Night Owl Cards

Thanks to our English language, "best" can be interpreted in a number of ways. This wasn't the "best" World Series in terms of quality of play. Too much "Oh no" for that. This wasn't the "best" in terms of the winner. The Cardinals inspire as much thoughts of "dynasty" as the Giants did last year. Even less so. But in terms of drama, excitement, stuff of which World Series Are Judged, then, yeah, this is the best World Series I have seen in 10 years, since Luis Gonzalez's barely there flair against Mariano Rivera in 2001. In fact, after a quick run through my brain of all the World Series I've witnessed since I started actively watching them in 1976, this series is in the top 10, easily. After the insanity of Game 6, which we can rank up there with Game 6's from 1975, 1985, 1986, 1991, 1992, 1993 (and 1981, if I get very biased), I settled in for Game 7 hoping to break a rack pack of 2011 Topps Update here on t...

(It's the first vacation of the season! No agonizing over what to appreciate! Isn't it obvious? I appreciate vacations! Time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 112th in a series): It took me two years to recognize this. While leafing through my 2009 Topps set, looking for the best card for each team, I came across something that I've written about before. Back in 2008, I wondered why Topps would issue more than one card of the same player in the same set. Now, I wasn't talking about a subset or an insert set, or an all-star, postseason or leader card. I was talking about issuing two different base cards of the same player. Topps did this in 2006 with Scott Hatteberg. It did this in 2007 with somebody named Elizardo Ramirez, as well as Bengie Molina. In fact, Topps has done it a lot in the last few years and has been doing this in sets since at least the mid-1990s. I still don't understand why it's happening, as this never happened 20 or 30 years...

In the process of Christmas shopping yesterday, time suddenly stopped as I watched myself buy a blaster of the ridiculously long-titled Heritage high number series. It really was kind of an out-of-body experience, for three reasons: 1. I had made a vow not to buy any blasters until after Christmas. 2. I've been warned by multiple bloggers that the "2008 Topps Baseball Updates and Highlights presents 2008 Topps Heritage High Number Series," or TBUHPTHHNS for short, was a disappointment and a fiasco. 3. I'm still trying to collect the low numbers, so why take on this project? A day later I have no idea why I bought it. I guess to serve as a four-weeks-too-late public service announcement. And that announcement is, buy Stadium Club or Masterpieces (although you may get that freakin' Whitey Ford card for the ninth time), or A&G if you're still working on that. Or get your kid a Christmas present. Because I could've done that Wednesday, and now I'll b...