Night Owl Cards

It's pretty well established that I have little use for Panini products. I'm primarily a baseball collector, so I don't collect what seems to be Panini's better efforts in basketball and football. I've written about Panini's baseball short-comings time and again, the unappealing designs, the lack of logos, the inability to present that lack of logos in any kind of pleasing manner (cutting off the tops of heads? Come on), the poorly constructed card backs. Panini has made exactly one set that I've liked enough to collect, 2013 Hometown Heroes. And, of course, that had to be a one-off set because why should Panini continue anything worthwhile? There are exceptions here and there to be sure. Some of the Donruss inserts are fancy and nice. I'm coming around, a little, on its 2014 Golden Age set. And I've always tolerated Panini's Diamond Kings set because it's filled with legend players and they don't seem to be hampered by the inabi...

Here's some branding news for the blog: Night Owl Cards has its own business cards! The business cards feature the new logo for Night Owl Cards. I'll probably periodically distribute these with trades so I can look a bit more professional than the traditional "scrawled-on-a-cut-up-piece-of-paper" notes that I've been using for the last decade. The cards look particularly sweet, I think, because, like the logo, it was designed by my daughter, who is a college graphic design major. You should have seen me stumbling along with my business-card graphic concept until she took it over and devised something waaaaaaaay better almost instantaneously. Like all good two-dimensional cards, the business cards have informational backs, as well. That's everything you need to know when dealing with me. My primary objective with the cards was simply to get the logo some publicity. Since Blogger makes it difficult to present the new NOC logo front-and-cente...

How about that Mookie Betts? I spent a good while last night reveling in everything that people had told me all spring and into the summer: a) Mookie Betts will never play for the Dodgers or: b) Enjoy Mookie Betts' 60 games with the Dodgers. Ha, ha! I have news of a 12-year deal for you as my response! And as for never playing for the Dodgers, perhaps you missed last night's game, in which he was instrumental in the Dodgers' 8-1 opening victory. I consider yesterday's game a late birthday present. Just about anything good that happens this month I consider a birthday gift. It's pretty much a birthday month when your birthday is in July. I've still got stuff coming from birthday money I received, and vacations allow me to enjoy my birthday and then extend that through more time off. And then people send me packages, which sometimes I have a sneaking suspicion are birthday-related. Last week, while I was away for a couple of days, an envelope ...

Hey, guys, remember this? Opening Day? Baseball? Sitting in front of the TV for five hours? Oh, how I missed it. I know, I know, it's not the same. Part of me is wondering why -- since MLB has gone ahead with youth league staples like the universal DH and starting a runner on second in extra innings -- don't we just add a tee at the plate and go full T-ball rules? After all, the crowds will be about the same for this year's games as a typical T-ball game. But I won't let the modifications ruin it for me. I am overlooking A LOT in order to be happy that Major League Baseball returns to my TV tonight. It takes the most optimistic Baltimore Orioles fan in spring training to believe we're going to get through this entire season and postseason intact, but this is what baseball fans do. Reality is for those super-serious, no-fun, stick-up-their-butts. Baseball, and sports in general, is for fans who know fun when they see it and want to be a part of it. That...