Night Owl Cards

I will be starting this book tomorrow. The timing is perfect because the 1976 All-Star Game was played exactly 40 years ago tomorrow. It was the first All-Star Game I ever watched. I don't remember a single moment from that game (before the advent of youtube anyway), which likely means I may have watched maybe the first inning or maybe just the opening introductions before I was shooed off to bed. My mother was coping with two of her sons' sudden insistence on watching every baseball game available (and there weren't many available then) and probably didn't understand it at all. By the following year, we had her somewhat in line and I recall staying up to watch virtually all of the 1977 All-Star Game in Yankee Stadium. Those late '70s All-Star Games are my favorite All-Star memories. The players who played in those games I consider to be "my All-Stars." I was watching a little bit of MLB Network's replay of the 1992 All-Star Game last night (you...

I didn't know this until today, but I have won a card contest every month since August. I don't consider myself one of those people who wins contests all the time. As I just mentioned, I even ignore contests for free cards sometimes. So if I don't always enter contests, how do I keep winning? Well, for five easy payments of $99.99, my proven contest-winning methods can be ... nah, not really. I have no idea how I keep winning. I'm just in some sort of contest zone. Like a hitter in a hot streak, I'm seeing the ball real big right now. It's like a beach ball up there. A giant, free-card-filled beach ball. Let's see the rundown of contests I've won: August: The "guess how much the cards I bought at the card show cost" contest, from gcrl September: The "explain yourself for minis" contest, from It's Like Having My Own Card Shop October: The "almost the easiest World Series on the Web" contest from Collector...

I am currently residing with an awkward adolescent. She's actually a darling, intelligent, beautiful girl. But she doesn't believe a bit of it. You know awkward adolescents. Right now, she's dealing with some physical pain that cropped up out of nowhere. There's been a doctor visit and X-rays, and I fully expect everything to be cool in a matter of days. It's literally a growing pains issue, something that's pretty common at this age, or so I'm told. But the uncertainty is killing all of us. So, I'm here writing about baseball cards to ease the anxiety for a little while. And what better cards to address than 1973 Topps, an awkward adolescent-type set if there ever was one. The '73 set gets picked on a lot, as most awkward things do. People bring up the same old faults and act like they're the first one to point them out. Sometimes collectors are nothing but bullies. And the '73 set is left to figure out why everyone is being so mean. ...