Night Owl Cards

The arrival of Hyun-Jin Ryu as a member of the Dodgers signaled another threshold moment in L.A. uniform numerology. His choice of No. 99 marked the second time that a Dodger has worn that number while on a major league roster. No longer an uproarious one-and-done 2008 Mannywood dream, Ryu has taken 99 from Manny Ramirez and fashioned it with his own Far East style. So far, Ryu, tonight's starter, and Ramirez are the only Dodgers to wear the final number before venturing into triple digits (They have 99 problems but their number ain't one). But that started me thinking about the progression of the uniform number through Dodger history. Wearing a number in the 90s is a phenomenon of the last 15 years for L.A. Aside from Ryu and Ramirez, reliever Joe Beimel wore No. 97, and Pirates/Jays cast-off Jacob Brumfield wore No. 94 in 1999. The 80s numerals are a virtual wasteland with only Rick Wilkins, who played catcher for the Dodgers for all of three games, wearing...

There was some bit of nonsense about a Topps Heritage High Numbers checklist bubbling on the twitters earlier today. I didn't pay much attention, because the thing is still 100 bucks for 100 cards. Topps decided to show one of the autographs from the set. As you know each box of 100 cards comes with an autograph. This particular autograph that Topps showed was Bryce Harper. Of course. You were expecting Edinson Volquez? I promptly turned my attention to the stacks of baseball cards on my card desk and picked up some cards I received from Brian at Cardnomics . He had opened a bunch of Update, was just as unimpressed as I was, and sent some Dodgers my way. The Jerry Hairston card interested me in particular because I simply had to figure out what play was on the card. I thought it'd be pretty easy to do. I didn't have a lot of time on my hands and sometimes this photo detective work gets tedious and time-consuming. For some reason, I thought this game was against t...

I don't expect my success on Listia to last, especially if I keep showing my successes on the blog. It's only a matter of time before people connect "free cards" with "get rid of stuff you don't want," and all I'll ever see on there anymore is 1988 Topps. Already I'm starting to struggle with finding something I want. I'm in my longest drought so far. But immediately before that came along, I enjoyed my greatest success. Josh D. at Royals and Randoms asked last night "What's Your Best Listia Card So Far?" His best card is an Eric Hosmer short-print from this year's Topps. That's pretty good. He asked if anyone could top it. I'm not sure if I can top it. It depends on your perspective. Here's a Listia card I received fairly recently. It doesn't top the Hosmer short-print, but I like it a lot. These 1995 Select Can't Miss inserts are some of the best-looking cards of the '90s. I love...

You can expect to see this card again in December. Look at all those Jingle Bells colors. It's Christmas in July! Makes me think it's going to snow even though it's 91 right now and hasn't rained for weeks. I present this card to you while not exactly in a "Look! Manny Ramirez never played for the A's!" frame of mind. It's kind of fun, much like the old '70s days in which Bill Grief appeared as an Expo even though he never played for them, or Bud Harrelson as an Astro, or innumerable Blue Jays and Mariners in the 1977 set. But it's kind of frustrating in that it's a bit of fiction in your team binder while middle relievers remain total non-entities to Topps. But Topps has toyed with Manny's cards for so long now -- removing umps entirely, leaving umps' disconnected legs -- that I'm getting bored with it. I can't even get fired up trying to determine when this photo actually took place. My theory is Ramirez is actu...

Today, finally, I completed the Allen & Ginter set for a fourth straight year. The 2011 A&G set took much, much longer to complete than any of the previous three years. Here are the calendar dates on when I completed each set to illustrate it: 2008 A&G completion: Nov. 20, 2008 2009 A&G completion: Dec. 10, 2009 2010 A&G completion: Nov. 22, 2010 2011 A&G completion: June 15, 2012 Only about six months difference there. One of the reasons for this I think is that I don't buy nearly as many blasters as I once did. I still buy a lot of A&G, but I go about my completion quest through loose packs and rack packs. Probably not as productive, but a lot easier on the budget. The other bigger reason is that I'm pretty sure not as many people are collecting A&G as they did in previous years. I'm not Topps, so I don't have the sales sheets, but just based on how seldom I see A&G cards in trade packages the last year or so, I'...

It occurred to me that I haven't done one of those giant trade posts that everyone loves so much in quite awhile. It also occurred to me that I am on vacation this week. Why on earth have I not realized that vacation is the perfect time for a giant trade post? Well, other than the fact that Mother's Day is approaching and wrapping presents takes me about two days, the lawn mower is busted and I'm trying to get a new one operational, the cable is acting zooey and tech support even zooier, I've got a half dozen home projects that aren't getting done because I don't have the cash/know-how, my diet/exercise program eats up a tremendous amount of free time ... other than that, I guess I just never thought about it before. So, let me squeeze in an epic trade post. It'll take my mind of the fact that the guy next door is beautifying his lawn for the second time this week while I'm walking through knee-high grass. The first cards are from Nathan at Cana...

I picked up my 300th follower on the blog sometime Wednesday evening while I was at work. I figured I'd acknowledge that somehow, although I have no idea what to say. I selected this Upper Deck Fun Pack Manny Ramirez card because it's the only night card I have scanned of a player who hit over .300 for his career. Commemorating a 300 milestone with players who hit .300 seems like the thing to do -- at least on this blog . As I've often said, when I started this blog I never expected more than a handful of people to read what I wrote here, let alone 300 regulars (although some have disappeared from their blogs, sadly). I have an enthusiasm for writing and for baseball and for baseball cards, and there are some moments in the day or week or month or year when that is ALL that I want to do. So, that's what I do, whether people want to read it or not. Still, like a lot of bloggers, I find myself getting caught up in "is this something people want to read?...

I received this card in the mail on Monday. It came from hiflew who runs Cards From the Quarry . It's the 349th card that I have obtained in the 350-card 2011 Allen & Ginter set. Ever since I declared my frustration with the set, that I have had a more difficult time completing the set than in past years and that I didn't know whether I would try to complete it for a fifth straight year when 2012 A&G came out, I have received what can only be described as an outpouring of assistance in helping me finish off the 2011 set. Most of the credit can go to Brian at Play at the Plate . In one quickly sent package, he knocked off 17 of my needs from the set. There's the first group of them. I have a new scanner and there are infinite things that I don't know about it, including how to get nine cards on a scanner bed. So you're going to have to live with things like borders being cut off. There's the other group. Whoops ... that card on the b...