Night Owl Cards

As you know, I live in a city that is considered by many of its inhabitants as an outpost bereft of the diversions that many city dwellers take for granted. It's kind of ironic because the county in which I live is the fastest growing county in the state and has been for several years. While every other county in New York state is dying, mine just keeps on expanding. Yet, everyone complains that you can't find anything here. Although I'm quite satisfied with where I live, I do agree with my neighbors in one area and that is when it comes to buying cards. I've said it over and over, but there is no acceptable card shop, new product is often delayed at least a week in comparison to other areas, and card shows require clearing of the calendar and a full tank of gas. I definitely do not live in a mystical magical card land. But from my point of view, mystical magical card lands DO exist. I can pinpoint four areas in particular: 1. The Southeast, North Carolin...

I did a little budget update today, and I realized that I'm not going to return to my regular pace of sending out packages as early as I'd hoped. Sorry to report that it will be yet another week of shipping nothing. I feel terrible about this. I have stacks ready to send people. I have mailing equipment standing by. I thought it would be the right thing to do to actually sit down and finalize a list of all the folks who need packages from me. So after hurling a few well-placed curses at the bills in the inbox, I confined myself to my room and came up with a tally. Here are the folks who will get packages from me first when I deem myself financially capable of doing so. I haven't forgotten about you: All Trade Bait All The Time David, the Pirates fan The Dutch Card Guy Jake Plumstead Cards On Cards 2 By 3 Heroes Starting Nine Cardboard Heaven Jeff, the Angels fan Tops Of The Topps Tim Wallach Dime Boxes This Way To The Clubhouse Scott Crawford on Ca...

I am genuinely happy for collectors when they land a key vintage card or a great pull of whatever gimmick is popular these days. Their success is success for the collector in general. It's cool. It's inspirational and a reason why I dial through the blogs every day. Even when my fellow Dodger fans display the great Dodger cards they've acquired, I can't help but be pleased for them. We share a mutual appreciation for the best cards on earth. We should be happy for each other, regardless of whether we have that card or not. But then there are the collectors who are fans of other teams that display their cool Dodger cards. Ooof. I try. I really try to be happy for them. I even rehearse to myself what I'm going to say in the comments: "Great card! Nice pick-up. Oooh! Good for you!" But that's rarely what I write. Sometimes I don't write anything at all. Sometimes I do write something. It goes along these lines: "Wow. You...

I began collecting as a kid in the mid-1970s. I knew '74, '75 and '76 Topps intimately. They were all around me. If I saw a picture of a baseball player, it was often framed in pennant flags, or brightly colored two-tone borders, or featured a tiny drawing of an anonymous player fielding his position. Early '70s cards were old and unattainable. Only grown-up collectors -- which to my 10-year-old eyes also included teenagers -- had cards like these. But one of my friends had this beat up Fred Norman card from the 1970 Topps set. He wasn't interested in baseball, so the card was mine. For three or four years, the Norman card was The Oldest Card I Own. This was an important aspect of my collection. I think it was for everyone at that time. It was a marker of exactly how serious you were as a collector. The older the card, the more serious the collection. That way of thinking doesn't fly quite as much today, with all the mojo box breakers out their salivati...

Everyone is into the 1960 Topps cards because it's the design Heritage is "borrowing" for its cards this year. Although I'm not collecting Heritage this year (just a few packs here and there), I do like the design. Now that collectors have moved on to the latest and greatest sets, like O-Pee- Chee , Finest and Bowman, I thought I'd return focus to the design and feature some of the Dodgers from the original 1960 set. In case you didn't know, this year is the 50 th anniversary of the Los Angeles' Dodgers first World Series championship , the 1959 champions. A team that Bill James once called "the weakest World Championship team of all time." So, when kids pulled a Dodger card out of their packs in 1960, they were something special. Those were world championship ballplayers they were holding there. I have a few of those 1960 Dodgers. I featured them here . But Adam of Thoughts and Sox recently sent some more. He was offering up some well-...

This is my 300th post. Once again, thank you to anyone who has ever stopped here to read my meanderings. You guys and gals are great. Truly. On this occasion, I thought I'd run through some of my favorite .300 seasons (300 posts/hitting .300, get it?). Batting average isn't the be-all and end-all of statistics like it was when I was growing up. We have many better statistical indicators of a player's performance -- many of which make my eyes glaze over when I try to understand them. But the magic .300 level still means something to me. And certain players' .300 seasons stand out more to me than others. In most of the examples I'm listing, the player won the batting title. But not all of them. Here's what I got: 2006 - Freddy Sanchez, .344. If conditions are right, I'll root for the underdog like anyone else. That's why I am a full supporter of Freddy Sanchez's 2006 batting title. He played for the Pirates, a team that has been going nowhere for 15 y...