Night Owl Cards

When I first started collecting, there was one set to collect each year and that was it. When I first returned to collecting, there was one set to collect and that was it, too, because that's what I knew. I returned to the hobby by attempting to complete the first card set of my youth, the 1975 Topps set. I had no interest in any other cards (nor really the knowledge of what was out there). I was focused. Slowly, that focus faded and I collected more and varied cards. Then I started a blog, and that blew the doors down. I tried to remain steadfast to a few key missions: whatever '70s or '80s set I was trying to complete and Dodgers. But as the years passed, more and more interesting cards arrived. The collection expanded. Let's face it: I've been doing this a long time, and knowledge can be a dangerous thing when it comes to wanting cards. So it is that we come to my latest COMC order. It's the annual order I place before the Christmas season hits, befo...

When the 1979 baseball cards hit store shelves, my hatred for the Yankees was as high as it had ever been and perhaps has been since. The previous season, the Yankees had rallied to surpass my second favorite team and my brother's favorite team, the Red Sox, to make the playoffs, then defeated another favorite, the Royals, for the third straight time to reach the World Series, then beat my favorite team for a second straight time, the Dodgers. Hated them. Bucky f-ing Dent, Reggie Jackson's hip, Graig Nettles' glove, the smug, self-satisfied classmates. All of them. That feeling lasts to this day. But that doesn't mean I can't enjoy Yankees cards. Growing up in the Northeast, in Yankee territory, there were just parts of my childhood that are stamped with Yankeeness. The instrumental theme song before every game. The 1978 Yankee yearbook acquired when I saw my first MLB game in person. And, of course, the Yankee Burger King cards. Ideally, I would ha...

Some time ago I made an effort to keep my trade posts down to a one package/one post format. No more epic trade posts. For the most part, that has worked pretty well. It takes a lot of thinking and creativity to do that -- especially if I'm not going to put a post title up that says "Cards from 'fill in the blank.'" But part of me WANTS to put up a post title that says "Cards from 'fill in the blank.'" What a relief that must be! No topics. No tie-ins. No rants. No clever references. Just cards -- from "fill in the blank.'" Well, here's my opportunity. Because cards have been piling up on my desk so fast that I've got to get them scanned and posted or they're going to start spilling on to the floor and then the dog is going to eat them when I'm not looking and you don't want that. No one wants that. So here are some cards, from ... well ... from everywhere. Literally. I'll start in the deep south...