Night Owl Cards

I received this card from both A Cardboard Problem and Cardboard Catastrophes within a few days of each other. I noticed immediately that the Chrome version of Jonathan Broxton was different from the Topps base version of Broxton. There's the base version. It was a pleasant surprise, because like many collectors, I enjoy when the Chrome card is not merely a repeat of the base card. I made the unfortunate choice of attempting to collect the 2009 Chrome set, in which the vast majority -- if not all -- of the cards repeat the photo in the '09 base set (rookies exclusive to the Chrome set excluded). I may be forgetting some very few differences, but I don't have the time today to match up every single card. I have noticed a few other examples of this year's Chrome photos differing from the base card photos. I don't know if there are more examples of this happening in this year's set than last year's. I have purchased only a couple rack packs of 2011 Ch...

I am squeezing this post in between work craziness. It is one of the busiest weekends of the year, only surpassed by the insanity of March. It's the type of weekend where you go to work on your day off. ... twice. Today, it's an all-day and all-night affair. Tomorrow, it's much of the same. So, I picked something easy for tonight. Here it is: The Arizona Diamondbacks haven't been around very long. It's too long, if you ask me. But they make for a quick post. The interesting thing about the colors that the Diamondbacks wear is they have already changed their color scheme, even though they've been around for only 12 years. I consider that a sign of weakness. NBA teams do that. Some NHL and NFL teams, too. But if you want to be taken seriously in baseball, pick your colors and defend them to the death. Because of Arizona's switcheroo, poor Topps had to change the colors it used with Diamondbacks cards in the middle of the set in 2007. That might be t...

Chad Billingsley goes to the mound this afternoon for the Dodgers' home opener against the good-for-nothing Giants. I'm as excited as someone who resides 3,000 miles away can be. But while the opener is less than four hours away, I'm still trying to wrap my head around how the Dodgers scored their first run in yesterday's game against the Diamondbacks. Have you ever heard of the fourth-out rule before yesterday? I hadn't. Neither had a bunch of people playing in Sunday's game. Here is what happened. It is the top of the second inning with one out and Arizona leading 1-0. Juan Pierre is on second base after hitting a one-out single and stealing second. Andre Ethier is on third base after walking and advancing to third on Pierre's single. Randy Wolf, a pretty good hitting pitcher, hits a line drive that Diamondbacks starter Dan Haren catches for the second out. Haren throws to second baseman Felipe Lopez, to force out Juan Pierre, who was caught off secon...