Night Owl Cards

  The internet has a great way of providing something you have always wanted, or never even imagined possible ... and then eventually ruining it.   I experienced this great disappointment in duplicate in 2025. Two sites, so entrenched in my entertainment preferences for so many years, had evolved so far away from what I had valued them for that I could no longer ignore it.   I am struggling now to separate myself from one of them, which is Spotify. I have used the streaming site daily for the last four or five years, it has been where I discover new music and how I determine my favorite songs and albums of the year. So getting away from that and finding a new option (I'm trying Tidal right now but it is not cooperating with me) is going to take awhile.   The other site I hope is more of a clean break. In fact, I have already declared in multiple places that I have made my final order on COMC. I hope that remains true.   I have been ordering from COMC since late ...

It doesn't take more than a couple of minutes of online searching to find a study on how childhood personality and tendencies can predict adult behavior. First you have to weed out the links that pop up immediately that make you fear for our society -- is your child a sex abuser/serial killer? Then you come to the inevitable scientific and scholarly studies. But what about children and cardboard? What does their physical treatment of cardboard say about their behavior as adults? Well, sadly, I believe there is no study on that. So I'll have to invent my own observations and conclusions based on absolutely nothing. Take this 1972 Jim York card with the corners cut off. What does that say about the kid's future adult self? I looked up the genesis of the "cutting corners" phrase, and it refers to any kind of traveling -- taking a quicker, potentially more peril-filled diagonal path rather than following the lines and turning the corner. So did this York co...

There's been a lot of talk about age in the sports world lately. With the deaths of Bob Welch, Tony Gwynn and Chuck Noll, you've heard the following in casual conversations: "He was too young." "He lived a long and good life." "I'm not that much younger than he was." We are obsessed with age, which really means we are obsessed with death. And death is why we are very obsessed with youth. And by "we" I mean the whole damn nation, maybe the whole damn world. In case you haven't noticed, this is a youth-driven culture. Nobody reads anything, looks at anything, mentions anything unless it involves someone young: News break: 55-year-old woman robs bank with husband. Everyone: Meh. News break : 14-year-old girl robs bank while carrying 3-year-old she was babysitting. Everyone: Was she hot? This is the world in which we live. It is particularly apparent online. Check out virtually any news site that is not connecte...

I wasn't going to post today. I don't have very much time and my muse was out to the shop. So I was going to leave you to stare at Pacific cards for another day. But sometimes, all you have to do is open an envelope and the words just pour out -- which is rather interesting because if I was to express myself in person about what I just pulled out of that envelope it would be "uhb, uhb, uhb, uhb, uhb, uhb, uhb, uhb, uhb, uhb, uhb ..." to infinity. Sheer flabbergastedness. David sent me another little package. He's already provided great stuff like '84 Donruss, '77 Topps, '72 Topps, and a few '56s like the one you see here of Ed Yost. One of the cartoons on the back amused me. But the Yost really was the lowlight of the package. And, yes, I know I just did a grave disservice to the hobby by calling a '56 card a "lowlight." But you'll understand soon. Here is another card out of the package. Dave threatened to se...

A few months ago, I announced that I was going to feature "The Best Glasses On Baseball Cards. Period" countdown in April. I figured that would give me enough time to search out the cards that I needed for an appropriately classic countdown. Unfortunately, a few things happened. First, life threw me a few curves. I've been dealing with them ever since. Also, I wasn't able to track down any glasses cards at the last card show because other objectives interfered. So, here I am, three days away from the end of April, and this countdown ain't happening this month. But it WILL happen. I just need some more time to round up a few more cards. Besides, a new contender heard there was a contest and wanted to enter so badly that it found its way to my home. Carl Crawford Cards realized that the countdown includes only cards that are in my possession. So, he put a 1933 Goudey card into my possession. Here it is: Holy octagon. Is there any reas...

I began collecting as a kid in the mid-1970s. I knew '74, '75 and '76 Topps intimately. They were all around me. If I saw a picture of a baseball player, it was often framed in pennant flags, or brightly colored two-tone borders, or featured a tiny drawing of an anonymous player fielding his position. Early '70s cards were old and unattainable. Only grown-up collectors -- which to my 10-year-old eyes also included teenagers -- had cards like these. But one of my friends had this beat up Fred Norman card from the 1970 Topps set. He wasn't interested in baseball, so the card was mine. For three or four years, the Norman card was The Oldest Card I Own. This was an important aspect of my collection. I think it was for everyone at that time. It was a marker of exactly how serious you were as a collector. The older the card, the more serious the collection. That way of thinking doesn't fly quite as much today, with all the mojo box breakers out their salivati...