Night Owl Cards

The happenings late last night in Anaheim, California, were pretty amazing. There are times when I wonder whether emotion supersedes talent -- something I know happens all the time on the high school and college level -- in major league games. You'd think that MLB players are so talented, so driven that emotion would never have a chance to determine a game's outcome. Then you see something like last night's combined no-hitter immediately after honoring departed teammate Taylor Skaggs and you just know emotion had everything to do with it. Thank goodness there are games like these. Sports is so plagued by hype and announcers, bloggers and fans screaming UNBELIEVABLE every 30 minutes that performances sometimes lose their meaning. Then a game like the Angels' game last night reminds you what "unbelievable" truly means. (Personally, I'd rather announcers yell "INCONCEIVABLE" every time they're amazed by something. It'd be a lot more...

If there was one personality trait that I could change about me, it'd probably be related to my outlook on life. In short, I'd cut down on the whining. I'm not exactly bitching every second of the day, and believe me, I complain much less than a lot of people I know. But I'm not exactly the strong, silent type either. I believe if something's bugging you, let it out, bro, before you do some irreparable damage. I think this is why I comment on blogs frequently. I've just got to let it out. Whether it's a complaint or an exclamation or whatever. Got to say what I believe. Holding it in, that ain't good. So a little while ago I was strolling through the blogs as I often do. This particular blog was Dime Boxes , which is a regular appointment on my reading calendar. Nick was displaying some cards that he received from Ethan of Playing With My Cards . Ethan and I happen to be Dodger fans. Now, the cards Nick collects are all across the board. Some ...

I am absolutely indifferent about the 1987 style mini inserts in this year's Topps set. I have been from the beginning. When the people who need to be first about such things breathlessly announced that Topps would be issuing a mini insert set in the style of '87 Topps, I let out a half-hearted: Huh? And then a vigorous: Meh. You didn't know a "meh" could be vigorous, did you? It can. The "meh" was because, as I've said many times, I am relentlessly bored by '87 Topps. It will be the only '80s Topps set that I never complete. Or, at least, the last one I complete. So not even a mini version of '87 Topps could get me to purchase product. The "huh?" was because I didn't recall mini versions of 1987 Topps back in '87. Most mini card sets of today are tributes to past mini cards -- think '75 Topps, tobacco era minis from A&G and the T-set issues -- but for which set were the '87 style minis a tribu...

The newest member of the "I'm Bad-ass and You're Not" Club is Don Baylor. Hit him as hard as you can. He ain't going down. When I last saw Baylor, I didn't like him very much. It was during that flap between Hong-Chih Kuo and spaz-punk Gerardo Parra last season. After Parra's infuriating preening after homering of Kuo -- who had thrown wildly in the general direction of Parra earlier in the at-bat -- you could see the Diamondbacks braintrust lip-flapping in the dugout as they jawed with the understandably upset Dodgers. Baylor, the hitting coach for Arizona, chewing on a toothpick, looked positively evil. How funny, I thought then, that Baylor would be so fired up over what began as a very tenuous brush-back. Wasn't this the guy who got hit 267 times during his career and shrugged off every one? Baylor is one of the all-time greats at getting hit by a pitch. Only three other players in history subjected their body to one of baseball's mos...

I was back at the dollar store that sells cards today. It was in the general vicinity of where I bought my wife's Mother's Day present (no, I didn't buy the present at the dollar store. Don't get huffy). I know I've talked about watching my card budget and buying 2009 cards like UD First Edition. That's all lovely for current cards, but there is no beating what I find at this dollar store, at least among your retail options. I've developed a strategy for my trips to the store. I know what bags hold the football and basketball cards, which I don't want. And I've struck upon just the right "shaking" strategy to make sure I don't end up with this anymore. I suppose you could consider this "pack searching," except I don't harm any of the cards doing this or open the bags either. Today I bought six bags for 6 bucks plus tax. I ended up with no non-baseball cards and I counted maybe a dozen doubles out of 210 cards. And ...