Night Owl Cards

I've been enjoying the leisurely pace of my vacation immensely. Since the other people in the house are still on their usual busy schedules, there was no opportunity to go anywhere special. And you know what that means. That means I get to stay home and play with my cards! Yay! Stay-cation! More like CARD-cation, am I riiiighhhtt??? The first few days have involved some cards, but they've mostly been occupied by the World Series and various errands and around-the-house tasks. However, the wife is headed out of town for a couple of days, meaning -- oh, glorious day -- cards take over the house. I plan on planting a giant box of cards in the center of the dining room table and going straight into a sorting binge. I'll also have the chance to search for cards for various people without being under the gun from this task or that one, or have that enormous work cloud tailing me throughout the live long day. And, of course, I can blissfully show off cards I've receiv...

Last month I mentioned a bunch of people who share my birthday and figured out whether they have their own cards. I came up with quite a few and a mini-collection was born. I decided to grab a card here and there of those born on July 16. I don't know if I want to fill another binder with another collection -- that whole space issue, you know. But getting something every once in awhile sounded fun. Well, supertrader Doug from Sportscards From The Dollar Store beat me to the punch. He has his own birthday collection and it's pretty robust . He got me started down that same path with a bunch of 7/16ers, many for which I've never owned a card or even heard of in some cases. It's not my birthday anymore and won't be for a long time. But let's see some other people who's birthday isn't for a long time, too, straight from The Dollar Store, I'm assuming: I'll start with the most famous first. These happen to be the first three Barry Sand...

I wrote an awkward, uninformed post more than seven years ago here about 10 players at the time who I wished were Dodgers. Out of those 10 players, four of the top five listed did eventually play for the Dodgers. The results weren't great for most of those guys who were once so desirous, namely Jim Thome, Josh Beckett and Jimmy Rollins. As a result, I'm a little less of a fan (although Thome can't be blamed). There is one of player on that list, though, who I still like quite a bit. Perhaps more now than ever. And that player is the "annoying" Chase Utley. Utley is "annoying" or perhaps even "evil" in the eyes of Mets fans, who were tormented by that player long before his slide into Ruben Tejada last postseason. He's made things miserable for Mets followers and done it with barely the hint of recognition, which I absolutely love. Those two home runs and the grand slam after Noah Syndergaard threw behind him (you can pretend that ...

I know I give the impression on here that all I care about is getting cards I didn't have. For the most part, when someone sends me cards, I feature only the cards that I needed. (Although there have been plenty of instances in which I've shown a card I thought I needed but actually already own). But that's mostly for my own purposes. I don't want to bore myself on here and sometimes coming up with something interesting to say about dupes isn't easy. The impression I give and the way I feel are two different things. In actuality, I'm just happy somebody sent me something. Really. After all these years. Somebody is sending me something and paying the postage out of their own free will. To little ol' night owl. Gosh, golly gee shucks. The rest is icing. No matter what cards are inside, I've already won. I may get a little more excited over cards I've been missing for a long time, but the package on my desk says "you're a winner,...

You know when one of those bloggers lists all of the zip codes on their outgoing packages? And you excitedly scan the list for your zip code? Finding your own zip code is a thrill I can't describe. It's almost like finding your name on the roster on cut day. But what if you find your zip code twice ? I wasn't prepared for that. Wasn't even a thought. It turns out it's a little bit different feeling than seeing that zip there once. And that feeling begins with: "Uh oh." I sat and stared at the list on Jaybarkerfan's Junk mentally determining where these cards were going to go, and how long it was going to take to file them, and what I was going to say about them. And then going through that process a second time, because my zip code was there TWICE. I was just about to make an appointment to get my eyes checked, when I heard this banging noise out on the porch. The mailman was putting all his force into getting the packages into what had...