Night Owl Cards

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...

For the second time only, I am featuring two awesome night cards on one post. This is because I can't stand either of these cards sitting in my "to be blogged about stack" any longer. They're just too awesome, and I need to know whether they get to go in the night card binder. To me, the team stadium cards are the only redeeming element of the aborted 2010 Upper Deck set. Long after the set is forgotten forever -- if it hasn't been already -- I will remember these cards. To my knowledge, these are two of the three stadiums in the set are pictured at night. The other is Fenway Park, which I need to get. (Seattle's stadium is a "dusk card."). I have attended one game in the Rogers Centre (then known as Skydome). I should have attended more, including the very first one . I have never been to Wrigley Field. But I did drive past it once. I was driving with a crowd of friends in one car on some main highway desperately trying to keep up wi...

I have this sudden, overwhelming desire to categorize, compartmentalize and marginalize a whole mess of baseball card sets. So I pulled a small stack of cards from various years, and I'm going to try to give them a name on the spot. I can tell you already that I'm going to be successful with some and a failure with others. So I'll need your assistance as always. If you think you have a good name for these sets, yell out your answers. Even if I've come up with a name, there's always the chance that there's something better. However, the 2012 Topps set has been named already and there's no going back. By consensus, it's The Surfboard Set. I'm not taking credit for that name. I believe steelehere was the first to come up with it as far as I know. So I'm giving him his due. Address your complaints appropriately. But really, it's a perfect name. So, let's move on to some sets that are more difficult to name: 1959 Topps deserves ...

(The origins of "Cardboard Appreciation" stem from a concerted effort to find value in the cards in my collection, true. But C.A. was also born out of a backlash toward the "individual entitlement" mindset. You didn't know C.A. has socio-political beginnings, did you? It does. The pervasive feeling of individual entitlement is a plague on current U.S. society and can be observed in myriad forms from small to large. It's as if we're a nation of 13-year-olds. I'm a big believer in "be thankful for what you've got," or, if you prefer, "your lot in life isn't as wretched as you think." Believe me, thinking like this helps. A lot. ... OK, speech done. Time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 135th in a series). One of the best feelings in collecting is when I discover a card that I never knew existed when I thought I knew everything about the set from which it came. Oh, finding oddball cards from 50 years ago or obse...

I used to try to get involved in every single group break that any blogger put out there, and then throw a private little stink fit when someone beat me to the Dodgers in one of them. I don't do that anymore. Mostly that's because there are a lot more group breaks than there used to be, and it's because I have figured out that I can't afford to get involved in more than one at a time. I'm OK with that. I don't freak out -- too much -- when someone lands a card that I want in a group break that I chose to skip. That's not to say I don't have my moments. Colbey at Cardboard Collections held one of his many group breaks a little while ago, and I didn't get involved because I was broke. The break ended up being a complete Dodger fest. This NEVER happens, not even in breaks in which I'm not involved. Yankeefest. Sure. Bravefest. Definitely. Astrofest. Yeah, even the Astros. But never Dodgers. After seeing the cards speigel landed from that...

I'm telling you, those Topps value boxes sure are distracting. I grabbed another one and redeemed this Roy Halladay diamond cut card. I also redeemed two 1967 cards and pulled a Heritage relic of Jayson Werth. These things are absolutely addicting. I'm almost afraid to mention them for fear I'll head back and the 10 boxes I saw there last night will all be gone. The value boxes are also keeping me from focusing on what is truly amazing about this hobby, which is finding collectors just as enthused as you are and exchanging cards with them. I hope I never forget that. The most exciting thing isn't mojo hits or busting the latest product. It's finding people who are as excited about collecting cards as you are. One of those people is fellow Dodger fan, Spiegel . I think he might be one of the most enthusiastic collectors I have had the occasion to virtually meet. He sent me some cards recently. And by recently, I mean long ago. We didn't even have Gypsy Queen...

(I can't think of a better concept right now than retirement. Retirement for me, retirement for certain people at work, DEFINITELY retirement for certain people at work. I am really, really, really appreciating retirement in a big way. Because that's when there will be more time for baseball cards! Time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 109th in a series): Pitchers batting. Yay or nay? You might think this is the start of a debate over the designated hitter. But that stuff bores me. I'm a National League guy, so I don't care that much for the DH, but what I really don't care about are the mind-numbing discussions about the merits/evils of the DH. I don't care about the statistical analysis. I don't care that each league has separate rules. I don't care to get into it. Period. What I want to know is how you feel about pitchers batting ... on baseball cards. Photos of pitchers batting on baseball cards was a phenomenon, I assume, created...