Night Owl Cards

  Just a few minor things to mention today, nothing that will appeal much on its own. Readers seem to be catching up on outside time anyway. I took a look at my two stacks of 2024 Topps flagship sitting on my card desk and they looked pretty high. That inspired me to add my wants to TCDB and, in a flash, I'm down to the final 40 cards to finish the set. I barely had to lift a finger, except to search for the cards requested in exchange, which always can be fraught with peril. My remaining wants are on TCDB but I'll put them here as well. Per usual, guys like Elly De La Cruz and Aaron Judge aren't popping up in trades. Topps couldn't possibly double-print those guys now could it? So here's the list ( List edited as of 9/8) : 141 - Elly De La Cruz, 375 - Matt Vierling, 442- Shota Imanaga, 593 - Carlos Rodon, Wilyer Abreu, 695 - Kyle Gibson Also I haven't accounted for needing a second Dodger card for Series 2 on TCDB so add 492 - J.D. Martinez, 500 - Shohei Ohtani...

  In my current state of gathering 1988 Donruss (down to one card as of today!), I was reminded of a border feature from the mid-'80s to early '90s on those Donruss sets. The border patterns lined up if you positioned the cards just so. So I did it, just to finally see what junk wax fans were talking about and ... yeah, to get an easy blog post. The first four Donruss sets all featured white borders, but in 1985 it started go with colored borders and it also started doodling inside the borders. I was not a fan of Donruss doodling, as I've said many times most of those '80s Donruss sets just don't look that professional to me, compared with their counterparts at the time. But I'm not above collecting them or lining them up. The 1985 set featured black borders and red racing stripes that you could line up with any other card. Then in 1986, Donruss decided to just put lines all over the entire card. It's pretty easy to line these up with approximately 100 lines...

Topps Heritage is scheduled for release on St. Patrick's Day. Although I enjoy the 1972 design a lot -- have I mentioned I've completed that set? --  I won't be buying much of this year's Heritage, probably no more than a sampling. I'm still too involved with 2020 Heritage, because that's how long it takes for a rational collector to complete a Heritage set. Actually it takes longer than that: I'm still trying to finish 2008 Heritage. But I've gotten a lot farther on 2020 Heritage than I ever imaged at this time last year. Recently I received six needed cards from the set from reader Ben. He sent a very nice "thanks for blogging" package and you'll see the rest of the goodies another day. This card put me four cards away from completing the non-short-printed portion of the set. That's pretty damn good for someone who hasn't seen much of this set for sale since a year ago at this time.   The rest of the Heritage cards in the package ...

Today you're all focused on Game 7 of the World Series (or should be). I am, too, although part of me has turned to mush because that's what every Oct. 29th does to me. But I try to convert this mushy holiday in which I met my girlfriend for life into something about baseball cards every year. And since that special Oct. 29 came in 1987, I figured that's the best time to feature the sets of 1987 in the Best Set Of The Year series. In this series I arbitrarily rank the sets issued each year from 1981 forward. Since we're at 1987 now, we've stepped squarely into the junk wax era. Topps, Donruss and Fleer were all very prominent in 1987. Sportflics also issued their second set (and the first one that I ever saw). But I don't consider Sportflics a major set, so I'm excluding them. I'm a little hesitant to rank these just because '87 sets seem much beloved by the 30-something crowd and I'm entirely too dismissive of sets from the late '80...

I am one of Alyssa Milano's 80 bajillion followers on Twitter. I don't know why really. I don't have much interest in her tweets, even though she is a rabid, rabid tweeter. I think I was hoping she'd tweet about the Dodgers a little more often -- seeing as she's a diehard fan. But I think I know why she doesn't tweet about the Dodgers a whole lot. From being a follower, I've learned that she is relentlessly positive, and there AIN'T NOTHING POSITIVE about the Dodgers. If I had to guess at her reaction to my team's absolute pathetic discarding of a 7-run 8th-inning lead, I'd say it'd be something short and not-so-sweet. Like "crap," or, more likely, something that would violate the Twitter character limit, like: "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I know Alyssa, I know. Right. There. With. Ya. Really, it...