Night Owl Cards

  The 5,000-card giveaway was far more successful than I anticipated. Long after the 20 entrants limit was reached, folks were still bellowing "I want a repack!" in the streets. But I had capped it at 20 because that's what I can afford. So just to clarify who has won and all that, here are the 20 winners of 250-card repacks: 1. Jordan (Mint Condition) 2. Phil Abranowitz 3. The Diamond King 4. dayf (Cardboard Junkie) 5. Billy Suter 6, Ohio Tim 7. Death Stare Cards 8. Tim Dehring 9. Unknown (Ken in Missouri) 10. Pete Steinberg 11. Bo (Baseball Cards Come To Life) 12. Trevor P (Bump and Run Football Card Blog) 13. Kevin (Orioles Card "O" The Day) 14. Jeff B. - Wax Pack Wonders 15. buckstore cards (Sports Cards From The Dollar Store) 16. defgav (Baseball Card Breakdown) 17. Old Cards 18. simpson 19. Laurens (Card Buzz) 20. Kevin Bradley That's the list. The other people who requested repacks in the comments are on-deck, only if I don't get addresses for all...

The latest of the many goodbyes I have made since the loss of my parents doesn't include loved ones or even people I know. Instead, it has to do the with the familiar places in my old hometown. My parents were the last human connections to where I grew up. Most of the people I know from that time scattered to various places long ago. There is no one to visit anymore when I return to the Southern Tier. It's not like I'm going to hang out with my folks' friends. This is a bit sad because I spent the first 20 years of my life in the area. There are many places and spots that mean a lot to me. For example, I walked through the local mall one morning a couple of weeks ago for the first time in a long time just to retrace the steps during one of the greatest three years of my life (1983-85) when I worked at a store in the mall. That store no longer exists. It's now a Burlington Coat Factory. But I entered the store and then found close to the exact spot where I onc...

The new issue of Beckett Baseball Magazine is out. The folks at Beckett made the January issue all about the 1980s and the card craziness from that decade. The nostalgia for the '80s seems to be lasting longer than nostalgia for other decades. Nostalgia for a particular decade usually arrives 20 years after the decade in question and then fades after about a decade. But here we are, just about 30 years after the close of the '80s and '80s tributes are everywhere. Included in those continuing tributes are a couple of '80s baseball card countdowns. One is in the January edition of Beckett magazine -- the top 80 cards of the '80s. The other one will be on my blog -- hopefully starting in January -- and is called The 100 Greatest Cards of the '80s. There will be some similarities between these two lists, but there will be lots and lots of differences. I don't have a subscription to Beckett magazine (I probably should think about it if I just wrote an ...