Night Owl Cards

  The bit-by-bit, card-here, card-there strategy of adding to my collection the first couple of months of the year continues for just a couple more weeks.   But you can accomplish a lot even when cards are just trickling in. Just the other day I completed the gold parallel team set for the 2008 Topps Dodgers.   No, that doesn't include the Update set, the Kershaw is still out there (I landed more than a couple of the Kershaw rookie, along with the gold-letter version back in 08-09, but the goldie eluded me when his cards were cheap).   But this feels like an accomplishment to me. I honestly don't know if I've completed the gold parallels for any of the other Dodgers team sets since gold parallels became a thing. So I decided to try to finish a few of them, beginning with some of the easier ones. 2008 falls into that category.   I had a lot of them already -- wow was I accumulating Dodgers like mad in '08 and '09 -- so I needed just six more. In order, I added De...

  Fans have returned to the stands this season, but it still looks a little empty up there. I don't know what the vantage point is in person, but watching on TV there seems to be a lot of room to roam. Room enough to perhaps play baseball in the stands. Like they did about 15 years ago. You don't remember that? Well, when would Topps not tell the truth? There it is right on your baseball card. A player preparing to take his swings in the stands. This was a common occurrence on Topps cards between 2005-08. And seeing what you can convince card collectors do these days ("seal your card in plastic forever," "buy this one-of-a-kind digital picture of a card"), I probably could convince someone that MLB was playing baseball in the stands based on just a few cards from this time period. Pitchers threw in the stands, sailing throws that knocked the nachos out of spectators' hands.   They scooped up hot grounders. You should have seen those fans scramble.       ...

I started this blog in 2008. It doesn't seem that long ago, but it actually is when you consider the lifespan of a major league player with a major league team. Clayton Kershaw is just one of two players who were featured with the Dodgers in a 2008 Topps set that is still with the Dodgers. The other one is Andre Ethier. This despite the fact that he has been traded in my mind about 78 times in the last seven years. If you want to relax the parameters a little, then there are a couple of other Dodgers in 2008 cards that are still with the team: Rick Honeycutt is still the pitching coach. And Eric Stults is back with the team after a long time away, although he was sent down and may end up getting released anyway. But back to Kershaw, because all that other stuff was a tangent. Back in 2008, I made a commitment to Kershaw. I saw a pitcher who would perform greatness and I was confident it would happen. In that year, I decided he was my favorite player a...

OK, it's been one heck of a busy day with major work and family goings-on all over the place, so let's take a look at the remainder of two of the card packages that I mentioned last night. Each of them featured something interesting that I think I'm going to start doing. First the non-2015 Topps from Kerry from Cards On Cards . This is a four-year-old shiny Kershaw that I didn't have. You don't know how much I appreciate getting Kershaw cards I don't have from years ago. It's as if I beat time itself. See, stupid clock? You may speed by so fast that I don't know what day it is anymore, but I got a parallel from a four-year-old set that nobody bought! HA! Us card collectors remember everything . Da future. You can tell because of all the metal, robot machine imagery in the background. Julio Urias better get on the mound quick before the robot pitchers that can throw 300 mph take over. P.S.: This card is mini, mini and shiny, shiny. I...

This all-time set countdown is based primarily on design. I am somewhat of a designer at work. Although it does not come easily to me, I try to create a sports page that looks pleasing to the reader. Unfortunately, I cannot invite the readers in to evaluate whether the design looks good before the page goes to print ... on second thought, fortunately, very, very fortunately, I cannot invite the readers in to evaluate whether the design looks good before the page goes to print. So, I have to be my own critic. I decide, while in the act of creating the page, whether it's an appropriate and interesting design. So, while I have never designed a baseball card except for the ones I sketched on index cards 40 years ago when I was a kid, and I probably couldn't do anything innovative if you told me "here, design a baseball card from scratch", I know what I like. And I think my opinion is somewhat accurate. That doesn't mean this countdown doesn't play favo...