Night Owl Cards

  For the first five years of this blog, there was nothing more mind-blowing to me than communicating and trading with collectors from around the world, specifically overseas.   England, France, Australia, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, I couldn't believe the reach of the blog and how many different people collected baseball cards! I connected with many of them and traded multiple times with some.   Then, slowly, each of them disappeared from the blog space, often without a trace, until it's now just me and some of my Canadian friends.   One collector, though, has turned back the clock, at least for now, by moving from the States back to Japan. Kenny, a.k.a., Zippy Zappy , has been downsizing and refocusing his collection and sending out cards to folks who could use them more than he can.   I received an envelope from Japan a few weeks ago with some cards, and then yesterday a big, fat package from Japan Post was deposited on a chair on my porch. Well, well, t...

  I don't know what the weather is like in your area but around here, it's pretty warm pretty early. It's 85 today and that's not typical in May in the north country. I quite like it but I know if it's like this nonstop through the end of September there is going to be a whole lot of whining around here. And speaking of whining, what a weird time to still be playing hockey. I know that the Stanley Cup playoffs have been stretching into June for decades now. It's played some portion of the final series in June since the early 1990s. Not the first time this Gen-Xer looked at some new occurrence from the early '90s with puzzlement (although nothing will ever top Color Me Badd). When I was in high school, the NHL was done by mid-May. Part of that is because the Islanders were sweeping everyone out in four games, but it seemed in sync with the calendar and the season. It's so hot to be playing hockey in June. It's probably nice for people in Florida, Dall...

I just sent off a package to a Nationals fan. It was packed full of Nationals cards, cards that I haven't been able to trade for years. These must be the best days for collector Chris, the Nationals fan. First the Nationals land the wild card spot, then they beat the Brewers, then the Dodgers hand them the NLDS , then they sweep the Cardinals and are in the World Series for the first time! And then -- and THEN -- this dude with a blog sends him Nationals cards! Some fans have all the luck. OK, well, there were those 100-loss seasons about 10 years ago. I am a typical baseball fan of a certain age that has little use for the Nationals. Yeah, yeah, Scherzer and Strasburg and all that. Doesn't matter much to me. The Expos -- you know, the team MLB stole from Montreal and planted in Washington -- were my most direct route to watching a major league game in person. And it's been a pain in the rump to attend an MLB game ever since the Expos left. I don't cons...

That is my Mike Trout rookie card. Most days it sits under lock-and-key because I just know there are thieves lurking in the bushes so they can steal it from me. Even when I pull it out for blog occasions like this one, I don't like scanning it outside of its top-loader. I'd do it if I had to -- I don't care about it that much -- but all it will take is one trip to ebay to see how much it is selling for and I suddenly feel like hiring armed guards. My goal is to sell this card someday and I probably would have sold it already, but I've held on to it because I wasn't done with the 2011 Topps Update set yet. No, I haven't completed the 2011 Update set -- no plans to do that -- but there was one card from that set that I wanted above any other one and it took ages for me to get it. The Matt Kemp Toppstown card from that set lounged on my Nebulous 9 list longer than any other card that I've placed on there. But if you look over at the Nebulous 9 now, ...

Each year I notice a malaise that settles over the blogging community during late August. I'm not sure why that is. My guess is vacations come into play. In some areas of the country school has started up (which still strikes me as bizarre). Perhaps some folks are a little tired of baseball -- their teams are fading, the NL playoff contenders are a collection of gross -- and they can't get interested in cards. This is usually the time of year when everyone fails to comment on one of my posts, a rarity as a post earlier this week was the first in almost two years without a comment. And yesterday I kind of opened my heart and the clicks were, well ... weak. But I knew all this. That is why I had planned to start The Greatest 100 Cards of the '80s countdown in August, specifically the end of August. Maybe I could generate some interest among bored collectors. However, life has conspired all summer to prevent that from happening and with everyone apparently too busy ...

During the recent Winter Meetings, the Dodgers were mentioned as being interested in the Pirates' Andrew McCutchen. I don't know how realistic that still is with the current crowd in the Dodgers' outfield, but I'd love to squeeze McCutchen in there. If L.A. could add Curtis Granderson and his termite-infested bat last year, they can find room for McCutchen. It would be a sweet post-Christmas gift. As for pre-Christmas gifts, McCutchen is already taking care of that for me. He's my Secret Santa! Ho! Ho! Ho! McCutchen, using the operator of the blog Collecting Cutch as his Christmas elf, sent me a glorious stash of Dodgers that happened to arrive at my door today, two days before the big day! That's cuttin' it clos ... er, right on time, mister! Besides Bowman Santa McCutchen above, let's see what else was in Cutch's big red sack: Here is McCutchen again, appearing all ghostly. That's because he's the Ghost of Christmas Prese...