Night Owl Cards

I received an unsolicited PWE in the mail recently from Steve of Tridents and Trading Cards . It was a welcome surprise with a handful of cards that I needed. The most interesting part for me, though, is that the envelope came with its own want list. Steve sent a few set-building lists just in case I could fill any. That's a sharp idea. Might I even say "genius". You don't know how many times I have stood in my card room, paralyzed by indecision about what to look for in regards to a particular collector. Some of you have very specific collections. To get a point in the right direction is very helpful. Even if collectors have want lists on their own blogs -- and most of them do -- a want list sent directly to my door even cuts out the process of looking up the want list! I'm not sure if I can help Steve. But with a list in hand I'm pretty confident at this very moment. So in that frame of mind, let's show the cards he sent that I need: ...

About a month ago I wrote about "my greatest collecting fear," which was thinking that I had an easy-to-complete set completed, only to realize months or even years later that I didn't. I resolved in that post to stop worrying about such nonsense, that there was no time limit on completing any set, and to simply enjoy the process. Then the card you see here that came from Cards On Cards showed up ... and I almost flipped out on the spot. "Chris Perez? CHRIS PEREZ? CHRIS & %%#@!* PEREZ????? That piece-of-dog-poo reliever the Dodgers forced onto their roster????? ... I DON'T HAVE THIS BASE CARD!!!!!!! " Yeah, removing yourself from "the fear" is a process. The Chris Perez card is from last year's Topps Update set. I thought I had all the Dodgers from that set last winter, because the want list told me so. But I am sure that somewhere in compiling that want list, I skipped right over Chris Perez because -- snort! -- the Dodgers do...

This is your public service announcement reminding you that there are two 2014 blog contests in process and a whole bunch of people who could use your votes. The first 2014 Bip Awards (notice I didn't say "first annual" because that is a crime against the human language) are taking place at A Cardboard Problem . The awards cover "best blog" "best rookie blog" and a host of other categories, stretching into other social media outlets like Twitter. People can make nominations through the end of next week. There's an official entry form and everything. I believe there are prizes, too, which I don't know if I like because people do all kinds of questionable things when prizes are involved. But the more my blog readers nominate and vote the better chance there is for the right bloggers to get mentioned. There is also a 2nd Best Blog Of The Year Award, which is being run by 2 by 3 Heroes . The reason it's the "2nd Best Blog" aw...

Not long into starting this blog I discovered that people have it together far more than I do. While I'm stumbling through life trying to figure out where I put my snowbrush, how I'm going to pay for any Christmas presents and why I forgot to get a haircut again, others already have the who, what, when, where, why and how marked, targeted and checked off. But I did do one thing right. I started a blog about baseball cards. Because of that, those very together people take time out at this time of year to send me Christmas card packages. I'm in awe of their planning. Christmas card packages mean I will get exactly what I want every Christmas. It balances out the socks and gloves. It adds fun to what can be a humdrum part of the holiday for an adult. It basically means better Christmas gifts than before I had a blog. How do I determine whether it's a Christmas package? Well, they wish me a Merry Christmas, duh. Some are especially together and send a holiday ...

This is a pack of baseball cards. Say what you want about the state of baseball-card collecting today, and I have, but this pack possesses something that is lacking these days: Mystery. We go out of our way to eliminate mystery from our lives. Think about it. Those of you who are old enough probably remember when radio was the only option. If there was a song you really liked, you either saved up enough money to buy the record or you waited until you heard it on the radio. But you could wait a reeaaaallllly long time. Through a whole bunch of songs you didn't want to hear. And through commercials, too. But when the song finally arrived -- days later sometimes -- it was glorious. There was mystery. You had no idea when you would hear it again. Today, we simply download the song online or use whatever device we have to skip past everything we don't want in order to get to what we do want. We do the same with cards. A lot of us are all about the singles and the guys...

This card came in yet another trade with Cards on Cards . It features those abominations that Major League Baseball made all-stars wear on their heads this past season. I am with everyone who hates these things. I hope they never appear again and wish like hell they were never captured on baseball cards. But here we are and I have this card of Zack Greinke looking goofy forever. I'm guessing some folks don't like these caps because they either don't remember or didn't grow up with the multi-tone caps from the 1970s and 1980s. Those caps used to be a regular fact of baseball life, like stirrups, sansabelt baseball pants and bullpen carts (which also sometimes wore a cap). Those caps didn't really bother me then. So I'm wondering why they bothered me so much when I saw them during All-Star festivities. I think one of the reasons is because teams that never featured those kinds of caps, like the Dodgers, were suddenly wearing them. The other reason onl...