Night Owl Cards

You may have noticed that the "Big Fun Game," is all the rage on the blogs. When one game ends, another seems to begin almost immediately. As usual, I can barely keep up, so I enter what I can and hope for the best. If you're stashing secret BFG contests at the end of a post about the Minnesota Twins manager, I'm probably going to miss it. Out of the string of the four recent Big Fun Games, I've been a part of two. That's just the right speed for me. The BFGs take a fair amount of attention and the BFG needs to learn that it has to get in line behind last-minute work bombshells, dog puke and the overwhelming desire for sleep, just to name a few. Still, I entered another one recently because I landed a Carl Yastrzemski rookie in the last one. I may be overworked, but I refuse to totally ignore the words "big" and "fun". This one was called the "The Lucky 13," organized by Stealing Home at All Trade Bait All The Time . I was...

(One year ago today, the Dodgers signed Aaron Harang for their 7th pick up of the offseason. They had already signed Jerry Hairston Jr., Chris Capuano, Juan Rivera, Matt Treanor, Mark Ellis and Adam Kennedy. This offseason, they have signed no one to this point, because they're waiting to see where Zack Greinke's former cheerleader wife wants to live. Such is life as a fan of the No. 2 payroll team. Time for Cardboard appreciation. This is the 167th in a series): Green doesn't go with the Dodgers very well. Sure, it's a pretty card -- supplied by The Angels, In Order -- and one I desperately wanted. But it's not the Dodgers' color. I think of this every time I see one of these parallels. Green. Red. Orange. They're all very nice. Exotic, even.  And I love colored parallels. But they don't go with the Dodgers. Angels In Order sent this parallel, too. Purple doesn't work any better with the Dodgers. Blake Smith looks like he's battin...

The recent news that Chad Billingsley is finished for the season because of sore elbow is not going to help the Dodgers' playoff chances any. It's very disappointing because I've always been a fan of Billingsley, through all of his infuriating struggles and his endless habit of playing head games with himself. The fact that he was struck down in the middle of one of the greatest success streaks of his career -- possibly the "ah ha!" moment of his career -- is even more heartbreaking. But I'm not ready to write him off, even though it's possible that he may need Tommy John surgery. If you're someone from my generation, TJ surgery is the "Uh Oh" announcement of baseball medical procedures. The sign that a player may never be right again. This goes back to the fact that I remember the news of John recuperating from the surgery and all of the "experts" who said how dicey it was. Even though John recovered in spectacular fashion t...

Sadly, we've reached the end of mini week. It's been quite a ride and not at all a well-disguised series of trade posts. Why would you even insinuate something like that? Anyway, for my final mini post, I have some mini offerings from Rod at Padrographs , and they're not even cards. If you remember back to this post , I mentioned that I received some miniature Dodger "figurines" from Rod, along with the very cool book that I am proud to own. I don't know if "figurines" is a technical term. I try to avoid any conversation that includes the word "figurines." And now that I've used "figurines" four times, I'm thinking of closing down my own blog out of shame and confusion. So without further embarrassment, here are the three mini-figuri ... er, figures that I received: Each of these little guys is 3 1/2 inches tall and made out of your typical Made-in-China toy plastic material. I have no idea what they are,...

Sometimes being a baseball fan means losing touch with all rational thought. I was over at Community Gum the other night, keeping tabs on the massive Fleer break. Jon was busting a box of 2001 Fleer Platinum, a rather average set that I value anyway because I wasn't collecting in 2001. Like a total dweeb, I had one page open to Jon's video break, another page open to my want list, and another page open to teamsets4u.com. I needed three Dodgers to complete the team set for Fleer Platinum, and I wanted to see if I got them all. The three players I needed were Darren Dreifort, Chan Ho Park and Gary Sheffield. But the player I really wanted was Dreifort. I have always had an irrational attachment to Dreifort. Not irrational in any kind of stalker sense, but just irrational in the sense that I have never really stopped thinking that he is going to be a future Koufax. Yes, I realize that's ridiculous. But anyway, I was watching Jon break open packs. He pulled the Ch...