Night Owl Cards

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...

I'm still waiting for Shoebox Legends to make his pick in the 10th anniversary giveaway (he's on the clock until 1 p.m. Friday). But I just can't sit and do nothing on this blog! NOC is about content, dammit! Here is some content! I wanted to check out what people had told me after my horrific discovery at Target the other day. They said that Target actually hadn't destroyed the entire card aisle and put all the unopened packs in the trash compacter, but likely had moved them to another part of the store -- most likely the electronics section. However, Target's hours don't match up with mine. By the time I could go to a store, it was 10:30 p.m. and Target is too weenie to open that late. So, Walmart it was. I needed printer ink anyway. I thought I'd grab a rack pack or two of Update. That's usually all it's worth. But Walmart didn't have anything smaller than a blaster. Ugh. Do I want a whole blaster of this stuff? I pondered and waffl...

I don't miss Upper Deck. There, I said it. I just don't. Maybe it's because I grew up on Topps, long before Upper Deck came to be. Maybe it's because I'm not all that interested in modern cards anymore (I passed up the card aisle again today) and "competition" isn't as urgent a need to me as it once was. Whatever the reason, I don't miss them. But that doesn't mean I don't suffer, along with every other card collector, because Upper Deck isn't making MLB-approved cards anymore. Upper Deck's innovation and especially its photography is missing from today's cards. And then there are other things that went by the wayside when Upper Deck's agreement with MLB died in 2010. One of the most notable was the fact that Orioles catcher Matt Wieters didn't appear on baseball cards anymore. As you know, the currently disabled Wieters signed an exclusive deal with Razor back in 2008. I wrote about that once before . Upp...

My hair is longer than it's ever been in my life. It's not roadie length yet, but I've always worn my hair relatively short. It only ventured past my ears during my high school years, but that was kind of the thing to do in the early '80s. I'll probably get it cut eventually, but with this mid-life-crisis frame of mind that I'm in, I kind of like it. It reminds me of my favorite ballplayers and rock n' roll musicians from the 1970s. Really, if there was any place that I could be, I'd like to plant myself in the free-wheelin, easy-feeling '70s, fully equipped with shoulder length hair and a stache. One of my favorite parts of the '70s was the easy going music of that time. Yeah, I know it gets bagged on a lot because of sappy awful "Seasons in the Sun" stuff. But I dug and still dig Jim Croce, America, Olivia Newton-John, the Carpenters, James Taylor, all of it. It takes me back to a time when there wasn't a lot of angst. In m...

Trying like mad to catch up on these "Worst Card" posts after slacking just about the whole year. So, either you'll see a whole mess of these in the next month, or I'll just give up and ignore the thing -- which actually sounds like the more probable option right now. But I can't wrap up the Worst Card segment without addressing dear Topps Update/Traded & Highlights. It always has some clunkers in it. This is a classic example. It's not even the only one in the set. There are several of these "dudes just standing around" cards. And Topps has been doing it in Topps Update/Traded & Pick a Name and Stay With It for a few years now. It's a big reason why I don't collect this set (well, besides the "no money" reason). Why would I go out of my way to collect cards that look like they were taken by some fan in the stands? Even if the fan showed me the photo that they took -- if it looked like this -- I'd say, "it ...

It's still a couple of months away from Rickey Henderson's induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame, but timeliness is for newspapers. Here, I get to write whatever I want whenever I want. And, like many fans, I am interested in what cap a player will wear on his plaque when he's in the Hall of Fame. Henderson's plaque will feature him wearing an A's cap, as it should be. He played for many teams, but his most memorable moments were with the A's, for the most part. In this era of players switching teams every four years, the Hall's task of deciding who wears what cap is more difficult than it once was. To illustrate, I've selected some current players who might be appearing in the Hall some day and will determine what cap I think they should wear. I've included several choices for each player so you can play along. I know I've left some players out, as I simply pulled some of this year's cards. So if you want to debate whether Mike Pia...