Night Owl Cards

I've written way too often about Jamie Moyer on this blog, but I can't help it. When you're in your mid-40s, you find a guy like this fascinating. If I was operating this blog at age 25, I'd probably say, "Hey, cool, the old man won a game," and that'd be it. But he means a lot more to me than that. As I mentioned before , Moyer has been the gauge by which I judge whether I'm still young or not. The gauge used to be whether there were any current players in the major leagues who had been playing before I started paying attention to baseball. That ship sailed when Dennis Eckersley retired. Now, it's "are there any major leaguers older than I am?" For years, Moyer was my fountain of youth. Playing baseball kept him young, I would imagine, but it kept me young, too. But then he suffered an injury and it looked doubtful whether a guy in his late 40s would be able to come back from it. For an entire year, I was older than every majo...

Way back when , I wrote a tribute to horizontal cards. In it, I said I'd break the tribute into two parts -- the pre-1992 cards that I displayed in that post, and the 1992-present cards that I said I would write in Part 2 sometime in the future. Well, months went by and Part 2 is one of the many, many ideas, promises, commitments and vows to be a better man that escaped from my brain during that period. I'm not here to pick up my forgotten vow to be a better man. But I am here to continue my look at horizontal baseball cards. Aren't you lucky. The thing about post 1991 horizontal cards is there are SO MANY of them. After a gap of 15 years without a single horizontal player card, Upper Deck opened the door for card companies to issue as many horizontal cards as they wanted. Soon after, just about every set featured sideways rectangular photographs. But for me, even though there's a lot of horizontal pics, it hasn't gotten old. In fact, if you'll remembe...

I received this card of Joaquin Benoit, along with several other night cards and Dodgers, from reader Tiffany not long ago. The card reminds me of the whole Upper Deck losing its Major League Baseball license mess. Upper Deck's PR folks are in full damage control mode now, getting the word out that Upper Deck will be issuing baseball cards next year, and that it has access to all major league players, given its agreement with the Players' Association. It says it is too early to speculate on what the cards might look like, etc. It says -- and this is my favorite part -- that a lot of the speculation about what the cards might look like is "uninformed." I love that. Businesses, including sports teams, are forever accusing information gatherers of being "uninformed." Well, if you go out of your way to withhold every single bit of information, there's not much to go on is there? We're trying to be informed. You're not helping. Anyway, I can't se...

So, the Dodgers have decided to go with Orlando Hudson as their starting second baseman when the 2009 season opens. After giving it some thought I've grown more accepting of this development, even though signing Hudson means L.A. surrenders a first-round draft pick. By inserting Hudson at second base, the Dodgers have one heck of an infield in Loney, Hudson, Furcal and Blake. L.A.'s never been known for its infield defense, so this should be fun to watch. Let's hope they don't get too cocky. But Hudson's fielding is only part of what is convincing me that this move could work. Let's see what we have: A Gold Glove fielder? Check. An energetic, fun, uplifting sort who teammates love to have around? Check. A man who swears his left wrist is OK after two surgeries last season (and the Dodgers swear, too)? Check. A guy with an improving bat, who won't give you a ton at the plate, but hit .305 last year and gets on base at a decent rate (.367 OBP last year)?...