Night Owl Cards

Topps released its 2015 Heritage High Numbers checklist today. I'm a little more interested in it this year because you're actually going to be able to buy these cards in packs from a store, instead of the online exclusive goofiness of past years. I scanned through the checklist, and as I panned down the page, I grew more and more hopeful that there would be no Dodgers in Heritage High Numbers. I'm still trying to chase down Dodgers from the regular Heritage set. But no luck. The Dodgers were all bunched together in the high 500s and 600s. Yasmani Grandal (#585), Alex Guerrero (#695) and Brett Anderson (#696). Jimmy Rollins (#721) is a High Numbers High Number short-print. Weee. Oh, and I forgot another one: Trevor Cahill (#595). This is the point when the good, faithful Dodger fans reading this raise their hands and say, "But wait, Mr. Night Owl, Trevor Cahill didn't play for the Dodgers." Ah, faithful Dodger fans. You're so knowledgeable. ...

Either later today or tomorrow I'll be headed to the only garage sale I mark on the calendar each year. I'm not much for garage sales, and when it comes to cards, the garage sale has become one giant landfill for 1991 Donruss . You almost never find anything decent in the card department anymore. Or at least I don't. But there is this one sale that spans the same weekend each year. It's part of the town's field days weekend, an easy excuse to leave work early, stuff your face and get drunk. A bunch of the town's residents also gather all their junk together and hold a mass garage sale. You can go from house to house to house and buy plates that were eaten on in 1974 and video cassettes of "The Goonies ." One guy with a house on the corner has one of those card-catalog type filing cabinets jammed full with sports cards. I have paid him a visit each of the last 2 or 3 years. You can tell he only got into collecting when he thought he could get rich off ...

Look at this card. It's a disgrace. It's an affront to any self-respecting Dodger fan on the planet. I can't look at it without getting a dull pang in my stomach. Gooden rounding third? Dwight GOODEN rounding THIRD? Look at the scoreboard. The Mets are leading the Dodgers 7-3. In the third inning . And the pitcher is rounding third. I'm sure if I was watching this game, I changed it to "Bowling for Dollars" at this point. I looked the game up. It took place on July 21, 1991 at Shea Stadium. The Mets won 9-4 on the strength of their six-run third inning. Gooden went 2-for-2 with two RBIs and a run scored. Dodgers pitcher Bob Ojeda gave up eight runs in 2 2/3 innings. And I've got to relive it every time I look at this card. You know what Stadium Club did to me by issuing this card don't you? They peed on my rug. They peed on my f-ing rug. Yeah, this is one of the cards that I pulled from the many packs of early '90s wonderfulness that Mike...

I am stumped. This fourth blog bat around topic has me baffled. Flummoxed. Bamboozled. Clueless. The topic takes us into the future. What card or set, regardless of scandal, tragedy or crisis that may befall said player, team, set or company, will have value in 10 years? What is an absolute buy and hold? Gosh, I don't know. If I knew that I'd play the stock market, rather than run screaming the other way everytime someone mentions annuities. I'd be a prospector and know exactly who the heck all these fresh-scrubbed kids with the odd names are. Did I ever mention that one year ago I had no idea who David Price was? Yeah, I'm not the guy you want to turn to for advice on oil futures. As for valuable? That ship has sailed, brothers and sisters. Once upon a time, I knew the value of every single one of my baseball cards. There were tiny little price-tag stickers affixed to each nine-pocket sheet, categorizing and quantifying the value of each and every card. But I don...

In my Internet wanderings before I started Night Owl Cards, I saw a handful of card blogs before I came across Wax Heaven . I even liked some of them. But when I saw Wax Heaven, I knew this blog was one of the originals. As a journalist, I admire Wax Heaven for its ability to break card news, for accurate, no-punches-pulled commentary, and for doing all of that with a heart. Mario has a nose for news, but he also has a love for the hobby, a concern for his fellow bloggers and seems as sincere as they come. Mario, congratulations on one year of Wax Heaven. Your blog needs to be around for many more. Here's to many more posts, hits, readers, videos, etc. Keep doing what you're doing. You are living, breathing proof that something good can come out of rooting for Jose Canseco ;)

This card always puzzled me. I don't know if my depth perception is off or if it's the way the card's cropped, but it looks like they cut around Santo's likeness and then pasted him in the forefront of a Cubs spring training scene. I realize this photo was likely taken in 1973 and photoshop wasn't around, but the photo just looks weird. But that's not the reason why this card is here. It's here because the Hall of Fame Veterans Comittee on Tuesday announced their list of 10 candidates for the Hall from major leaguers whose careers began in 1943 or later. Santo's on that list. So is Gil Hodges, Joe Torre, Luis Tiant, Maury Wills, Tony Oliva, Jim Kaat, Dick Allen, Al Oliver and Vada Pinson. On December 8th, the committee will announce whether they've selected anyone from this list, or from the previous list of players whose careers started before 1943, for the Hall of Fame. And that got me thinking: why go through all the hand-wringing? This debate...