Night Owl Cards

  Something that Johnny's Trading Spot wrote on one of his recent posts got me curious. He mentioned his ranking on Trading Card Database in terms of all cards entered -- or how many cards you have in your collection, according to TCDB.   I knew all about totaling your collection on the site, but I didn't know you could compare it with other TCDBers' total collections the way you can with total cards of players in your collection or total cards of teams in your collection.   I was immediately intrigued -- and had no idea how to find that information. I looked around for a little bit before my patience ran out after 5 minutes and I emailed Johnny. Turns out it's way at the bottom of TCDB's main page where the columns of links are listed. In the last column is a link called "Stats," which is where I found the info.   Here are the bad boys who lead the way:   Good grief, that's a lot of cards.    I knew right away that I wouldn't be anywhere near the...

  When I was a high school senior, I took like three math classes. I don't know why, I must have been deranged. The same teacher taught all three classes. He was your typical early '80s high school math teacher. With dark hair and a mustache, he kind of looked like Burt Reynolds, if Reynolds was not quite as dashing, dressed in a way that attracted chalk and mumbled odd sayings that seemed to amuse only himself. The classes were tough, we all thought they were and, as teenagers do, we made fun of him outside of class. It wasn't a class you could act up in -- he had a bit of a temper -- so we grumbled about our teacher at lunch or in the hallways.   I can still see him turning from the chalkboard to face the class, hands outstretched with chalk in one hand and eraser in the other and saying something that summed up what he had just written that we couldn't decipher and then he'd blink several times. One of his many sayings, really the only I can remember was "qu...

Like any collection, things can get a little stale if you don't mix it up a little bit. I like my Night Card Binder to have as much variety as possible. Unlike most sets in which you collect one card of each number in the set, or even in the majority of frankensets, the Night Card Binder features a wide and disparate accumulation of cards. The only attributes they have in common are that they feature baseball players and have a number on the back. ... Oh, and the picture features a game played at night. So, it is with great pleasure that I add my first Sportflics night card to the binder! This card came from Bo at Baseball Cards Come to Life , I believe. He's a key supplier of night cards. It's a card of White Sox reliever Bob James, who enjoyed his crowning season in 1985. He saved 32 games in 69 appearances with a 2.13 ERA. It was all uphill to get to that point and downhill from there. Why James was in the majors as early as 1978 and didn't get his fir...

I wouldn't be a proper night owl if I didn't post a night card of a terrified-looking Ernie Johnson on Halloween. I'm not sure what's happening to Johnson's batterymate during this particular moment, but it seems really heinous. This artful '55 Bowman item arrived from dayf , of course. He's the only I know who has cards like this just lying around that he can send. The card is so phenomenal that it's uprooting the status quo: 1. If I'm going to alter the header on the blog a little, does EJ deserve a coveted spot up there? 2. If the card is going in the night card binder, I'm going to have to find an 8-pocket page. I'll have to think about No. 1. I'm not sure who I'd boot off to add the Johnson card. I'll address No. 2 at the end of the post. The greatness of '55 Bowmans does not end with the card fronts as the card back countdown taught us. Ernie's little story about the greatest hitter he's ever seen giv...

I received this card in the mail on Friday from Chris of the always interesting Project '62 blog. It's a black-bordered UD Masterpieces card of James Loney. It's quite nice. The bordered cards are a good reason to chase Masterpieces, because the base cards alone would never make me buy more than a single blaster of the stuff (and that's exactly what I did in '08. I bought one blaster and a handful of packs). It's the first bordered Masterpieces card of a Dodger that I've owned. But some of you may be disgusted by the fact that I'm sending this card to Chris in return: You're saying: Cal Ripken for James Loney???? A Hall of Famer and legend for a guy who is just starting out and was a semi-constant topic of trade rumors this offseason???? Are you out of your mind? Are you lucid? And can I trade with you because you obviously don't have a clue???? Well, listen. I went through that whole "what's it worth?" and "I'll only trad...