Night Owl Cards

I have been cataloging cards in my collection for as long as I have been writing this blog. It seems like I'll never get to the end but the goal is to someday reach the finish line. Once I have totaled all of my cards, there are several posts waiting to be made. One of the ones I've always wanted to write is figuring out which player in my collection has the greatest disparity between total cards and games played. In other words, way more cards than games played. I have a hunch who that is. It's Karim Garcia. Garcia played 488 major league games in a 10-year career. However, I don't care about his career with all those other teams. I care about his career with the Dodgers. Those are the only Garcia cards in my collection, with him wearing Dodger blue. Garcia was a big prospect for L.A. in the mid-1990s. But he ended up playing in just 29 games for the Dodgers between 1995-97. Even though he was called up to the major leagues as an 18-year-old in 1995, he ...

Guess what? I got another package from Cards On Cards . By my count, this is package No. 36. That's an all-time record for anywhere. No one has ever sent more packages with baseball cards in them from one blogger to another. Go through the records if you must. Come up with the most irrefutable, iron-clad argument that you can, but it's still wrong. This is the record, so off with you. As usual, Kerry's gift of cards produced the usual variety, including this night card here. I'm not 100 percent positive it's a genuine night scene on that card, but there's a good chance with the camera light shining on Brucey and the darkened background. Awards cards are fun and Fleer was the king of awards cards in the '80s. But this card is extra-interesting to me because: 1) There are three hands holding up that trophy -- two from Sutter and one phantom hand. Eerie. 2) The guy with the glasses in the background may or may not be George Kissell, the late legend...

There is a contest about who can act more presidential taking place on television tonight. In case you haven't noticed, I detest politics, and I detest even more people getting animated about politics. So I'm steering very clear of anything that has to do with the words "debate," "moderator," or "let me finish." But I know how some people must have things to discuss and questions to answer, so I'll throw this out to you: I received this Starting Lineup card of Fernando Valenzuela from Classon Ave. a little while ago. It was part of a package of Dodgers and oddballs, which are really the best kind of packages -- there's no debate about that. Now, the whole Starting Lineup craze did not land in my wheelhouse. When kids were playing with their little SLU figurines, I was figuring out how anyone expected me to attend my 9 a.m. law of mass communication class if the bar was open until 4 a.m. Near as I know, there were little plastic ...

During my health funk, I mentioned that I didn't care about trading. It was all a part of being generally ill. You know what it's like being sick. You don't feel like doing anything, even the things you love the most. But I'm afraid I might have scared off a few people. "Night Owl is done with trading!" "Night Owl is retired!" "Have you heard? Night Owl doesn't want your 1991 Donruss anymore!" Well, that is entirely untrue. Except the part about not wanting '91 Donruss. That's always true. No, I may have a problem with pretending that people are breathlessly referring to me by my made-up nickname, but I don't have a problem trading. Sure, it's been crazy as hell around here. Sure, it's still freakin' March. Sure, I've got a new lifestyle that requires I take more time to work out and eat properly and certain old people stuff like that. But I still trade. At my own, methodical, pokey, you'll-g...

Not really. There's maybe an inch on the ground, if that much. But it's the first significant snow that we've had here this season. Considering that I've seen snow in Northern New York before Halloween, that's pretty notable. Some people are actually bent out of shape (re: my daughter) that we haven't been hit with a blizzard yet. I've driven and walked through my share of Christmas rain the last three weeks, so I'm happy to see some snow, too. And it gives me an excuse to stay home and catch up on card filing, posting and mailing. I mean, I can't do anything else! I'm snowed in! So, here I am inside and featuring some cards I received from hiflew at Cards From the Quarry . After this, I'm going to work on some card packages. After that, I might pretend I'm from South Carolina and run outside screaming because there's this weird white stuff on the ground. But first, cards from the '90s: Here is Hideo Nomo card No...