Night Owl Cards

If baseball cards didn't have nostalgia, they would be nothing. Collections would be a lot smaller. Collectors would throw their cards away at the end of the year. Dealers would go broke. I have boxes and boxes of cards that exist because I like to pull them out once in awhile and see what I miss about whatever is portrayed in the card. So, this is what I miss from the photo in this card: 1. Spuds 2. Skinny ballplayers 3. Elastic waistbands (I have no idea why) 4. A world in which the Reds and A's can play in a World Series 5. Stadium Club 6. Reds uniforms without black in them 7. A's uniforms without black in them 8. Eric Davis before he became a Dodger bust 9. Todd Benzinger before he became a Dodger one-year .239 wonder 10. The old-style batting helmets Every time I think of Sabo, I think about how he had the misfortune to come along at the same time as the Spuds McKenzie beer commercials. He was doomed to the nickname. The only other instance of this...

Yesterday it hit 87 degrees. Today, it's supposed to get up to 90. That doesn't happen very often around here, and I didn't think it would happen at all this year given the generally cool summer. Because of that, the air conditioner is still in storage and now it's way too hot to think about hauling it out. Instead, I've got a post handy to fit the occasion. In keeping with the "dog days of summer," I'm going to feature my all-time dog team. These aren't "dogs" in that the players are no-good, lowdown cheating losers. I mean, I don't know them that well. Besides, I've got to keep it light. No negativity. It's 90 out there. Nothing but cool thoughts. These are "dogs," in that all the players feature a "dog" nickname. And somehow I found a player for each position. So I present you with the All-Dog Nickname Team. I don't have a clever name for it. I'm sure you can come up with something on your own. T...

Alright, I've been threatening to do this for months, so I finally had an hour to kill and went through my cards to find 20 bespectacled candidates for "The Best Glasses in the History of Baseball Cards, the Sequel." The last countdown was Topps only. That didn't seem very fair to me. So I'm doing another countdown of non- Topps cards to see if the claim still holds up: does Kent Tekulve have the best glasses in the history of baseball cards?" He easily won last time, against what was probably much tougher competition. My non- Topps cards only go back to 1981, so there are none of the wacky frames from the '60s and '70s to challenge Tekulve . Also, I limited it to 20 players, instead of the 25 I went with the first time. I realize that no glasses countdown is complete without this card . But I don't have it, so as far as this countdown is concerned it doesn't exist. On with the countdown. Hope you enjoy it as much as the first: 20. Jeff ...