Night Owl Cards

  Today is the release date for 2021 Stadium Club. The cool kids are already showing their loot, procured through means unavailable to me. Or maybe I just won't jump through the hoops required. I'll get my hands on some of it -- probably just the Dodgers team set -- next month or three months from now, whatever. It's always a favorite and has been since the beginning. One of my favorite parts of Stadium Club during the '90s is all the chaos on cardboard. SC was an expert on showing dirt on cards and often bodies were flying through it or above it. Here's a few examples: Great stuff. Dust flying. Equipment flying. People flying. That pattern held firm through the initial era of Stadium Club, from 1991-2003.   There are a few basepaths photos in Stadium Club's return in 2008. But the name banner kind of gets in the way of the action on some of the cards. SC took another sabbatical after the semi-disaster of '08 and when it returned in 2014, and each of the yea...

Behold. This is the greatest night card of the 1990s. Yes, I know I could shoot down that statement with my very own collection in no more than five minutes. But why spoil the fun? Look at that card and tell me it's not the greatest thing you've ever seen. I generously received this fantastic Omar Vizquel item from T.J., the Junior Junkie . (I didn't know yesterday was " show your cards from Junior Junkie day ." Late again). What I love about this card, other than the always terrific electrified light against a blanket of black, is the customary Collector's Choice way of submitting a fairly bizarre photo without comment. There is no explanation for this picture on the card back. What? You don't lean against your yellow Porsche 911 with a couple of golden glove trophies in the middle of the night, too? You've got to get out more. The best I can tell, from my usual "I have no time for this" internet researching, is that Vizquel...

I've got a lot of disconnected thoughts about the upcoming World Series, so I thought I'd throw a few of them together here. But these aren't all of my Series thoughts. I have at least two other posts prepared concerning the Rangers v. Giants. Fortunately, Major League Baseball isn't in any kind of hurry to get the World Series started, so I can get all the posts finished before the thing starts. (Here's a plus for you, Fox. You may not have gotten New York vs. Philadelphia, but at least it's not going to snow on your broadcast). First off, even though I am a Giants hater and I want that team to die an ugly four-game death while clueless San Francisco fans puzzle over how Aubrey Huff couldn't lead them to a championship, I am enormously pleased about this matchup in one aspect. It kills the notion that money can buy a title. Money can buy a title sometimes. But not all the time. Yet, people are always ragging on baseball because teams like the Yankee...

This is a night card of Asdrubal Cabrera's unassisted triple play on May 12, 2008. That is Cabrera stepping on second base to force out Kevin Mench (not seen), and preparing to tag out Marco Scutaro, who is already resigned to the triple play and walking back to the dugout. The 14th unassisted triple play in MLB history happened in the second game of a doubleheader at Cleveland. The Blue Jays ended up winning the game 3-0 with three runs in the 10th inning. I pulled this card after I was snookered into a buying a couple of discounted blasters at Wal-Mart the other day. I kept reading about how Wal-Mart had suddenly packed its card aisle with marked-down blasters -- good ones, not 2007 Upper Deck base. I'm a sucker for discount blasters. Back at the start of the year, I vowed not to buy any blasters. But that devolved into "I won't buy a blaster unless there is an overriding good reason to buy a blaster." "Discount" qualifies as an overriding ...

Thanks to the Wax Wombat and I Don't Know , I am very close to finishing off series 1 of the 2010 Topps set, which is pretty good considering I decided to complete the set less than two weeks ago. WW and IDK brought my set wants to 16 cards, if you can believe my want list, which I wouldn't recommend. I think I have enough of the set to do a review of what I believe are the best cards, at least prior to series 2 hitting the streets. I know you all have seen these before. But have you seen them in a tidy, top 10 countdown with sparkling Night Owl commentary? No, you haven't. Context is everything, people. And I'm bringing the context. To come up with the list, I used a tried-and-true method: lay 10 cards out on a table, and then slide them down when you come across a card that should be on the list. Trust me. It works. It's worked since I was 9. Do not question the card-sliding method. It's better than science. In the event that one of the missing 16 is ...