Night Owl Cards

I decided to read up on the next Topps set to hit card aisles this season. It's the annual Archives issue and it's scheduled to be released a week from today. I've mentioned everything that distresses me about Archives so many times that I feel like I'm parodying myself. Even though it seems like this product is targeted toward me, I don't think I'm meant for this product. It's just too irksome. I should walk away and let it go. But just one more thing. I naturally wanted to see which past designs were going to be featured in the base set this year (I probably knew this information once before but my brain is full and facts and memories leak out all the time). Like the previous two years, Topps is featuring only three past designs after featuring four the first three years of the Archives reboot. Here are the three designs for 2017: 1960, 1982, 1992. Two of those designs are all right. One is definitely not. And the one that is not is freaking...

I received an email a little while ago from Scott of Sports Cards Ate My Brain . He said he had a bunch of 2015 Stadium Club off my wants that he was going to send. "Cool," I said. I like that set a lot. It's about time I got close to finishing it. Scott didn't lie. He did have a lot of Stadium Club off my wants. Here they are: Still very cool. But, wait, that's not all of it. OK, there we go. Thanks to that, I'm less than 10 cards away from the complete set. Time to stop buying SC packs for the one card I need and get the rest online. But Scott didn't stop with the Stadium Club. He also sent a bunch of 2015 Series 2 needs: And a bunch of 2015 Update needs: This is how I was able to complete the Series 2 set at the card show the other day, and how I was able to come within one of completing the Update set. But that wasn't even half of what Scott sent. In a totally unexpected development, I saw oodles of other want...

We are approaching that time of year on the television schedule when prime time programming slips into "reruns." I don't know how much that means to people anymore, given the many different ways we now have to consume entertainment. I don't even know if people say "reruns" anymore. I don't even know if it's a big deal. It's nothing to watch the same movie over and over and over and over again these days. And then there is baseball card collecting, where we clamor for reruns. This never used to be the way. I can only imagine if I was collecting in 1980 and Topps threw a design from 1957 at me. It would instantly be my least favorite card because this wasn't NEW . Now there are entire sets devoted to reruns, none more obvious than Archives, which is rerun after rerun after rerun. Archives even does reruns of its reruns (i.e. using a past Topps design that it's already used). This is both very annoying and probably testament to how...

Today is Shawn Green's 41st birthday. I recently received a bunch of Dodgers from reader and Dodger fan Stewart that included a smattering of Green cards. Green will always be my Mark McGwire or Sammy Sosa. I don't mean that in a negative, steroid-driven way, although there have been a number of PED accusations lodged at Green. I mean that in a "my team has a player who can MASH" way. The Dodgers don't possess as significant a history of sluggers as others teams do. I've mentioned that several times. Their slugging period was back in the 1950s. That was a long time ago. So when Gary Sheffield hit 43 in 2000 and Green hit 49 and 42 in 2001 and 2002, it was a feeling I've never felt before. "The Dodgers actually hit home runs! A lot!!!" While everyone was drooling over McGwire, Sosa and Griffey, I was picking up the paper to see if Green hit another home run or two. I still think it's an injustice that he finished sixth in the MVP ...