Night Owl Cards

(Today is National Compliment Day. Unfortunately it lands on January 24, a day without any baseball, and I can't compliment a day like that. It's time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 236th in a series): Have you ever realized that you sized up a person wrong? You discovered that what you thought about him or her, whatever negative tendencies they had, whatever grated on you about that person, were gone? That either they had changed or you had changed, but, hey, that guy/gal isn't really all that bad after all? Well, that can happen with cards, too. Welcome to my relationship with Upper Deck X. Upper Deck X -- for you card blog-reading newbies -- was a short-lived product of a completely random nature issued in just 2008 and 2009. Focused around the letter "X," for nobody knows what reason, it was one the many forgettable sets unleashed in the card deluge of that time. I was so puzzled by the set when it came out that you can find many off-hand...

As a member of the media, I am trained to recognize BS when it's walking toward me. Coaches lie to us. Colleges spin us. Businesses try to use us. It's an on-going battle against crap. Because of this, I am ever sensitive to the waves of hooey that come at us from every direction. I have little tolerance for pitches, commercials, sales drives, even the cute girl at the phone kiosk in the mall. If you're not saying something with meaning/truth, I ain't buying. Because of this, Twitter is best avoided during the first half of the day. I swear every card business in the world spends the morning shilling whatever they have to shill under the guise that it's THE GREATEST THING EVER on Twitter. It makes Crazy Eddie seem like he had Low T. But there is a lot of other BS -- what I like to sugar-coat as "pointlessness" -- on Twitter, which I still wade through because I like to stay informed and it's a great way to do that. Among the pointlessness of r...

I refuse to be bored by what is or isn't on the card shelves. Most of the time I can find something that interests me, even when there hasn't been any new cards for (gasp!) one whole month! But even when I can't, there are cards to buy online or a collection to go through. There are so many cards in my collection that I haven't said hello to for months. I like to stop by and visit periodically. But on this particular Friday I was out, scanning the Target shelves and -- yay! -- I found discounted baseball packs. I love those. And it's been so long. I shoved aside the 2010 Topps, contemplated the 2006 Topps rack pack with three vintage cards (it was these very packs that got be back into modern collecting, but I have a monster box of '06 to remind of that fact every day), and finally settled on a pack of '08 Documentary and a pack of '09 Upper Deck X. I pulled one Dodger card out of Documentary that I needed (Game 78), so it was well worth the ...

I received a package from The Collective Troll a week or two ago. And while my posting of its contents isn't terribly timely, the cards I received are -- especially this one. I burst with pride when a player on my favorite team leads the league in offense. I don't care if it is only the third day in May. It's been that way ever since Ron Cey set a then major league record of 29 RBIs in April of 1977. I remember back then mentioning Cey's feat in music class to a couple of my Yankee-brainwashed classmates and them looking at me in complete incomprehension. Dumb-asses. Knowledge is power muchachos. Anyway, I burst with pride because unlike the Yankees and Red Sox and a few other teams, the Dodgers don't get the chance to lead everybody in offensive categories very often. I mentioned that once long ago . The Dodgers have and always will be about pitching (the 2010 mess aside). Ethier, right now, is leading the National League in just about every power category:...

Chuck, you're looking at me that way again. Just like you did here . I'm telling you, I'm not talking about the game. You don't need me to tell you the Dodgers lost. There are 8,000 other sites out there that will break it down for you. Besides, this is Night Owl CARDS. We talk about CARDS here. Not games, or pitchers who can't throw strikes, or how you can get 14 hits and still lose . CARDS, I tell you. CARDS. So, let's see a few cards from Tim of Great Sports Name Hall of Fame . He sent me a small assortment of stuff I needed, including Mr. Crim up there, which may or may not be a night card. I'm not 100 percent sure on that one. Here's a card of one of the worst offensive players to ever wear Dodger blue. You may think I'm a tad harsh on Delino DeShields , that I hold a grudge after the Dodgers gave up Pedro Martinez for him. Nope. Delino did it all by himself in 1996. Look at the numbers. He did. This '95 Sportflix card shows only two im...