Night Owl Cards

Frank Robinson wrapped up his playing career before I knew what a sacrifice fly was. He began his managing career as I was buying my first baseball cards. He played for my favorite team, briefly. And he beat my favorite team, mercilessly. He managed for all-time favorites and all-time enemies. He was an American League guy and a National League guy. I look at him as a boss, yet he was the youngest of 10 children. He was declared "washed up," right before he won the Triple Crown. He was known for being strict and ornery ... with an incredibly insightful sense of humor. Robinson struck me as someone who could play both sides of the same coin. A Hall of Fame player. A record-breaking manager. He played for World Champions (Orioles) and managed brand new teams (Nationals). He wore the uniform of the oldest franchise in baseball (Reds) and the latest and "greatest" from the '70s (Indians). He is a Hall of Famer who is still somehow underappreciated. He sho...

I have found myself in possession of modest number of Reds cards, and it's totally my own doing. As a Dodger fan, there isn't a lot to like about the Reds. The first year I followed the Dodgers, they finished in second place, 20 games behind the Big Red Machine. The following year, the Dodgers finished 10 games behind the BRM. I did not enjoy them. The Reds have been in the World Series three times since I knew what baseball was. I rooted against them every time. And there was also that 1995 NLDS. Nasty stuff. That all seems like ancient history now because Cincinnati hasn't been relevant as a baseball team for a long time. The Reds and Dodgers no longer share the same division, and all that animosity that had been built up since the '70s is slowly trickling away. So, when Red Cardboard announced he was giving away surplus Reds cards, I had no problems entering and adding Reds to my collection! After all, I don't just collect Dodgers. I collect sets and ...

(Greetings on "World Hello Day." This is the day on which you're supposed to say "hello" to 10 random people in an effort to foster world peace -- what can I say, this day was invented in the '70s. But here is my official "hello" greeting to you. There's more than 10 people reading this, but I'm sure sending hellos through the interwebs wasn't what the original inventors had in mind. Let's get on with Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 234th in a series): Have you ever spotted a card online that you had to have? The shipping is too high, the price for the card is probably too high, and the condition could be a little bit better. But none of that matters. We are way past "I got a deal" here. "I need that card!" There aren't enough of those card stories on the web. I kind of like those stories more than the "I got a deal" stories. Yeah, yeah, you got some cents off. We're all broke, I ge...

Long ago, during a year far, far away, Jeff of 2-by-3 Heroes held a "Tis The Season contest in which he was giving away stacks of surplus cards in a variety of categories. I looked at the cards available and immediately targeted the 2013 and 2014 A&G stack as pretty much the only item I wanted. In a case of "why can't be life be like this contest", not only was I selected as a winner, but I got to pick my first choice, the Ginter stack. A short month-and-half later, it arrived at my domicile, and a short two weeks after that, I'm showing my winnings. The best part of card blogging is there are no deadlines. Jeff, was right, the majority of the cards in the stack were 2013 A&G. In fact, since I was fairly close to completing the set even before I won the contest, here are my "extras' of Jeff's "extras": Those are available to whomever would like to make them theirs. I'd prefer sending someone the whole stack, but i...