Night Owl Cards

It seems strange to say in our phone culture, but there used to be a time when you didn't necessarily take pictures when you went to a baseball game. You certainly didn't take pictures of yourself, I know that. I own zero photographic proof of the first Major League Baseball game I ever attended, the Royals and Yankees at Yankee Stadium in July of 1978. My father may have taken some photos with his camera, he was the picture-taker until my mom took over. But I've never seen any. Any images of that game have resided solely in my mind's eye for 42 years. Such was the case for a number of major and minor league games that I attended through the 1980s and '90s. Camera? Why would I want one of those? There's a game to watch out there! And food to eat! There's no time for snappy, snapping! Well, that thought process certainly changed. Look at the stands of any baseball game. The phone, with that camera, seems much more interesting to many people in the ...

I am a member of the MTV generation. There is no mistake about that. MTV was born a month before I entered my junior year in high school. It was the latest, greatest invention, at least according to the most receptive market for these kinds of things: teenagers. MTV videos made up the daily conversation in the cafeteria, where it was mixed with movies, homework, girls, TV shows and idiot teachers in a hormonal stew. For me, and others of that generation, what has happened to MTV is criminal. The station that proclaimed the death of the radio star with its very first video, also killed what made it great, what the people who worked there were so excited about in the first place: music on your television, all day and all night -- and in stereo . The videos that MTV played during those first few years were exactly what we wanted to see. They spoke to us. And the ones that spoke the loudest were the new groups that we were witnessing for the very first time on music television. Ev...

I recently completed another Twitter trade with a fellow Dodger fan named Fernando. (How appropriate is that name?) The deal was mostly Dodgers for Dodgers. Fernando (or @NorCalDodger ) found a few cards from my want list, like this amusing Action Packed item of Todd Hollandsworth, and I sent him some of the bazillion dupes that I own. But amid the want list needs that I received, I was pleasantly surprised by a few extras. See if you can tell what I mean by looking at some of the cards. Did your eyes light up in the middle there? Mine did. And it's not just because the non-Dodgers in that series were unexpected. It was because the non-Dodgers were unexpected VINTAGE. How delightful to receive a random 1966 Topps card and a random subset item from 1973 Topps just because. I have absolutely no connection to the Astros beyond being able to tell you their 1980 starting lineup. I can't even tell you who Chris Zachary is. Does it matter that he isn...

A while ago, Thorzul Will Rule featured one of those card war podcasts, and I actually made it through the entire thing. (Don't get offended. I merely have no time to watch entire videos or listen to entire podcasts. It's not the content. It's the format). On the podcast, Thorzul made a comment about the 1972 Topps set containing a lot of players featuring one particular character trait. He called it "freaky blue eyes." I knew immediately what he was talking about because I had noticed this, too. I also noticed it because I, in fact, possess "freaky blue eyes." It's OK. I'm all right with it. Chicks happen to dig them. Isn't that right, Jim? But, it's true, they can be viewed as "freaky," in that vacant, soul-less, stare-right-through-you-so-they-can-absorb-your-life-essence sort of way. Kind of like Dennis here. Don't look directly at him. I don't know why this aspect seems so noticeable on 1972 T...