Night Owl Cards

I am making enough progress in starting my Greatest 100 Cards of the '80s countdown that I think I can start cutting candidates down to the final 100 fairly soon. It's all a bit muddled now because I've been reviewing the '80s sets in order from the start of the decade to the end of the decade and I'm currently in the middle of an evaluating disaster, also known as the overproduction era. There were just so many cards between 1986-89, almost too many to process in any kind of objective manner. Not that there is any threat of this happening, but I will never do a top 100 cards of the '90s countdown because trying to trim that specific card avalanche to a final 100 would finish me off. I've pretty much gotten through 1986 and 1987 -- again, it's a bit murky -- and am in the middle of 1988, and I am discovering that I am in disagreement with a lot of previous "great 1980s cards" countdowns. It has to do with cards like this: I don...

I have been running this blog for long enough that I have received cards from all kinds of places -- even overseas locations where I didn't even know they knew about baseball -- and all kinds of people from all walks of life. The blog has also led me to interactions with former pro baseball players, as well as members of their families. But I'm not sure if I've ever traded with an ex-ball player. No, I didn't get cards from Tracy Woodson. Don't be so literal. But I did receive cards from someone Woodson managed! A guy named Michael contacted me recently about some cards he had for me. Michael pitched in the New York-Penn League during the late 1990s and mentioned that while he was playing for the team, he passed through Watertown, N.Y., and appeared in both ends of a doubleheader. I looked through the archives of my newspaper and found a report on the games he mentioned and emailed him a copy of the story (unfortunately, his name wasn't in the story...

If I had held off just a couple more days, I could have done what I wanted to do, which was package both of my Project 2020 acquisitions in one post. Little did I know that as I was writing about how I was still waiting for the one Project 2020 card that I had purchased (the other was a gift), that it was already on its way to me, likely being shipped out that very day. Let's take a good look at the Project 2020 card that I wanted so much that I threw the required $19.99 at it: My goodness, that's a beauty. I'm not sure if one of the primary reasons I enjoy the card stands out against a black background, so here's another view: Maybe that stands out a little better? I don't know. The best view would be if I pulled it out of its magnet holder and scanned it in all its naked glory. But I've already decided that I will keep both the Koufax and the Robinson in their holders. I plan to display the two cards -- and this is a first for me, becaus...

Out of the two main ways that I collect -- set collecting and team collecting -- the one that is suffering the most from the sudden surge in trading card popularity is team collecting. Not only am I not able to head down to the local big box and open some packs in search of my favorite teams -- this is still my favorite way to open cards, and it will always be that way -- but looking online for team sets is starting to get more difficult, too. This would be a good time to become a Marlins fan because searching for available 2020 Dodgers team sets is not always successful. So, that definitely sucks. Set collecting, I can get by. I don't want to collect any ugly ol' 2020 sets anyway. But team collecting, my objective is to get anything and everything. But I can't do it -- and it's less fun to do so -- if I have to turn it into a major project. I won't stand in lines and I won't get into bidding wars to get my Dodger cards. So, what's that leave? G...