Night Owl Cards

  Ron Hodges passed away just about two weeks ago. Unless you're a Mets fan, you may not remember him. I barely remember him from the time I watched Mets games on WOR with my grandfather. I remember him more from my baseball cards.   Hodges was a longtime backup catcher for the Mets and just the Mets. He was there for about a dozen years. You probably couldn't get away with that today -- well, you could but not without a bunch of people crabbing on social media about how you don't hit and what's wrong with management and get rid of this guy already.   Hodges was 74 and I'm pretty used to players from my childhood passing away now, but it hit me a little bit harder. While thinking about it over the last few days, I realized it might be because Hodges played during my collecting sweet spot -- and only during my collecting sweet spot.   That collecting sweet spot is also what I refer to as "my first collecting period." I've probably listed this before but...

I'm not one to think that Topps seeds packs with cards representing the cities in which they're pulled. In other words, I don't believe that if you live in New York, you have a greater chance to pull Yankees or Mets, or if you live in Kansas City, you pull a whole bunch of Royals. But sometimes I wonder. I took a trip to see some relatives over the holiday break. A bunch of them live in the Buffalo area, which is about a half hour from the Canadian border, sometimes less depending on where you are. I happen to live close to the Canadian border, too (also about a half hour away), but for some reason, I think of being closer to Canada when I'm in Buffalo. I guess that's because Canada is talked about as more of a realistic destination for activity when you're in Buffalo than when you're in my town. Plus, there's all that hockey talk in Buffalo. We don't get that where I live, although we should. So, while in Buffalo I received some cards f...