Night Owl Cards

  Clayton Kershaw should reach 3.000 strikeouts tonight in the Dodgers' game against the White Sox. That's provided that he lasts more than two or three innings, but he's been doing pretty well since his return off the injured list, so chances are good.   Kershaw will become the first Dodgers pitcher -- who is known as a Dodger pitcher -- to achieve the milestone while a Dodger. There have been other pitchers who either started with the Dodgers and reached the milestone with another team or pitched briefly with the Dodgers and reached the milestone but are not commonly associated with the team.   Don Sutton, Pedro Martinez and Greg Maddux all pitched for the Dodgers but struck out their 3,000th batter with someone else.    In one case, a pitcher hit the 3,000 milestone while with the Dodgers, but is more well-known as a National or a Tiger or a Diamondback or even a Met.     In fact, Max Scherzer is the most recent pitcher to reach 3,000 strikeouts. It...

So far, this is the baseball-related item that I have received for Valentine's Day. Yes, I'm one of those shallow types who doesn't read the book until I see the movie. I don't know how much success I'll have with this book. Like dayf , I have reader's block. Only I've been stuck on Chapter 2 of "The Catcher Was a Spy" for two months . I also have this thing about reading books in order. So Michael Lewis will have to get in line behind Nicholas Dawidoff. In the event that some new cards don't fall my way in the next 10 hours or so, I figured I'd recognize Valentine's Day with the illicit affair theme. I don't know why. Maybe it's just what you do when you've been happily married for 21 years. So, quick, what is the card set that you feel totally guilty about loving with all your heart? Time's up. Mine is 1982 Fleer. I know I've mentioned this at least a dozen times already. I even ranked '82 Fleer ...

When I look back on my favorite card moments of 2009, I think Friday will rank in the top 10, if not the top 5. For starters, Topps '09 made a triumphant reappearance back in my neighborhood with the arrival of blasters and jumbo packs. Good things really do come to those who wait . I went with two jumbo packs, but I don't think I'm going to show them here. I needed almost all of the cards and I pulled 6 Dodgers (Ramirez, Park, Kemp, Kuroda, Sweeney and Campanella Legends of the Game), but I think you've seen 'em all by now. I think this officially means I'll have to put together an '09 Topps want list in the next few days. But for me, the bigger news was finding baseball cards at the dollar store across town. I often whine about how more dollar stores and drug stores should carry cards. When I was a kid, you couldn't find a drug store that didn't have cards. Now, you can't find one that does. Meanwhile, I'll find cards periodically at...