Night Owl Cards

  Imagine you're at a card show and you've discovered a dime box. You're in the middle of pawing through row after row of discounted cardboard. Heaven, right? But life isn't perfect so there are some minor issues. Dudes keep bumping you. There are all those Bowman cards of  former prospects you don't know. And what's with the junk wax? 1987 Topps? 1990 Donruss? Come on, they're not even worth a dime. Who doesn't have those?   Now, imagine that you're at that same dime box, still leafing through and that's when the dealer says your name. You look up. And he's standing there in front of you with a stack of dime box cards, all from your favorite team, and he hands them to you. Now THAT'S heaven.   I don't have to sort through all the unwanteds? All that 2016 Topps? You've sifted through it for me?   Well that's what happened to me.   Virtually, anyway.   The BaseballCardStore.Ca , which we all know as the online dime box store, ...

Today is my last day of vacation for the summer. After this, it is all preparation for the upcoming busy fall sports season, followed by that busy fall season, and then the even busier winter season, and then the frustratingly busy spring season. Needless to say, I treasure my summer days off exactly like the kid who is stepping off the school bus does in June. Work is a necessity, but oh lord what I could do if I never had to go there. So, this is my last hurrah. Sure, I'll get more days off later on in the year, but it'll never be like it was in the summer. To commemorate this rather sad occasion, I thought I'd go back through and recognize some last hurrahs in terms of card sets and companies. Quite a few of them have disappeared in my time, some with a bang, some with a pffffffft . But before they left for good, they dropped one final set or sets on us. I'd like to thank them for that. It couldn't have been easy knowing what was ahead -- if they even kn...

Apparently, the Dodgers still believe they're in this thing. I don't necessarily agree, although I applaud their optimism and Ned Colletti's enthusiasm, which was demonstrated in his shocking willingness to cough up once-and-possibly-still key prospects in order to land a relief pitcher. The biggest deal was getting Ted Lilly and Ryan Theriot from the Cubs for Blake DeWitt and a couple of minor leaguers. I don't like the swap at second base of DeWitt for Theriot -- the Dodgers are weaker at that position now. But Lilly I've always liked and wished the Dodgers never gave him up in the Mark Grudzielanek trade way back in 1998. But while every other fan's brain focuses on a mid-season deal in terms of "how will this affect my team now?" I think of it another way. I am always intrigued by the relationships that teams have with each other when it comes time to trading. Most teams go to the same trade partners over and over. The thing that interests...