Night Owl Cards

I've been doing this long enough to know that the average trade post doesn't interest the masses. I've also been doing this long enough to know that I like a clean desk. I have zero room for any additional card packages and when that happens, I have to clear things out. Comments be damned. So settle down and load up for a combined trade post. Bring your finest meats and cheeses and a bottle of ale. You're going to see some cool cards from a variety of people. Behold: Here are some cards from reader Joe. What would you say at this time last year if I told you that Dee Gordon might be the most productive position player on the Dodgers? You would laugh derisively. It would be ugly. There would be insults back and forth. And we would not be on speaking terms. That's why I'm waiting until now to tell you this. I was going to mention Kemp's slow start, but right now all that comes to mind about Kemp is the weird conversations that billion...

The Dodgers aren't doing all that great here in the early season. It's not much of a surprise, when the World Baseball Classic takes away your shortstop and a deluded mound-charger takes out your No. 2 pitcher, but it still makes me aggravated. I'm not one of those fans who thinks Yasiel Puig should be called up and Matt Kemp benched (I can only imagine the lives of people who suggest this -- "My shoelace broke! ... THAT'S IT, I'M NEVER WEARING SHOES AGAIN! "). I'm much less reactionary. When someone mentions the Dodgers these days, I just mumble something about "three weeks into the season," grumble, and then sigh. (*sigh*) Opening Day, and Clayton Kershaw's mound-plate command performance, already seems so far away. To illustrate, I'll show some Opening Day cards I received from Matt of Once a Cub and Jack of Baseball Dad's All Tribe Baseball . Ah, Dre. If we're talking about replacing someone with Puig, h...

Thanks to our English language, "best" can be interpreted in a number of ways. This wasn't the "best" World Series in terms of quality of play. Too much "Oh no" for that. This wasn't the "best" in terms of the winner. The Cardinals inspire as much thoughts of "dynasty" as the Giants did last year. Even less so. But in terms of drama, excitement, stuff of which World Series Are Judged, then, yeah, this is the best World Series I have seen in 10 years, since Luis Gonzalez's barely there flair against Mariano Rivera in 2001. In fact, after a quick run through my brain of all the World Series I've witnessed since I started actively watching them in 1976, this series is in the top 10, easily. After the insanity of Game 6, which we can rank up there with Game 6's from 1975, 1985, 1986, 1991, 1992, 1993 (and 1981, if I get very biased), I settled in for Game 7 hoping to break a rack pack of 2011 Topps Update here on t...