Night Owl Cards

Stop tapping your foot. I have my reasons. I was out of town during my daughter's college orientation. My dog has arthritis in his back and neck and lets out the most ear-piercing, heart-wrench squeals of pain. I'm juggling about five different tasks at work that each, by themselves, is known for being time-consuming. Baseball cards are still on my mind. But that's as far as those thoughts travel these days. It's 10:45 at night and I'm really too tired to type out words, but it's important to show the cards that people have sent me. Some period of time ago, I received an email from Kyle of Nolan's Dugout reconnecting and letting me know he had some cards off my want list. Back then I had time to reply to emails, and that's why I have some cards now to show. Ah, yes, clearly I am out of practice and need to go back to blogging school if I'm starting out with a 1988 Fleer card. But actually it's the final card I needed to complet...

There's a lot of talk in sports about "peaking at the right time," being able to put all the elements together -- or finding that key element -- to save a team's season or win it a championship. You know, kind of like what the Dodgers are doing right now. But this can apply in lot of other areas in life. A well-timed comment, last-ditch effort, sudden discovery can change the outcome for the better and sometimes forever. And so it is with Topps 2013 (this is a card blog after all). As you know, I hadn't planned to collect much of 2013 Topps, or any current set, because of various tinkerings that made me turn more and more toward older sets. But then Topps went and did something to make me buy much more than I intended. It came up with the best base parallel I have ever seen. I've always been partial to color parallels. The best ones for me are the cards in which the entire background is paralleled. Think '08 Baseball Heroes (the parallel mete...

If you're like me and are old enough, there are certain years that you treasure more than others. As the years speed by, you grow increasingly fond of them even as your memories of what those years were actually like play tricks on you. I have affection for 1983, 1987, 1988 and grudging respect for a few years in the 1990s. But the very first year that I ever held in high esteem in my mind was 1979. From a world perspective, 1979 was a lousy year. I won't bore you with the details. Trust me. It was. From a personal perspective I was 13, going on 14, and enamored with what I suddenly knew about the wild world. The politics, the celebrities, the television, the music. The Love Boat and the Devil Went Down To Georgia were two of the most fascinating "events" of that year for me (which should also tell you something about '79). I will defend crazy things about '79 just because my brain claims the year is special. Donna Summer's Bad Girls. My Sharona. ...

About 2 1/2 years ago, I decided to figure out how many Dodgers cards I had in my collection. I didn't have the time or the patience to do a thorough job on this, so I calculated the total the quick-and-dirty way -- multiplying pages in a binder, not worrying too much whether the item was a card or a sticker, that type of thing. Well, I have even less time and patience now, but I wanted to know how far I've come in 30 months' time. I also want to know how far I've come while actively discouraging Dodger cards from coming my way. What's that you say? Yes. Mr. "I Want Every Dodger You Or I Find" frequently rejects ways to acquire more Dodgers. I thought I'd explore that, and then also arrive at my total official, you're never going to REALLY know tally, at the same time. And I'll do it with some Dodger cards I received from Kyle, who runs Nolan's Dugout . He also sent me some other cards, but these ones are Dodgers and fit ...