Night Owl Cards

   On the good side of being down one vehicle for at least the next month is I won't be able to act on any impulses to drive to Target/Walmart in search for cards.   The past week demonstrated how home-bound I will be (we're a two-car family and opposite work shifts allow us to trade-off the remaining -- older -- vehicle). The only alternative for card purchasing will be online.   I'm well-aware of the online options. I've mentioned many times that there have been no reliable card shops where I live for decades. The monthly card show has been a blessing, but that brings me to another obstacle: the weather.   I had planned to go to the latest monthly show Saturday. I skipped the one last month because it was zero degrees with wind-whipping snow. But this time, snow reappeared again, starting overnight -- more nasty angry-wind stuff. But the forecast promised it would wrap up by late morning. So, no sweat, the card show runs until 3.   Then the late morning f...

  I tell ya, clearing snow on a daily basis is not only a lot of work but it's very time-consuming. Where's night owl been? Outside trying to put snow on top of snowbanks taller than me, that's where.   So, I don't have a lot here, just some self-examination.   I was thinking a few weeks ago about my favorite players when I was a kid. You know some of them. For instance, Ron Cey. He was probably a lot of fans' favorites, but he didn't have nearly as many fans as his teammate, Steve Garvey. Cey was the underdog. I gravitated toward him, probably partly because he wasn't Steve Garvey.   My interest in the underdog was even more pronounced when it came to the Dodgers' pitching staff from that time. My favorite was not Don Sutton. Nor was it Tommy John. It wasn't even No. 3 starter, Burt Hooton. No, it was Doug Rau.   I can't really tell you why. I just liked him. I think I liked to attach myself to the lesser-known guy and then urge him on to succes...

  Here in the Northeast, August is still summer vacation. Hearing about people going back to school this week in the south or out west is disturbing and I'm grateful I have only known stepping into a classroom for the first time during September.   However, August is nothing great here either. I've written many times about "August dread" -- I've experienced it since I was a little kid. And with my job for the last 30-plus years, August remains the calm before the storm -- a month's worth of trying to squeeze in every bit of fun you can before the education system saps your will to live.   Also, August, for this house, is a month of less money (the education system pays the bills). I don't cut out card spending completely as I did during past Augusts, but I still need to watch the budget. I balance the lack of funds with the need for cards to dull the August edge -- card by card. Singles are the way to go this month, rather than boxes or packs.   So here ar...

    My blog reaches around the world and I'm pretty proud of that, but really the most important area for it to reach, as far as my collection, is Southern California.   Thanks to people from across the nation knowing me as a Dodger fan, I've been able to obtain items that usually would be off-limits to me, a lifelong Northeast resident living in a small, remote city. I've received lots of Dodgers items sold exclusively at Dodger Stadium, a place I've only seen in pictures and video screens.   A couple of weeks ago, my all-time favorite player, Ron Cey, was honored as a "Legend of Dodger Baseball," a fairly recent award the organization has presented to former players who have made an impact on the team but are not in the Baseball Hall of Fame.   Due to time constraints -- and nearly 3,000 miles between me and the event -- I couldn't be there in person to bestow my thanks. I knew that the team would be handing out a Cey bobblehead to fans. No matter, I...

  A couple of months ago I ran a Dodgers card giveaway in hopes that collectors would both relieve me of some of my many, many dupes and also enjoy what I was sending.   There wasn't much of a response. Four or five folks. Blogging giveaways aren't what they once were. Plus there are all those deluded Yankees and Giants fans who have yet to come to grips with the one true team 😃. What I did send made somewhat of a dent, but there is so much left.   Meanwhile, the collectors who took me up on the offer were appreciative. One collector, Jeremy, even sent something back. He didn't have to. But it's nice to know that he really liked the cards. In fact, his two kids did, too, and sent a couple of drawings.   It's great seeing young Dodger fans. They're so rare around here.   The goodies in the box mostly came from Dodger Stadium giveaways, I think. Those drinking cups at the top recognize the Dodgers' World Series title, appearance in the postseason and Opening ...

("I've never met a beer I didn't drink." RIP, George Wendt, one of many reasons I was doing the same thing every Thursday at 9 p.m. in the '80s. Time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 352nd in a series):   The always friendly and informative Trading Card Database says I own 346 cards of Orel Hershiser.   Of that total, approximately 140 are from the years 1985 to 1989, or 40 percent. Of those 140, about 60 are oddballs, with 27, give or take a card or two, arriving in boxed sets.   Most of these cards are pervasive, extremely easy to find and I wouldn't be a serious Dodgers card collector if I didn't have plenty of extras. I've operated for a long time thinking I've owned just about every Hershiser card from this time period except for some rarely produced, unheard of item that only a guy like this , wherever he may be now, knows.   This is why my eyes practically popped out of my head recently when I saw the above card and knew instantly tha...

    Yes, I'd rather buy than sell. I think most collectors can relate to that. People who repeatedly rejoice in selling cards usually get the side-eye from me. I've addressed the buying vs. selling in the past, but I have another little story to underline it. First, just three cards that I've purchased recently. Card No. 470 in my 1975 Topps buyback quest. I'm fully at 71 percent of the set now (71.2% to be more accurate). With this card I believe I've exhausted the supply from the one ebay seller who was offering these very reasonably. But as others have mentioned, next year should be a bonanza of '75 buybacks with the release of 2024 Heritage. I've got my hopes up for some of those elusive cards. Better not be stamping more Oscar Zamoras. Yeah, this is what I was referring to in the Ron Cey birthday post from last week. This is the "card" that did not arrive in time. It's one of the trimmed pictures from the page inserts in the All-Star Game ...

I had intended to show off the incredible perfect storm of a mail day that came my way Monday and use many words to describe the wonderful, but the combination of Super Bowl prep, the start of the Olympics and the winter storm is kicking my butt. All I have for you is just one card from that haul. But it's a pretty good one. This arrived from Gavin of Baseball Card Breakdown . It was a thank you for being one of the main commenters on his 1991 Musicards Blog , which just celebrated its one-year anniversary.   It was nothing to comment on his blog. I love that set and have completed it. My appreciation for music is apparently a lot more intense than many of the card bloggers because there should be a lot more people commenting on that blog!   Anyway, Gavin announced he would be sending out something special for the top commenters. I expected something musical in nature, perhaps one of those special customs that he does so well.   But when I opened the elaborate packaging i...

    A couple of weeks ago I posted about my appreciation for Saturdays gone by and in particular Saturday card bloggers -- those bloggers who post only on Saturdays. Today, I'm addressing Sundays and Sunday-only card bloggers. For me, Sundays are my Saturdays. It's a recuperation day from the week that's passed. I usually don't do a lot that day unless the Monday-thru-Fridayers insist on doing something. It's mostly a day for baseball watching (or football watching) and music listening. I usually blog that day, too. As a youngster, Sundays were for church and shopping, of course. That was the day when a trip to the ice cream shop was most likely. It was a day for cookouts and fun food and riding bikes and walking to the drug store to find cards. As I got older, I worked in a department store and Sundays were a day the sales started -- and the day most likely for a customer to insist something was on sale that wasn't on sale -- and the first time I experienced w...