Night Owl Cards

I no longer think of Don Mattingly as a Yankee in Dodgers clothing. I see him now, and he's pretty much all Dodger, as in "why's that fool Dodger manager taking out the pitcher now?" It was an easy transition. Mattingly always has been a likable sort, even dressed in pinstripes. There is really only one time that I can think of where I resented Mattingly's play on the ball field, and it wasn't for the usual reasons that I despise the Yankees. It happened in 1987. That was the year when Mattingly hit a home run in eight consecutive games, tying a major league record. The record he equaled was first achieved by Dale Long in 1956. Long, a respectable but mostly forgotten first baseman for the Pirates, hit a home run every game from May 19-28. That record was cool enough that I noticed it as a youngster and treasured it as a fun fact that most baseball fans wouldn't know because who the hell had ever heard of Dale Long? And then someone like Don Matti...

(According to the always handy Holiday Insights calendar, today is "Bad Poetry Day." Isn't that redundant? I mean, isn't all poe ... OK, never mind, that's not very appreciative. On with Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 44 th in a series): I don't normally feature such a bland-looking card in Cardboard Appreciation. But the card is here more for the subject than its appearance. If you saw the New York Times article over the weekend, you know why this card is here. But if you didn't, I'm going to tell you a little story. Today is the 20 th anniversary of the last time a left-handed catcher played in a major league game. And that catcher was Benny Distefano . Distefano caught in three games for the Pirates in 1989, the last one being on Aug. 18, when he replaced Junior Ortiz in the sixth inning of a 13-6 loss to the Braves. The article mentions that one of the reasons that Distefano was able to catch was because his manager, Jim Leyland , ...