Night Owl Cards

To me, half the fun of blogging is having opinions. I like having opinions. I think opinions show that you care about life, and actually enjoy life. And I'm interested in other people who have opinions. It shows that they have intellect. For the most part. But part of the drawback of opinions is people aren't always going to agree with what you have to say. As convinced that I am that I am ALWAYS RIGHT, people still insist on being contrary and not thinking like I do. And, gee golly, I'm just too tired to argue. Sometimes someone will say that they don't agree with me in the comments. That's cool. But sometimes I won't know that someone doesn't agree with me until a reference to my line of thinking pops up in the comments on another blog. I won't be named in the comment, but I'll read it and think "hey, that's me they're talking about." Now, all of this sounds a lot more serious than it is. Just a reminder here, we're t...

Have you checked out the new "stats" feature on blogger yet? You can find out all kinds of odd-ball things about who looks at what posts and how they get to your blog and other great stuff. Aside from it alerting you to the fact that the world is filled with strange people who happen to be looking at your blog, there are some enlightening items there. For instance, some posts that I wrote long ago are still popular in terms of views. One of those posts was the first one that I did on the dollar store near me that sells cards. I'm not sure why people are still looking at that thing from a year-and-a-half ago, but they is. Back then, the store was packed with old cards from the '80s and '90s. Since then, it's been up and down, but mostly down. I still manage to find some adequate stuff for next to nothing, but there's less of it. A few days ago I headed there because at this time of the year I'm poor. I needed to buy cards and be cheap about it...

What is your least favorite early 1990s trend/moment/personality? Urkel? Tori Spelling? Rico Suave? An overabundance of flannel? An overproduction of baseball cards? An overbearing boss? (Oops, sorry, that last one was for night owl only). There was a lot of awkwardness in the early '90s. But for me, the worst trend, without a doubt, is featuring ballplayers in their street clothes on baseball cards. It didn't help that early '90s fashion sucked with a capital 90210, especially for the guys. Why card companies wanted to feature players in printed shirts and cardigan sweaters puzzles me to this day. I could display a number of those horrifying cards here, but frankly they're too painful for me to track down and scan. If I'm going to use the 14 minutes of free time I have each day, I want it to be doing something I like. Instead, I'll just call out the worst offenders of this practice. Bowman was totally offensive in this area. I cringe over some of it...

Look at this card. It's a disgrace. It's an affront to any self-respecting Dodger fan on the planet. I can't look at it without getting a dull pang in my stomach. Gooden rounding third? Dwight GOODEN rounding THIRD? Look at the scoreboard. The Mets are leading the Dodgers 7-3. In the third inning . And the pitcher is rounding third. I'm sure if I was watching this game, I changed it to "Bowling for Dollars" at this point. I looked the game up. It took place on July 21, 1991 at Shea Stadium. The Mets won 9-4 on the strength of their six-run third inning. Gooden went 2-for-2 with two RBIs and a run scored. Dodgers pitcher Bob Ojeda gave up eight runs in 2 2/3 innings. And I've got to relive it every time I look at this card. You know what Stadium Club did to me by issuing this card don't you? They peed on my rug. They peed on my f-ing rug. Yeah, this is one of the cards that I pulled from the many packs of early '90s wonderfulness that Mike...