Night Owl Cards

  When I first started blogging way back when, I was amazed not just by the size of my new blogging buddies' collections, but also their ability to continue acquiring cards and also distributing those cards at will to fellow collectors. I knew only my tiny card world, which mostly remained the same since I was a child. I never had that much money to spend on cards. At first, it was whatever I could save up from my allowance, then it was whatever I could save up from my newspaper route, later it was spill-over cash from part-time jobs. I then took on a career that is renowned for paying squat and that's how I've survived in the hobby, carefully budgeting what I can spend on cards. I perhaps have more money now than ever to spend on cards at this stage of my life. But I behave as if I'm still counting quarters before biking to the drug store a couple miles away. And I remain amazed at what other collectors seem to have available. Without being able to view their collectio...

  I was fortunate enough to grow up during an era where I didn't have to seek out a hobby shop for the best cards. I didn't even have to fight the enormous crowd and wander through the enormous aisles of a big box store. Cards were everywhere in the '70s. Our go-to as kids was the drug store smart enough to stock cards, there was one wherever we lived. But grocery stores also carried them, and the corner stores that you younger people only read about on blogs like this. I'd find them in hardware stores. They were in book stores, record stores, you name it. But I never experienced cards from a gas station when I was a kid. I've heard about them, probably some tale about singing gas service men, belting out a song while pumping your gas and handing cards to the kiddies while a puppy dog happily wagged its tail. It wasn't until years later that I discovered cards at a gas station. It was in 2001, in the spring or summer. I was visiting relatives in Buffalo and I st...

I was in Target a couple of days ago, as I often am at this time of year, not to hunt out baseball cards but because this is The Birthday Month in the house. I did step over to the card section, of course, and grab a few 2024 Topps packs. I was actually hoping to pull a particular card, but I didn't. The card is the one above of the Royals' Michael Massey. I thought it would be a nice card on the occasion of my daughter's birthday. Michael Massey turns 26 today. So does my daughter. Massey is the only player to share the exact same birth date as my daughter. I have just one card of Massey but at least it's his rookie card, right? Even though my daughter is not much of a sports fan, she has a connection to baseball that I don't have. There is no MLB player who was born the exact day that I was (only in other sports). And I like that I know this Massey factoid because it keeps me young, even though my daughter being more than halfway through her 20s makes me feel old....