Night Owl Cards

(That's right, I'm combining my two longest-standing features into one so you can ignore both in a single handy post! But that would be your loss, of course. It's time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 244th in a series): I'm covering a few different topics here, as you may have guessed by the title. One of them, unrelated to the title, has to do with the 1983 Topps set. The tendency with this set is to look at the two photos on the front of each card as separate elements. A larger action photo and a smaller portrait photo. They are independent from one another. But when you view them as collaborators on the same card, acting in concert with each other, a new door opens into an amusing sidelight. Here, inset Dan Ford is admiring the drive delivered by action Dan Ford. In fact, it appears that action Ford has hit to the opposite field and inset Ford is looking in the same direction! Great fun. This could develop into its own separate post very soon. Th...

We are in the midst of the strangest presidential election year that I have experienced in my time on earth, and I've been through a fair number of them. I promise this won't get political, but I don't know how anyone can expect to hear truth from a politician anymore. I gave up a long time ago, and really the more politics is out of my life, the better life is. My philosophy is: stop worrying about what they're going to do and just go do .  Got it, you political weirdos on Facebook? OK, enough of that. One thing that I try to do on this blog is be the opposite of a politician. I want the truth to reign free here -- or as much as it can and still preserve my well-being. Take some cards that I received recently from both Jim of Frankendodger and Mark Hoyle. I promise you, there is nothing but truth here. For instance, it's the God's honest truth that Dodger card bloggers look out for each other. It's also true that the Frankendodger blog ...

Speaking of repeating myself, here is another tale of how I'm way too busy for this convoluted hobby to know what is in a set or even what I have. Three PWE's received recently help illustrate that tale. The first one is from P-town Tom at Waiting 'til Next Year . He sent three cards, one of which is the one you see at the top. The Fleer Sports Illustrated cover cards are probably the best card thing that ever came out in the '90s. The second card from Tom is the pretty pointless Clayton Kershaw card from the National League all-star set, in which Topps merely reprints the same photos and plants an AL or NL logo on the front. But people like me fall for it. Fortunately, I didn't have to fall for it this time -- P-town Tom did it for me! Here is the card that I didn't know what I had when I first saw it. But it was only for a minute -- and then I realized that Pro Debut was probably out and I was happy to have another card of the 19-year-old supe...