Night Owl Cards

Topps released its 2015 Heritage High Numbers checklist today. I'm a little more interested in it this year because you're actually going to be able to buy these cards in packs from a store, instead of the online exclusive goofiness of past years. I scanned through the checklist, and as I panned down the page, I grew more and more hopeful that there would be no Dodgers in Heritage High Numbers. I'm still trying to chase down Dodgers from the regular Heritage set. But no luck. The Dodgers were all bunched together in the high 500s and 600s. Yasmani Grandal (#585), Alex Guerrero (#695) and Brett Anderson (#696). Jimmy Rollins (#721) is a High Numbers High Number short-print. Weee. Oh, and I forgot another one: Trevor Cahill (#595). This is the point when the good, faithful Dodger fans reading this raise their hands and say, "But wait, Mr. Night Owl, Trevor Cahill didn't play for the Dodgers." Ah, faithful Dodger fans. You're so knowledgeable. ...

(If everything goes right, by my calculations, I have to survive just 15 more Marches at work at most and then I can take as many vacations as I want during this stupid month. Time for Cardboard Appreciation from an exhausted Night Owl. This is the 222nd in a series): I love music trading cards. If there was a legitimate music trading card set, featuring different groups and singers, a mix of the new and the old, I would throw whatever baseball card set was on the shelves during that time down the stairs so fast, you'd wonder why I devoted seven years to a blog about baseball cards. But I don't think I will be doing that anytime soon because it seems to be extraordinarily difficult to make a music trading card set that doesn't make me cringe . I don't want a fan-club set devoted to the pre-teen singer of the day or even devoted to any one group or singer. But there seems to be few music sets that feature a diverse selection of artists. One of the sets that ca...

Don't look at me like that. I haven't even shown you my favorite card from 2012 yet. This insert from Topps Heritage is my favorite card from 2013. I find it endlessly amusing. If you do, too, then you can be my friend. (P.S.: The only thing that would make it better is if it was part of the base set).

If things went right, I'm at the ballpark tonight. But I haven't forgotten about you, dear readers. I'm here virtually to talk about a nasty habit that I've gotten into lately. It's tormented me for much longer actually, but it seems to have cropped up in a much more frequent and frustrating manner. It's the assumption that I've already completed a team set, when I actually haven't. Of course this is easy to do, what with all the inserts and super short-prints that litter sets these days. But I'm not even talking about that. I'm talking about the plain, old base team set. Some of you might remember my horror over last year's Topps Dodgers base set when I realized long after I thought I had finished it that I was missing the Mark Ellis card. Well, guess which card I needed to complete this year's base set? Yup. Mark Ellis again. Fortunately, it emerged from the pile of 2013 Topps Series 2 that Dave sent me. And I realized...

I've been lucky enough to receive a flurry of cards off of my Nebulous 9 in the last week or so. If you look over there (don't mind the YELLOW! ), you'll see that I've replenished the list so that it's now overflowing with 1993 Score. It is criminal that I don't have all the '93 Score Dodgers. What is happening to this world? But enough about the present nebby list. I want to tell you about some cards off the old list. First and foremost -- and I've already breathed 100 sighs of relief over this item -- the 2013 Heritage SP Hanley Ramirez card. As you might remember, Topps shoved 46 Dodgers into the short-print set of Heritage this year. (If Topps only knew how many current cards I would buy if it didn't pull stuff like this). I finally obtained the last Dodger I needed when Marcus of All The Way To the Backstop sent me a PWE that included " Top-deck" Hanley. (Sorry not sorry that blast came against the Padres). And the Heritag...

I don't want to be on of those collectors who can only criticize Topps. There is no productivity in that. When Topps does something right, I want to acknowledge it. Here is what I want to acknowledge: Topps has improved its game in almost everything it has released so far this year. The flagship set is much better. Opening Day, for those of you who care, is also better all around. I won't say the same for Heritage because I'm still annoyed about the cardboard and even more annoyed by who is in the SPs this year. But overall, much better. The area where it's an across-the-board route is with the parallels. The retail red and blue (and purple) parallels are vastly better than last year's. The pink and camo are a nice touch (not that I'll see any). The emerald sparkle is a million times better than the gold sparkle. And the traditional gold parallels are back in the base set where they belong. In Opening Day, the blue sparkle things are better than the drab...

We can dance if we want to We can leave your friends behind Cause your friends don't dance And if they don't dance Well they're no friends of mine I say, we can go where we want to A place where they'll never find And we can act like we come from out of this world Leave the real one far behind We can go where we want to The night is young and so am I And we can dress real neat From our hands to our feet And surprise 'em with a victory cry I say, we can act if we want to If we don't, nobody will And you can act real rude And totally removed And I can act like an imbecile I say, we can dance, we can dance Everything is out of control We can dance, we can dance We're doing it from wall to wall We can dance, we can dance Everybody look at your hands We can dance, we can dance Everybody's taking the chance Safety dance We'll safety dance Yes, the safety dance -- "Safety Dance," Men Without H...

The other day I received my Dodgers from Crackin' Wax's two-box Heritage break. I was lucky enough to land the Dodgers for both boxes, which means I pretty much can stop buying 2013 Heritage for the rest of infinity. Here is most of my haul: It's actually a good thing that I did buy a couple of rack packs before this break because somehow Crackin' Wax didn't pull a Don Mattingly card out of two boxes, yet I got one out of a rack pack. But I am very, very pleased to be done with pursuing short-print cards of Andre Ethier, Adrian Gonzalez and Matt Kemp. As I've groaned about before, there are four Dodger SPs in Heritage this year. Now, all I have left to chase is Hanley Ramirez. There are probably some stupid inserts and parallels, too, but we're not talking about that now. What I want to talk about is what appears to be Heritage's obsession with eyes in this set. Or it could be my obsession with eyes, but you can be the judge of that....