Night Owl Cards

  I shelled out for an off-condition card of the interestingly named John O'Rear to get me within one of completing the 1980 TCMA Albuquerque Dukes set that I have loved since I was a young teen. I'm in a bit of card buying freeze right now but I'm fortunate in that my tastes aren't that expensive. All that's left to finish the set is Don Crow. Yeah, not Scioscia or Stewart. Don Crow. But that doesn't matter for this post. Neither Crow nor O'Rear were in the back of the book that I cared about when it came to upcoming Dodgers prospects. Before Bowman became a prospects thing, I figured out who the hot prospects were in the Dodgers' organization by turning to the back pages of the team yearbook that I had ordered. Here is the first prospects page in the first Dodgers yearbook I ever bought, the 1977 issue. Here are the next two pages. In my mind back then, those were all of the Dodgers prospects. And I wanted all of them to make the major leagues and kick...

As one of the few card bloggers currently blogging who was also blogging in 2008, I can divide those who were writing nine-plus years ago into a few different categories: 1. Still blogging, who knows why 2. Quit blogging, but still collecting 3. Quit blogging, ditched cards, and took up butterfly watching or skeet shooting or whatever 4. Basically quit blogging but throws a post on the old site maybe once a year I don't want to speak for everyone who was blogging in 2008, but I think anyone who was writing about cards then, whether they're still blogging or not, is somewhat disenchanted with the current state of cards. Anyone who isn't, hasn't been blogging for almost 10 years. I think that's only natural. As you grow more experienced, your tastes become more well-defined. You know what you like and don't like. Newer items aren't appealing because they don't match your established tastes. And so it is when I buy current cards. I still mak...

There is a quote from the movie "Dazed and Confused," in which 20-something loser Dave Wooderson utters what is now a T-shirt/meme/excuse to eyeball 16-year-olds: "I get older, they stay the same age." This is meant as a distasteful, lecherous statement, but as you get even older than 20-something, it transforms into a lament. Yes, I'm getting older, but dammit, there are always all these young people, all the same age, looking the way I used to and enjoying the things I used to, and it's a little difficult sometimes reconciling that. It's apparent every time I look in the mirror. Less hair, more lines. The body doesn't do what I ask it to do often enough or well enough. And then there's my view on things. I try not to sound old, but it's a fact, the music, the styles, the clothing, the hair, the card stock, it all used to be better. It's obvious, I get older and nothing is getting better. At least from my perspective. But there ...

The Dodgers are one of the few teams -- the Giants, Brewers, Braves and Royals are some others -- who combined with the local police department to issue annual "police sets". The Dodgers did it for a long time, even into the early part of this century, although the cards weren't the same, as the team issued them in ugly perforated sheets during the '90s and early 2000s. Before that, from 1980 through 1991 (or maybe '92, my reference guide is unclear), with a break for 1985, the Dodgers issued police sets in the same non-standard 2 13/16-by-4 1/8-inch size. In fact, the oddball size and the lectures from the police on the back are what makes the sets stand out. Long before mass-produced cards were advising "Do cards not drugs," Police cards were telling youngsters "Dare to say no". Since the cards were issued regionally and I live nearly 3,000 miles away from L.A., I never saw a Dodger police card live until I started this blog. In the fo...