Night Owl Cards

It's that time again. Today's my birthday. My birthdays come around enough on this blog that I've pretty much covered every major leaguer who shares my birthday. There aren't a lot of them, particularly of name players. To recap, the most famous player also born on July 16 is Shoeless Joe: After that, there is quite a drop. The most notable player after Joe Jackson born today is Terry Pendleton: Pendleton never played for teams I liked, but he did win an MVP award and I've always given him a pass because of what is on the back of his 1987 Topps card: A childhood rooting for the Dodgers is a happy childhood. Beyond that, the most remembered players born today are New York Giants pitcher Larry Jansen, volatile Cubs manager Lee Elia, well-traveled relief pitcher Eddie Fisher, and Dodgers catcher and Koufax-whisperer Norm Sherry. But I've covered all of that before, and I have cards of most of the players born on my birthday (but not all...

When I am writing blog posts late at night, I almost always play music on my computer in the background. It helps me think. Although I am at an age where I should despise modern music, I don't. Not all of it anyway. I like a wide variety. But more often than not, I'll go back to the good ol ' days for my background tunes. And for me, that is the '80s, when I want to remember high school and college, and the '70s, when I want to remember childhood. So that's where the deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett hit me, right in the middle of memories that I will always treasure. Michael Jackson's music was the soundtrack to my senior year in high school. "Beat It" was the anthem to the final four months before graduation, and freedom. You were nothing, and I mean nothing, if you didn't own the album "Thriller." You name a month in 1983 or 1984 and I can tell you what the hit Michael Jackson song was at that time. Farrah Fawcett wa...