Night Owl Cards

  I went to a reunion of a local baseball team yesterday.  This was as local as a local team can get. It wasn't minor league ball, nor even semipro ball -- nobody was getting paid, I don't think -- it was just guys in college or just out of school playing on a team because they wanted to keep playing. They did that for three years, in the early 1970s, and then stopped. And they didn't reunite until yesterday, more than 50 years later. One of the players on those teams was Dave Trembley, who you may remember as the Baltimore Orioles' manager from 2007-10. He's a local guy. I've written about him in my Brush With Greatness series and a couple other times -- but that was awhile ago. He's retired now from major league ball, I believe. The organizers of the reunion started out wanting to recognize only Trembley for all he's done -- stuff like that doesn't happen regularly around here -- but he didn't want to be the center of attention. Only until it b...

The second part of the package I received from smed is a puzzler. It's a heaping helping of Heritage from '09 and '10, two sets that depict two of my favorite Topps designs from the distant past. But how to present cards from two years ago that everyone has seen? How to find something new to say? Combine that with my hectic schedule this week and I couldn't exactly sit in the middle of the room until an idea arrived. I was flummoxed. Ah, what the hell: Words are overrated. Any jackass can write a sentence. Thanks, smed. (P.S.: Those of you thinking that it had to take longer to scan those cards than to come up with a topic obviously don't have a blog). (P.P.S: Those aren't even all the cards). (P.P.P.S: In light of my recent declaration that I'm more of a team collector, especially with modern-day sets, I don't know how I reconcile that with receiving 400 Heritage cards).

I've finally gotten my act together enough that I can figure out what my favorite cards of the year are -- so far. At the end of the year, I'd like to present them all and maybe have people vote on what their favorites are, or provide suggestions on what should be considered the best of 2009. But for now, I'm going to show the best of what I have. My favorites. I have completed only one '09 set so far this year -- Topps base. So I am lacking quite a few cards from the year. However, based on the limited cards I've seen, I think I can safely say that nothing from Upper Deck's trashy trio, Piece of History, Spectrum or X, is going to make the list. I feel just as safe about Bowman and Topps Attax. There are other sets I feel less comfortable about -- Upper Deck base and O-Pee- Chee , but I've got a relatively good idea about UD base already, and I still plan to buy more OPC . You will notice one dominant set in the upcoming Top 20 -- Topps base. That's ...

I did my darndest to prevent myself from receiving free Clayton Kershaw cards. But in the end, Mario of Wax Heaven could not be stopped. He was going to get those Kershaws to me no matter how many obstacles I put in his way. So, despite forgetting to send postage the first time, it wasn't held against me. This week, Mario sent five wonderful Kershaw cards to me from 2009 sets. The first is the Upper Deck SPx base card from this year. SPx is definitely not for me. X, in all its Upper Deck forms, has got to go. I don't even like the X Games. And I don't like weird position designations going down the left-hand side of my card. But it's Kershaw . It's a Dodger. So it must be mine. Here is the Upper Deck base Kershaw for the year. A nice use of the horizontal photo. I'm still not crazy about the gold bar, but it doesn't bother me as much as when I first saw the cards. Kershaw on the 2009 Bowman. The black border is OK with me. I know it chips and all ...

If you are a Phillies fan, you were probably awake for this moment. Rays fans, too, as painful as it was. If you live on the West Coast or in the Mountain time zone you were probably awake for this moment. It happened in the eighth inning of Game 2. If you work, say, a noon-to-8 shift (in my mind, the best work shift in the world), then you were probably awake for this moment. It happened in the fourth inning. For the rest of us, we've been screwed when it comes to World Series starting times. Game 3 last year, for me, was the last straw, starting at 10:06 p.m. and ending at 1:47 a.m. But finally, FINALLY, major league baseball and Fox have had the good sense to move back the start times on World Series games from 8:30-whatever-it's-been for the past few years to 7:57 p.m. They announced the new times yesterday, effective with the 2009 World Series. And to that, I say, what on earth took you so long? Of course, this is only happening because ratings for last year's World...