Night Owl Cards

I bought a Fairfield repack rack pack a couple of weeks ago and this card fell out. My first thought was "I have this card already." My second thought was, "hey, this is a night card. I can put it in the binder." I didn't even think of the most obvious thing about the card. It was of an Oakland A. I like repacks a lot. I usually stick with the rack pack variety. They're good fun, especially now, when I'm not interested in current cards. But I have noticed one thing peculiar about them, outside of all of the unholy love for the 1990 Kmart set. They are filled with Oakland A's. Have you noticed this, too? I'll admit I'm hoping my biases aren't swaying my perception here. First, the cards I have shown and the cards where I most notice the Oakland A's are all from between 2002-05, a black hole in my collecting timeline and a reason why I buy rack packs, to find cards from this time period. Second, I tend to accumulate ...

Eric Chavez is my new favorite Yankee. You didn't know I could have a favorite Yankee, did you? Well I do, and I have. It's pretty much decided by whatever current Yankee irritates me the least. Back when I was a kid it was Roy White. During the '80s it was Don Mattingly. During the '90s, Bernie Williams. You know, the usual suspects for the anti-Yankee crowd. It's the guy you look at and say, "how in the world did you get mixed up with those ass-----?" In other words, the player isn't really my "favorite." It's just that I have these ridiculous needs to categorize everything and therefore every team that I see a lot of needs to have a favorite and least favorite player. It's an obsessive thing. And it's a relative thing. Don't think for once that my favorite Yankee is anyone I actually LIKE. The last few years it's become increasingly difficult to select a "favorite" Yankee. My distaste for the team...

I promised last week that I would reveal the players that I do not enjoy pulling from packs. This is considered "equal time," after I lavished praise on 10 non-Dodgers in this post . Interestingly, most of the players listed here do not bother me, as far as their personality, behavior, playing style, etc. It seems that while all those factors go into the reasons why I enjoy getting cards of certain players, the main factor for why I dislike getting certain players is simply that I get too damn many of them. None of these players, of course, are Dodgers (well, there is one small exception coming up), because I enjoy getting everyone who wears Dodger blue. Even fat Andruw. With that, we are officially entering countdown mode: 10. Mark Teixeira. I have a sneaking suspicion that he could take a major leap up this list if I ever decide to update it. The guy just screams Mr. Money Bags. He's ticked off Braves fans. He's ticked off Angels fans. And by signing with the Yanke...