Night Owl Cards

  My blog has taken a little bit of a hit due to various life events of late. It's nothing bad. It's just busy. Vacations have played a part. Beckett magazine articles have played a part. I just sent off my second article in two weeks to them and I'm 10 minutes away from filing a bunch of images to them, too. Hopefully with the mag writing completed for now, I can put the focus on the blog. But there is more family visiting ahead that will likely scrap tomorrow's posting. And I've got like two or three work meetings coming up. Plus there are TCDB trades I need to jump on -- in three cases, my fellow traders have already sent envelopes and I haven't even packaged stuff yet! So, know that the posts appearing less often is not part of a new, mellow posting schedule (though that does sound nice). It's just stoopid life.   There are also the usual trade packages to get to, so let's get to one of those.   I received another package from Sportscards From The D...

Until a couple of weeks ago, this green-tinted parallel of Dodgers prospect Zach Lee was the only card I had from the debut set of Topps Heritage Minors in 2011. Although I enjoy minor league sets, it's more for their kitsch value. The old cards, the wacky poses, the ball girls and trainers, spotting some well-known major leaguer just starting out in the bowels of professional baseball. But Heritage Minors I'll probably never understand and definitely never purchase. The cards come at a bit of a premium because they're on Heritage card stock, yet they're still a bunch of nobodies. They don't deserve that fancy stock. That's for major league players. Along with that, I'm being asked to spend my hard-earned money on a bunch of guys who will probably never amount to anything on an MLB level. Yeah, I know, prospecting is about finding that needle in a haystack, but I'm much too poor for that nonsense. So, all I've got then are guys who played ba...

When I started this blog, one of the first people who ever sent me cards -- perhaps the first person who ever sent me cards -- was David from Tribe Cards . I was absolutely elated when he sent them to me. I'm pretty sure it came through in the post. I was practically typing it from the ceiling. YOU GUYS! THIS PERSON I DON'T EVEN KNOW JUST SENT ME A BUNCH OF BASEBALL CARDS THAT I COLLECT !!!! YOU GUYS!!! I DON'T EVEN BELIEVE THIS!!!!!! Dave had one of the first card blogs that I knew, certainly the first that I knew who ran contests where people could win cards. Yes, it was once a novel concept. And he's still at it. He's got a 2013 giveaway going where people can win cards of their favorite player, just by entering. And last year, he opened packs for every day of the baseball season, and gave away the contents. I was the fortunate person who received the Dodgers. I kind of entered the contest with my present been-around-the-block night owl attitude. Yo...

Let's establish the back story: 1. I am not a prospector. I have a very difficult time focusing on players who are not in the major leagues, even prospects from my own team. 2. I generally ignore Bowman, a set filled with prospects since its re-emergence in 1989. I think you could fill an average-sized shoe box with the number of Bowman packs I have purchased over the last 20 years. I am not interested in players who very well could be the pizza delivery man dressed in a baseball uniform for all I know. 3. I tend to poke fun at Bowman because of its repetitive design, and because of the ever confusing number of sets under the Bowman name. Then there are the sets within sets and the incomprehensible numbering system in which you might see BP10 or BPDP10 or BPDPBB10 or BPDPICAN'TFIGUREOUTWHICHDAMNSETTHISCARDBELONGSIN10. Now, given all that, here is some rather conflicting information: 1. I've written about 2010 Bowman on this blog about 6 or 7 times a...