Night Owl Cards

In the calendar world, the number 31 represents the maximum number of days in one month. It is the title of an upcoming slasher movie that I will never watch. And, if you were to hit a home run once a day for an entire month, the most you could hit is 31. Joc Pederson hasn't done that -- yet -- but he is already more than halfway to 31 for the season just two months into the season with two homers again last night and four in his last four games. Pederson wears uniform No. 31, and it's about time. Thirty-one was a once-proud numeral in the Dodger world as one of the best players of the mid-1990s wore it. But since that awful time when he was mistakenly traded, the number has never been the same. Mike Piazza wore No. 31 for the Dodgers between 1993-98. He isn't the Dodger who wore the number the longest, but he is the Dodger who wore the number best. No. 31 was Mike Piazza for half a decade and, I guess, for more than that since he also wore the number...

Several bloggers recently received what turned out to be "farewell" packages from our buddy Jaybarkerfan (I still don't know what that means). Wes said that he's stepping away from his blog , but still plans to bestow surprise cards on people, which is really his forte anyway. But I know him for something else. He's the guy who crowned me "Blog of the Year" the last three years. Not that I expect it or anything -- I'm taking a much cavalier approach to blogging than in previous years -- but who's going to hand me crown No. 4? How am I supposed to brag and boast and do touchdown dances at the deli counter like Ickey Woods? There is serious gloating left to be done. I don't think Wes thought this through. But I will take my mind off of that fact by opening my own farewell package from Wes. As usual, I don't know how he's sending out all these cards -- didn't he just send me one of these? I'm starting with the be...

This is a trade post I've written over and over again. And it's never made it past "draft." I usually don't have that much trouble writing a post. I'm always reading about bloggers leaving half-finished posts in "draft," and that never happens to me. I mean, I have writer's block and all that, but once I start writing, there's nothing that stops me from hitting the bright orange "publish post" button. I'm committed 100 percent. I'm like my dog chasing a squirrel. I may never hit my mark, but there's no way I'll quit now. But on this one I just couldn't get moving. I'd try one angle, and another one and all of them stunk. And then I thought about what I would've done three years ago at this time. I would've just posted all the cards I received and never thought anything about it again. Themes? Foreshadowing? Plot Twists? These were baseball cards, right? So that's what I'm gonna do ...

I think it's pretty well known in blog land that my favorite current player is Clayton Kershaw. I do enough begging for his cards. This golden oldie -- all the way from 2009 -- came from Jeremy of No One's Going To Read This Blog after I made a pathetic spectacle of myself for the card. I'll show more of the cards that he sent at the end of this post. But I wanted to write about the evolving process of my favorite player. I have had eight favorite players since I started watching baseball as a kid. I already posted the list on this blog, but it could use some updating, so here it is: 1975-83: Ron Cey 1983-85: Pedro Guerrero 1985-94: Orel Hershiser 1995-99: Raul Mondesi 2000-04: Shawn Green 2005-07: Brad Penny 2007-08: Russell Martin 2009-present: Clayton Kershaw They are/were all talented players at one point or another, but there aren't a lot of other similarities among the group except that they all played for the Dodgers. If I had to explain m...