Night Owl Cards

Yesterday, I was reminded again that Melvin Upton Jr. is a Blue Jay. It's difficult to keep track these days as players seem to be change scenery more and more often. And in this very "life goes too fast" year of 2016, I'm in a perpetual state of catch-up. It doesn't help that players like Melvin Upton Jr. are on a new team each year. It doesn't help that players like Melvin Upton Jr. didn't even have the same name he did less than two years ago! Yes, Melvin Upton Jr. started out on very different terms not so long ago. He played for a team formerly known as the Devil Rays. And Upton was formerly known as "B.J." That transition was marked by Topps in 2015, with a card in flagship and a card in Update: And a very helpful notation of the name change on the back of the Update card: That got me thinking about other name changes. I'm not referring to wholesale name changes, like David Arias transforming into David Ortiz,...

About a week ago, the king of the Supertraders, Wes of Jaybarkerfan's Junk, announced that he wasn't interested in being the Braves supertrader anymore. With the Braves flailing through another season, collecting the team didn't interest him that much. That's not something I ever see myself doing, no matter how long the Dodgers go without returning to the World Series. But I do reach my smaller breaking points. This is one of them. I never expected the Dodgers to be a World Series or even playoff-contending team this season. I said that on this blog near the start of the season. But I did expect them to play with some degree of intelligence, meaning you beat the eternally bumbling teams of Major League Baseball that we all know -- particularly the Padres. The Dodgers can't even do that now. Thanks to a meager offense, which has basically been an issue for the team since Gary Sheffield and Shawn Green left, and a horrific bullpen in the seventh and eighth ...