Night Owl Cards

As often happens during the postseason, I select a participating team and try to find a few cards from that team that I enjoy. It helps me appreciate the teams involved a little more as well as the cards that I own. I've even done this a time or two for teams that are playing the Dodgers in the postseason. I don't know why. I suppose it's my way of making a peace offering to my foes. And so I started making a list of some of my favorite Brewers of the past in keeping with this year's NLCS. Then I decided: I'm not doing that. Oh, I certainly am capable. Here's my favorite outfield right now: Ben Oglivie, Gorman Thomas, Sixto Lezcano. That took me 30 seconds to compile. Simple. But I'm sick of being nice to the team that's trying to beat my team, especially when it's the team that suddenly finds its bandwagon full. I've dealt with this for three years now. Two years ago, people wanted the Cubs to beat the Dodgers because --- ooooh , it...

I used to love Chrome. Really, really love it. And if you've read this blog for more than a couple of years, you've seen my drooling posts. Chrome is very difficult to resist. How else is Topps getting people to buy the same cards that are in the base set for the 19TH YEAR IN A ROW???? Chrome is the intoxicating woman spotted at the night club. You know you shouldn't. You know it will end horribly. But, yet ... you're in . Hopelessly. In. Fortunately, the last couple of years I've managed to keep my distance. I've limited my pack purchases of Chrome to just a rack pack or two. And after two years, I thought I had become immune to Chrome's siren song. Until today. In Walmart, hiding behind the discarded shopping carts (why is the card aisle the place where Walmart employees feel they can dispose of carts full of random goods? There are collectors walkin' here!!!) I heard Chrome speak to me and I instantly grew knock-kneed. I hadn't purcha...

Matt Kemp is the real National League MVP. You people who voted Kemp third must feel REALLY bad now. OK, perhaps I shouldn't be so flip. Maybe I should be mortified like everyone else.  The news is bad . It's a shame. We have to wait until the facts come out. He seemed like such a nice kid. Blah, blah, blah. But honestly, how many of these positive PED cases have been reversed? Not many. None in baseball that I can recall. If Braun's camp comes up with a plausible excuse that is accepted, then fine. It'll be the first one ever. But until then ... Ryan Braun has really stepped in it. (Can PEDs cause the logo on a helmet to grow abnormally large?) Give Kemp the award he deserves! It may be an unrealistic request. But if it doesn't happen, I'll just do what everyone does with the career home run champion. Bonds may hold the record, but Aaron is everyone's home run king. Kemp is the real MVP! Mike Greenwell agrees with me !

Scout Larry Pardo responded to my post here . He didn't like it very much. I can see where he's coming from. I called this one of the worst cards of 2009. He thought it was indictment of the scouting profession. He stuck up for his job. He belittled my blog. (Don't worry. Working in newspapers, I'm used to this stuff). You might want to go back and read the comments. But if you're lazy, let me just say, like I did in the comments, that I have nothing against scouts or the scouting profession. Being a scout sounds like a great idea, just like sportswriting sounded like a great idea to me as a youngster. Unfortunately, much like sportswriting , scouting doesn't pay much, it involves long hours, and requires endless travel and time away from family. When I was around 12 or 13, I read Roger Angell's article titled "Scout," in which he followed around a scout for the Angels, Ray Scarborough. That article stayed with me. And since that time, I have ha...

I never expected to find seven worthy candidates for the Worst Card of 2009 by early June, but those card companies are up to the challenge, aren't they? I also never expected to find a card that could top the first candidate for "Worst Card," the Topps Ryan Braun card. But I do believe we have a very appropriate contender here. And you might be surprised to know that this card also is connected to Ryan Braun . What we have here is an official 2009 Bowman scout card, autographed by the scout in question, Larry Pardo . As the esteemed motherscratcher would say, "I crap you negative." The first time I saw one of these cards was during a Bowman break on Crackin ' Wax . My comment on that post was the following: "Scout? Auto? Mind. Just. Blown. To. Smithereens." Seriously, what bowling ball thought inserting autographed cards of scouts was a smashing idea? But surprisingly, after reading that post and a similar one on Wax Heaven, I forgo...

I may be a bit vocal about the card brands I don't like, but the truth is, I'll try anything once when it comes to buying packs. I can see all the cards I want on the blogs, but I don't make a final determination until I see them in my greedy, grabby hands. So that explains why yesterday I bought loose packs of two 2009 sets that I have no interest in collecting: Piece of History and Goudey . And you will be shocked to hear that I was pleasantly surprised by one of the packs. I'll give you a hint which one it was by showing you which one it wasn't: Lordy , what a disaster this card is. It's an instant candidate for Worst Card of 2009. This is candidate No. 4. Cal is somewhere in that painting, but you've really got to look. The orange background reminds me of burning wildfires. And Ripken's glowing orange arms are much more disturbing in person. I know people have said '09 Goudey is a faithful recreation of the original Goudey set. I don't ca...

"Lazy" doesn't refer to the happenings of the day, mind you. Saturdays are never lazy when you work in the sports arena. Instead, "lazy," in this case, addresses a state of mind. I'm just not feeling it in terms of producing a quality post. So I'm simply going to blather about a few things on my mind and wrap it up for the night. First off, take another gander at Ryan Braun's entry into the 2009 Topps field. Talk about lazy! You know what I said about Topps vastly improving its photography over last year? Well, scratch that on the Braun effort. What deadweight decided that this would be a good photo for Milwaukee's brightest star? (All things Prince excluded, of course). Not only is it as uninteresting a photo that anyone could dream up, but the combination of the hair and the look on Braun's face makes it seem like he just woke up in a daze after sleep-walking to the ballpark. He can't be happy with this card. This officially goes down...