Night Owl Cards

Some cards arrived at the house recently from blog reader and frequent commenter Stubby, who provides a needed and often insightful perspective on various card topics, but especially cards from the '60s, because I'm not Don Draper, man. The cards fell into two distinct categories and they're so different that I must break them up into separate posts. I will start with the totally unexpected cards first. Yes, the Dodgers cards were the unexpected ones. Stubby went traveling through my want lists, which is the only way to fly. And he found stuff that would've taken me years to reach on that perpetual priority list in my head. For example, Panini products, both up there, and down here. You all know my stance on Panini, but I'll suspend the criticism just this one time to mention that the Roy Campanella Elite Giants card is pretty awesome. A larger photo would have been nice (the design, Panini, the design), but I'm happy to have that card. Anothe...

Like many guys, I refuse to grow up. I put on a good front, but really, I'm about 14 years old. There are just some things that never change no matter how old you get. Baseball is always fun to watch. Girls are always fun to watch. Bugs are always fun to watch. Pretty much in that order. And because of my profession, the worst day of the entire year is always in September and the best day of the year is always in June. For 40-something years, I have rooted for the last day of school. A lot of people have long since given up that wonderful feeling of childish anticipation. Those poor, poor people. June is just another month to them. But like I did as a kid, counting down the seconds on the last day of school, I still count down the hours until the high school sports season is no more. That last day this year was Saturday. And one of my co-workers said, "we should have a party." And so we did. It didn't last long. September-to-June was a long slog. But we wer...

When I first started blogging, there was only one other Dodger card blog out there. Jim, of that only other blog , was all too aware of this. I think when he discovered my blog, he did cartwheels. Finally! Another Dodger fan on which to dump his doubles ... er, I mean, with whom to trade. And so we did. We happily sent Dodger cards to each other and knew without a doubt that the other was grateful. How can you not be happy with Dodger cards? But after awhile, trading with the same person who likes the same team can get repetitious. I mean, I still trade with Jim and he's still a terrific trader -- one of the best. But we do have a lot of the same cards. Why not draw another Dodger fan into the mix? It took a long time to find another Dodger fan. There's a lot of screwed up people out there, you know. People rooting for Diamondbacks and Mets and Braves. I didn't think I'd find another blogger who knew that the Dodgers are really the only team to collect. P...

I did warn you. Cory Snyder is my witness. I said I had a bunch of card packages to post. And it is time to do the dirty deed. Isn't that right, Cory? Cory says, "hell, yeah." I'll be combining two packages into one post. These cards are from Chris of On Card Autos and from Rhubarb_Runner of e rayhahn , rayhahn (no, I don't know what that means). It's a delightful mix of the newer cards and the older cards. So, let's get to it. First, Chris threatened to send me every Dodger card he owned. And I responded in the only proper way to respond to a threat. I said, "OK!" Here is a review of just some of the cards that found holes in my Dodger collection. Edwin Jackson, 2005 Donruss Team Heroes: I'm hoping that if I post enough cards of Edwin Jackson, that the Tigers will trade him to the Dodgers, for, like, Juan Castro. Orel Hershiser , 1992 Leaf gold. Weeeeeee ! A Hershiser I don't have. Between the black borders and the gold foil, I exp...