Night Owl Cards

I was watching some of ESPN's Sunday Night baseball game between the Indians and Phillies the other day. As often is the case when the Indians' Carlos Santana pops up on the screen and I view his statistics, I quietly lament the Dodgers trading him away back in 2008. Then, sometime during Alex Rodriguez's pointless ramblings and awkward bantering, I started to fantasize about Santana's contributions for the Dodgers if he had stayed with the team. Perhaps he would have solidified the catching position back in 2011-13 or maybe helped out at first base. This "what could have been" thought process often happens during my fan reflections and I have a feeling it's a common part of being a fan. We always want the best for our team and we just hate it when a talented player gets away. The Dodgers have their fair share of "big fish" stories, some of the biggest, and I thought it would be interesting to put together a "One That Got Away...

Four years ago, I won this autographed Clayton Kershaw card by winning a bet with a certain Cardinals fan . That was the last time the Dodgers and Cardinals played each other in the postseason. Tonight, they're playing again, and although I'm less confident about the outcome than I was in 2009, I've renewed the bet with that same Cardinals fan and braced myself for purchasing an autographed card of Peter Kozma, or Joe Kelly, or some other St. Louis scrappy who will make me throw up in approximately 10 days. The Dodgers are trying to get to their first World Series in 25 years while the Cardinals are trying to win their first since -- oh, the tragedy -- 2011. And then there's the matter of 2006 and 2004, and unless you're one of The Best Fans In Baseball (throwing up again) or root for the Giants, Diamondbacks or Padres out of pity/self-loathing, you probably have no desire to see the Cardinals in the Series again. I hear ya. In the last five years, the Card...

(Guess what? It's just about time again to elect someone to the Cardboard Appreciation Hall of Fame! One more Cardboard Appreciation after this one and we'll have enough candidates to vote for since the last time we did this. Aren't you excited? Feel like you're going to throw up? I feel ya. But hold that regurgitation. It's time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 184th in a series): I have mentioned this topic several times on my blog before, but I don't think I've ever devoted a full post to it. If you collected cards as a kid, you probably had your favorite players. They played for your favorite team or they were an all-star that you saw all the time on TV. These are perfectly rational reasons for naming a player your favorite. But if you were like me, you probably also had favorites "just because." When you look back on those "just because" favorites now -- as a rational adult -- you can't think of one logical reas...