Night Owl Cards

I've been out of town the last few days and finally return Saturday afternoon. For the first time since I began the blog, I wrote regularly scheduled posts for the days that I was gone. It worked relatively well. I'm not crazy about writing in advance when I don't know what's going to happen. It tends to make some of the posts a little stale. While I was gone, I tried to stay updated on all of your blogs via my cell, which is quite the frustrating experience at times. I don't know how you regulars do it. But then my battery died and I completely missed anything that happened Friday. Edwin Jackson's eight-walk no-hitter was news to me until about 2 p.m. Saturday. I didn't know about Carlos Zambrano's meltdown until about an hour after that. But the oldest bit of news that I knew nothing of until Saturday was the 11-hour match victory by American John Isner at Wimbledon. How on earth did no one mention that on their blog? ELEVEN HOURS! Perhaps I missed ...

During my carefree days before I began this blog, but immediately after I discovered that people were blogging about baseball cards, there was only one card blog that I knew and read. At this time two years ago, any free evening included a visit to The Baseball Card Blog . I don't know if it was the first card blog -- I'm not going to get into that garbage -- but it was the first one for me, and for a lot of people. Ben Henry shared my fascination for cards and, unlike some other veteran card blogs of the time, his interests were my interests. He liked cards from the '70s, he liked vintage cards, he liked dissecting them in brutally precise fashion, and he was amusing in the process. During that summer of 2008, when I wasn't focused on 200 other blogs and writing two blogs myself, The Baseball Card Blog continued a long-running countdown of the worst-to-best sets during what some would call the golden era of wax, 1948-1979. I found that countdown very interesting a...

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have all of the mistakes that you made at your place of work put on display in front of millions of people? Or how about not just the mistakes? How about the times when you appeared momentarily unsure, confused or hesitant? Perhaps you had a goofy look on your face -- as you tried to fix the paper jam in the printer -- and it gets captured on film for all of the world to gawk at, examine and even ridicule. This particular night card of Rick Miller, from 1981 Fleer, was suggested by a reader for my awesome night card series. He said Miller looked perplexed. He certainly does. Miller appears as if he is getting a sign from the third base coach. He seems very focused. Maybe he's confused. Maybe he's hard of seeing. I don't know. But I do know that Miller is frozen in time forever, staring at something, looking vaguely stupid, only because we don't know the context of the situation. Whenever I think of ...

About one year ago, I did my first ginormous trade post, combining several trades together. I am sure that at least a few people consider lumping several trades into one monster post as "tacky." To those people, I say "bite me." The massive trade post is my way of accomplishing several things at once. Specifically, I am able to contribute non-trade blog content while still thanking my fellow collectors for sending much needed cards my way. If I didn't do things this way, you would be subjected to a never ending stream of trade posts. There wouldn't be room for anything else. So, as much as I would like to devote a single post to every single trade, I can't. It wouldn't achieve what I wanted to achieve and the blog would cease to be entertaining. Besides one giant, massive trade post is FUN! It's EXCESS. We Americans like excess, don't we? Who doesn't love a deep-fried Snickers bar? Mashed potatoes on a hamburger? Gold foil on e...

One of the best parts of card collecting, for me, is that it connects me with my childhood. I can't imagine what it would be like to collect as an adult but not as a kid. That's such a weird concept. For those of you who are in touch with your inner child (there are too few of those people, I believe), you probably have cards in which the very sight of them takes you back to what you felt, heard and saw when you had that card as a kid. It is a major emotional rush. At least it is for me. I have replayed those cardboard emotions in my head so many times that the actual moment is often lost, clouded by a series of memories repeated by a 40-year-old man. Fortunately, there are still triggers that will take me immediately to my childhood days. For each of the five senses, I can think of one particular instance that will tap into my 10-year-old self and everything that I was thinking at the time. Here they are: 1. Taste: An Oscar Mayer baloney sandwic...

It's been a rainy day here and there's more rain in the forecast for today. But in the midst of vacation, I'm on a little summer nostalgia kick, thinking about the warm, sunny weather and playing baseball in the yard when I was a kid. The only reason this Beckham "When They Were Young" card is featured here is because out of all the WTWY cards, this is the one that looks the most like me when I was little. Actually, it looks a lot like my brother. Beckham, in his current state, bears a slight resemblance to my brother. Very slight. When we were kids, we used any excuse to play baseball. I'm realizing how different it was back then. Sure, we had organized baseball teams and leagues, but you didn't need organization to play ball then. Whenever we could, we would find our neighborhood friends and head to the local high school field and play baseball. If we didn't have the time to do that, we'd play ball in the yard, or play catch on t...

This trade map has worked quite well so far. Since the last time it made an appearance, less than a month ago, I've added two more states. All of states shaded in blue include residents who have sent me cards. The two dark blue states -- Colorado and New Hampshire -- are the most recent additions to the map. Also, in response to Captain Canuck whining about being left out, I have colored Alaska red. No, it's not Canada, and, yes, there are other states closer to Alberta than Alaska, but that's as far as I'm going. Send me some cards, CC, and maybe I'll color Montana red. I am very happy to fill in Colorado. I found a Rockies fan and sent her some cards that were beating down the door to get out of my collection. Shelliebee mentioned the trade on her blog long ago, so it's about time I get around to reciprocating (that's your big word for the day). The cards from New Hampshire came from Section 36 . He's a Red Sox fan, as every resident of the Granit...