Night Owl Cards

  I haven't written hardly anything about the passing of Willie Mays, except for a single tweet . Like everyone else, I marvel at his career, as best as I can for someone who saw none of it. He was on the wrong side of the Dodgers-Giants rivalry, too, so the best I can do is some version of "wow, look at those stats." But there were plenty of other people willing to pay tribute on social media. One of the off-shoot discussions that comes from such a significant player dying is "who is now the greatest living ballplayer?" Unlike many fans, I am not interested in talking about that. It's impossible to come to a conclusion. So maybe start another topic when we're sitting on the bar stool. Like who has the best pizza. The other topic was Mays being the last star of the '50s to leave the earth, the passing of an era. I don't know if I'm totally in agreement with that thinking. There are still plenty of big names who touched the 1950s still around....

  Well, that upgrade post from a couple of weeks ago gained some traction! Thanks to that post and the generosity of reader Paul, I've been able to make some progress on an upgrade project that's been in the back of my head ever since I returned to collecting. I've mentioned before that my collecting return was sparked by a couple of instances: 1) Finding Topps' All-Time Fan Favorites cards from 2004 in the toy department of a K-Mart in Buffalo; and 2) Building the 1975 Topps set from a pawn shop downtown. I'd go to the pawn shop (it's long gone, by the way) on my lunch break or in the afternoon on a day off and leaf through the one dealer's card offerings. He had almost the entire set of '75s in boxes on one glass display counter, and behind me was another couple of boxes of vintage cards, mostly stuff from the '60s or early '70s, on another counter. And in the glass display were all kinds of cards I couldn't afford then (but probably coul...

  It was the summer of 1986. I was working for my college's food services. I had gotten the key job of grilling hot dogs outside. It was just me and Kathy D., who would cash out customers, three times a week from 11 am.-2 p.m., serving up dogs under the sunshine. I was interested in Kathy D., the way I was interested in any college girl who said two words to me. But Talking Heads concert movie fan, Jason S., was interested in her, too. While we were working, he would stop by just to yammer at her. He'd riff on lyrics from the "Stop Making Sense" movie. I hadn't seen the movie, but I had the album that went along with it (the cassette actually). I mentioned that, and Jason S. said, "you need to watch the movie." I finally did and I'm glad I did. I've always been a music guy over being a movie guy. But this was a perfect blend of both. It's considered one of the greatest concert movies of all-time and so groundbreaking that the 40th anniversary...

  Father's Day ended in pretty sucky fashion yesterday. Right in the middle of a dinner prepared to my specific requests, I heard hushed voices coming from my laptop over in the living room. I ignored it for a little bit -- I really like burgers and deviled eggs -- but it kept hushing and I had to go and check it out. There I saw people hunched over Mookie Betts, who was having difficulty getting up. I couldn't see the number so I couldn't tell who it was, I just knew it was a Black man. It didn't seem like Jason Heyward, not large enough. It didn't seem like Teoscar Hernandez, not enough beard. Finally I saw the name and, well, that's how you ruin Father's Day. Thanks a lot, Dan Altavilla, who I had never heard of until yesterday. I used to write about the Dodgers as a fan quite a bit on this blog. A lot of rah-rah rooting stuff. I moved away from it because I never felt comfortable with it and focusing more on cards seemed more natural. But I am still a Do...

  I often think that I like too many card things and I need to rein it in. But here's a list of items often sold at card shows that will make me ignore your table: -- Unopened, sealed product -- Pokemon, Magic the Gathering or any fantasy or modern movie cards -- Basketball cards -- Non-vintage football or hockey cards -- Anything slabbed, especially rows and rows and rows of slabbed cards -- Big displays of relic cards or autographed cards or patch cards -- Discount boxes that contain mostly cards from the '90s -- Bowman anything -- Card supplies (unless I am specifically in the need for something)   Presented that way there are actually many more card things that I don't like.   What I just listed was probably 80-90 percent of inventory at the monthly card show that I attended yesterday. It's getting to be a pattern and I've mentioned it a few times in past posts. And it's not just this show, this show is a microcosm of the current hobby and card show scene. ...