Night Owl Cards

  I can't say there was ever a time when I liked every card that came out of a pack or into my collection.   Even in my youngest days of opening packs, between 1974-76, there were cards I didn't like. That was based entirely on the goofy whims of little kids -- what the player looked like, whether they wore a hat, whether they had a "weird" (to us) name.   As I grew older, my dislikes were based on other ideas: what team they played for, whether their team had wronged my team and sometimes the behavior of the player on the field, which was mostly confined to Reggie Jackson and Pete Rose.   Now my card dislikes can come from a host of reasons: certain teams and behaviors, sure, but also what card brand it is, what ridiculous parallel it is, and -- here's something we never considered as kids -- what those players say and how they act off the field. It's safe to say that we know too much and it's affecting the way I feel about the cards that arrive at my hom...

  I've been part of a lot of Nachos Grande group breaks over the years. It's an easy way to get cards of my team without suffering through blasters that insist on adding White Sox and Marlins, as well as landing some cards from those years when I was in a dark place (i.e. not collecting). I don't have the funds all the time so sometimes I leave and then come back and I came back recently for another one of his Breakers Club breaks through Discord. I always have fun with the breaks. Chris is great, he finds great sets to open and everything is done on the collectors' terms, they get the cards when they want them, Chris isn't making any money off of the whole thing, he's just trying to pay for the boxes. So it was a surprise when I ordered up my cards a week or so ago and discovered maybe a day later that not all the cards were there. I tore the house apart looking for them, I even went through the garbage -- the messy, icky garbage -- in search of them, I've...

  I made good progress the last couple days on my gift for Nachos Grande in the Not-So-Secret Santa gift exchange. I didn't want to talk about what he sent me much until I had at least figured out what I was sending. And now that my gift should be on its way probably early next week, I can settle down with what Chris sent. You already saw the Corey Seagers he sent. Those, probably, were what made me happiest, but they were just a small portion of the package. I'll start with one of the "mini movie posters" that were in 2021 Topps Archives. I did almost nothing with this set except accumulate the Dodgers. This was a need and I think I have a page for it, so I am a happy owl.   A couple of random Dodger needs that were not Corey Seager cards. TCDB says I have 22 Dennis Santana Dodgers cards. It feels like more, like I have more of his cards than games he appeared in a Dodgers uniform. That number is 32, so I'm not far off. A whole mess of Munnatawket minis, expert...

  Sometimes I wonder if when I write certain sentences, readers see them as a challenge. I put words out into the internet space and people interpret them as they like. It's wild to see what they come up with sometimes. This latest example was no challenge or call to action or dare or anything like that. All I said a couple weeks ago was:  "It's not like I'm looking to pad my collection on (TCDB). I have plenty of his cards (277) and now that's he's with the Rangers, he won't be climbing up from his No. 16 ranking among the players with the most cards in my collection." This is what I wrote about my Corey Seager cards. That's when people grabbed the imaginary gauntlet off the ground, raised it above their heads and exclaimed, "Challenge accepted!!!" OK, that's what I envision based on what I've since received. On that same post, I went through some of the Seager cards I own (that are not scanned on TCDB, and, no, I haven't do...

  Hey, look at Mr. Big Shot publishing his second set-completion post in a week, so much for struggling in this department this year. OK, so it's 1988 Donruss. I am not proud! Thanks to other folks' generosity --. er, eagerness to get rid of their share of the most overproduced set of all-time -- I finished this set in record time. It's been slightly more than a month since I announced that I wanted to complete this. I'm sure that's the fastest I've ever wrapped up a set.   I received most of the last few cards that I needed from Bo of Baseball Cards Come To Life ! He shipped me nine of them.   He also informed me that some of the cards No. 600-and-above were short-printed, which I had never heard of before. Granted, my time devoted toward Everything You Wanted To Know About 1988 Donruss has been limited. The Julio Franco card actually showed up twice -- on the same day -- as I received another one all by itself. Chris of Nachos Grande was so surprised to see ...