Night Owl Cards

  As horrifying as I find Twitter sometimes, there are couple of things it does better than other social media sites. One is the number of card people on that site who raise money for worthy causes, usually through selling cards. I don't often participate in these drives -- still waiting for the night owl fund-raiser so I can throw buckets of cash at cards -- but sometimes I find something that works for me and it feels good to grab a few cards and donate some dollars. I think I've mentioned KellysKards before here recently. He holds sales every once in awhile, and he's been donating to The Jed Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works in high schools and colleges focusing on mental health and preventing substance abuse.  I recently received some cards I selected -- they shipped very promptly -- through the Twitter bid process. This can get a little frustrating, because KellysKards sales are almost all inserts and parallels of notable players, which means people are ...

  Mercy it's cold out today. I don't like it when the furnace switches on in September. I'm surrounded by people who squawk about the heat so much that I equate warm weather with bitching, so I suppose I should be pleased others are now pleased. But, it's too damn cold for right now! Let's light a fire and get things heated.🔥 I bought a blaster of 2022 Topps Fire recently. Well, "bought" isn't exactly right. It was another gift-card purchase, because why would I be buying this set with my own cash? Some folks would prefer an ebay gift card over one from Target where your choices are limited, but here's the thing: I still trade with people. I need cards that they like. Having cards of all Dodgers is great for me, but it's not helping in trades at all (especially since I can think of at least five dormant Dodger blogs). I need inventory. So, even as I've cut way back on new cards the last few years, I still grab stuff like this once in awhil...

  Did you ever hear that often-repeated theory that players who appeared on baseball cards without hats were rumored to be traded or had been traded?   While that was probably true during the first 20 to 30 years of Topps cards, that was no longer an indicator in the wild-and-hairy 1980s.   I didn't realize there were so many cards of players missing caps from 1980-89. I suppose it's logical with more trading card companies than ever and Magnum P.I. on the TV. I just never noticed much, probably because I wasn't a kid any longer and no longer horrified by a card of a haircut.   I had to make some tough decision to get this down to just 12 of the best hat-less cards from the '80s. This was much tougher than the '70s, which was tougher than the '60s. Some of the most iconic cards of the '80s feature players without hats, and even some of those didn't make the list.   So here are 12 of the best, fully realizing that my list is not your list:     12. White...

  I've heard of, and even come across a time or two, people who collect only Topps cards. The reason seems to be that Topps is the premier card company in the land and their cards are superior to any competitors in their eyes. Some, I think, decided they can't be collecting other kinds of cards, it's too much. I wish I could have done that. I sometimes wish I was around 29 when I saw Donruss and Fleer cards for the first time in 1981. I think I'd be resistant to their charms if I was, and I'd be one of those "only Topps" guys to this day. But I was 15. I wanted new stuff and I thought I could collect everything. It was released, I needed to have it! That was my perspective at the time. And I'm paying for it now. My "m.o." ever since 1981, for years and years, was to try to get it all, or at least all the Dodgers. As the number of releases multiplied, I started to get burned out and I was done collecting by the mid-'90s. Even when I resume...

  So, yesterday I wanted to respond to someone with the last time I bought a pack of Topps Chrome. In case you didn't hear, Topps released its 2022 edition of Chrome last week and people are flipping the ef out. I am very glad I'm not in that rat race anymore and just on the chance I could get one person to see the light, I wanted to find out how long it's been since I actually sought out that stuff. I turned to my trusty blog. It's helped in this area countless times. Some bloggers don't have an archive where you can look up past posts or don't have a list of labels. I don't know how they get anything done. I realize there are "now" people on this planet, where only the most recent post matters and anything they've written in the past didn't happen, but I can't comprehend living like that. I need my research. I need to answer questions.   Thanks to the blog, I found out the last time I bought a pack of Chrome was 2019. I didn't end...

  I'm still working on the third of my series of Head Count posts, in which I show notable cards of hat-less players for each decade. The '60s and '70s were easy. The '80s, not so much, there is a lot to weed through. But at least it's not the '90s. In fact, that can be the 1980s motto: "at least we're not the 1990s!" It applies in cards, and in so much more. So, anyway, the '80s Head Count post is coming up. It'll be next week. But before I get to that, I wanted to relay something I thought was interesting (operative word: I) while looking through those '80s cards. There are several players who showed up repeatedly with their caps missing. This can only be an '80s phenomenon, or later decades, because with limited cards, you didn't get a ton of repeats in the "no hat" category. Maybe a player had three -- I can think of Billy Martin, for example. But it's nothing on the scale of the '80s. Certain players wer...