed with the "new" sorting method for my sets -- sorting them by last digit instead of first digit. So I decided I'd continue the experiment with the 2019 sets that I'm organizing this month. November is the month when I start "putting away" the year's current sets, which means cataloging, sorting and stashing. Why not try each method and time myself with each set? So the latest set is 2019 Big League. Here are the times for the old way (hundreds, then tens, then ones) and then the new way (last digit, then middle digit, then first digit): Old way: 16 minutes, 6.84 seconds New way: 14 minutes, 14.71 seconds. That 14-minute mark is the shortest time frame yet in the few times I've done this. So I'm curious to see how things will go with future 2019 sets. The reason why I'm curious about this sorting method is because -- I LOVE SORTING. In fact, this is the very sentence I practically said out ...

I haven't gotten very far on my research of legends players in Topps products over the years. Like most card research, it gets more complicated the more you look into it. Some legends appear only in the base set but other legends pop up in the autograph checklist only or the relic checklist only or the cut signatures checklist only. I still plan to get as exhaustive as I can but for now I'm going to focus on one guy and one year only. I'm happy that Pee Wee Reese is back as a legend in Topps products in 2019. If you've been paying attention over the last few years, only certain legends players show up in products year after year after year. Players like Hank Aaron, Cal Ripken, Sandy Koufax, Reggie Jackson and Jackie Robinson are consistently in sets every year, so consistent that you'd rather never pull another new card of theirs again. But then there are legends players that when you pull their card, you all of a sudden realize that you pulled their ca...

My story on John Wockenfuss appeared in the newspaper Sunday. I believe you can read it here . I don't think the paywall kicks in until after the first few articles. ... ... So, read it? Not all ballgames and butterflies, huh? We collectors like to romanticize our baseball players, but life doesn't care whether "John Wockenfuss" is fun to pronounce or that his batting stance was goofy. I knew that Wockenfuss had dementia before I even called to set up an interview. I was told it was in the early stages, but I didn't know exactly what I'd find. How successful would I be communicating with him? I've dealt with difficult interviews in the past. I once was assigned to interview a deaf person while in college. I tried to interview over the phone an elderly man living in Arkansas who had a hearing problem. That didn't work. Also, when trying to talk to a high school athlete, you never know what you'll get. Sometimes I'd listen to my re...

When I first started my quest to complete the 1976 Kellogg's 3D set, I also kicked off an attempt to complete the 1976 Hostess set. Both food-issue sets, issued during the Bicentennial, are among the most patriotic-looking collections ever made. Each card is like a mini flag. The Kellogg's set is particularly ingenious because it features both stripes -- the border traveling around the card -- and stars. The word "stars" is at the top of every card and each of the player's shown is a star! God bless America. I've chased after each set with enthusiasm, because I was 10 years old during the Bicentennial and stuff issued that year couldn't possibly be cooler. However, I've done much better with the Kellogg's set than the Hostess set. The Hostess set is larger and more prone to stains (one of my least favorite condition issues). Hostess also contains well-known short-prints. I thought Kellogg's had no short-prints. But I only recently di...

Ever since Mike Trout has come into the majors, I've had no problem pulling his cards. I've tried to complete only one Topps flagship set since Trout's 2011 arrival -- the 2015 set -- yet even while just sampling flagship every other year, I've pulled Trout's base card almost every year. I also seem to pull his inserts a lot, probably not saying much since he's likely in every single insert Topps makes, but still they seem to come out of my packs abnormally so. But this year, I have not pulled his flagship card. I don't even know what it looks like. OK, I just looked it up. I now know what it looks like. Anyway, I'm mentioning Trout cards because he's the AL MVP (again) and after my NL award winners post , I've decided to take a commenter up on his offer and go through the American League teams as far as which team has totaled the most MVP awards. And then I'll list the Cy Young and Rookie of the Year tallies as well. My enthusia...

Once upon a time I was all about the postseason awards. I couldn't wait to see who won the MVP award or the Cy Young. I remember reading in the newspaper about Rod Carew winning the American League MVP in 1977 and George Foster winning the National League MVP. It was a big deal, a moment big in my brain. But these days I've kind of lost touch with the baseball awards. I think it doesn't help that baseball has delayed them a full week from when they used to announce them. It also doesn't help when they announce "the top three candidates" ahead of time so you already know who the top three are. Kind of takes some of the suspense away. But overall I think it's because I just don't care too much about present-day ballplayers. And awards are very individualistic. It's a vehicle for the hype machine and we have to hear again about how Mike Trout is the greatest baseball specimen who ever walked the earth. However, I still have that little kid in...

For awhile there, I was a bit miffed over the reaction to Tuesday's post. I'm aware that there aren't as many set collectors as there once was and especially on the blogs it seems to be a very rare breed -- much rarer than it once was. But I expected more than one person to be at least a little amazed by the different path to putting a set in order by card number, especially since all I ever heard from set collectors prior was there's just that one way to skin a cat. I should know by now that there is no guarantee when it comes to blog comments. But I think this is the new normal. Everything on the blogs is down these days: comments, views, number of posts by other bloggers, trades, cards arriving in the mail from other bloggers, just general enthusiasm for the card blogging life, down, down, down, down. The interesting thing is that I've noticed the latest downturn (there have been several over the last eight years or so) within the last year. If you go ...