Night Owl Cards

  Over recent years, I've often seen online people joking, or being serious, about moving to Canada, due to various reasons related to the government or politics.   I have no desire to move to Canada, even the thought of one day when I retire moving elsewhere within the state sounds overwhelming. Besides, the most desirable time to move to Canada would have been when I was a youngster, during the '70s and '80s, when O-Pee-Chee issued its very best baseball cards on store shelves and counter tops throughout that massive country.   I would have loved to open OPC packs, say in 1979. But not if Topps packs weren't also available, then I'd just be pining to live in the U.S.   No, the easiest way to experience Canada for me, outside of Tim Horton's, is letting the country come to me by obtaining those OPC cards.   Recently I landed a few extras from Bo of Baseball Cards Come to Life! He had just what I'm looking for.   It was just six cards and three of them wer...

  That's a moment-in-time snapshot of my card table and surrounding other activities in my card room. There's a lot going on in there right now. Not only is it the central hub for cards coming in and cards going out, but there are two large boxes of cards coming in that I'm trying to get myself around. Also, TCDB offers have ramped up again. And, those card stacks off to the left will tell you I'm in the middle of another Dodgers dupes card sort. I try to do this once a year, around September or so. But I skipped it last year so there's even more to do. Also, life has somehow turned what was once a week-long activity into a two-month activity. I don't know how it did that, but it dood. More card stacks. More incoming. There is a lot to do, card-wise. And blog-wise. I have topics in mind that involve research. And little time to do it. When I'm in that kind of crunch, sometimes I dismiss incoming cards for blog posts, thinking that I just can't come up wi...

When you've been doing this for as long as I have -- collecting, trading, blogging -- you tend to activate your automatic filter when going through a package of cards in the mail. This is especially true if it's a larger envelope with plenty of cards. Your brain automatically switches to "GOT THESE" mode when a familiar design comes into view. It's more of a time-saving device than anything. Let's get the unnecessaries out of the way so we can focus on the good stuff. So, for example, a selection of 1991 Score Dodgers appear in the team bag and I start filtering, without even thinking: "Got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it, got it." My brain flips past the cards as quickly as my fingers. These cards, that set, is well-tread territory. No need for these. And so it goes for a veteran team collector, trader and blogger. 1994 Topps? Got it, got it, got it, got it, got it. 2009 Upper Deck? Got it, got it, got it, got it, got ...

Welcome to All-Star Week. This is one of my favorite times of year. Even though baseball has tried to ruin this week by injecting celebrities, causes and bounce houses into the All-Star Game experience and also water it down with hashtags, limited innings and tying it to the World Series, I refuse to let cynicism wreck my overall enjoyment of this time. I have loved the All-Star Game since I was a boy. It is not only a game, set aside to showcase the top players from that year and basically glorify baseball for one night, but it symbolizes all that I love about summer. Spectacular weather, spectacular food and that carefree feeling that you can do exactly what you want and what you want is to watch a baseball game full of players that you know. No matter what baseball tries to do, that template has remained the same since I was 10 years old and watching my first All-Star Game from Veterans Stadium in 1976. I need to celebrate this week so that when I'm enduring more mise...