Night Owl Cards

OK, all you rookie card collectors and rookie card haters out there, I have a question for you: What would you say if I told you there is a certain rookie who has two cards this year? No big deal. An individual rookie could have dozens of cards in any given year. What would you say if I told you there is a certain rookie with two cards in the same set? Still not a big deal. That's happened a number of times . What would you say if I told you there is a certain rookie with two cards in the same set with the same photo? OK, show me. Here you go: 2012 Topps Heritage, card #362: Matt Dominguez, Marlins; Chris Schwinden, Mets; Joe Savery, Phillies; Brad Peacock, Athletics 2012 Topps Heritage, card #407: Matt Dominguez, Marlins; Jeremy Moore, Angels; Devin Mesoraco, Reds; Michael Taylor, Athletics Yup, you've spotted it already. The same Dominguez photo appears on TWO cards. Neither of these cards is a short-print variation. It's not an error ei...

Before I started blogging, most of my computer free time was spent playing Super Mario. I wasn't obsessed with it or even good at it. It was just a pleasant diversion that I picked up because my daughter was into the games. Soon that diversion became less pleasant because I found out that my daughter was vastly more in tune with the game than I was and that she could figure out all the game's secrets before I even knew that there WERE secrets. I did know that if you want to get anywhere in any Super Mario game, you usually have to accumulate coins. They're everywhere, and it starts to get discombobulating and frustrating trying to find them. I think my daughter liked to watch me play the game just so she could laugh at me searching for coins. It's been a long time since I've played Super Mario. Baseball cards, despite all of its parallels and short-prints, is a lot less frustrating of a hobby for me than video games. But Topps is doing its p...

Well, no one has much of an idea about how to store '75 minis, Lineage or otherwise. I was afraid of that. This might cause me to be "innovative," which means my card supplies should be looking for a place to hide. No big deal. After all, the blog has been invaluable for receiving collecting help. I don't know where I'd be without my readers, especially those who comment. A lot more stupid about cards, I know that. For example, in the last post I noted how the Koufax base Lineage card has a different photo than the '75 mini Lineage. I wondered about other players in the set possibly having two different photos. As usual, you guys came up with some examples, like Adam Jones and Mark Teixeira. I'm sure there are a number of other ones that I could find, if I could just get myself to tackle the task. But one of the comments from Lifetime Topps caused me to stumble across something else. He said: The question part of the comment caused me to go...

Back in 2008, I was still a regular in the toy department. As a parent of a young child, toy departments are a necessary evil. At first everyone is thrilled to be there because, for the young parents, they haven't been in a toy department in years. They finally have an excuse to relive their childhood. "Don't look at me all weird-like, I'm with the little one." But after a few months of that, the only person still thrilled is the child who is begging -- the instant you step into the store -- for a party in the toy aisle. During one of those "parties" three years ago, I spotted some Topps baseball card team boxes, similar to what you see here. I was momentarily thrilled because that kind of stuff -- different photos on a familiar design -- has fascinated me since the days of Burger King and Topps Traded cards. To my disappointment, all that was available were Yankees and Red Sox team boxes. Whoopee. With that, I returned to my daughter hyperventila...

This was going to be a post about the one thing that I do like about the 2011 Allen and Ginter design -- the color-coded team logo in the corner. Add a splash of purple watercolor behind Huston Street and there is no doubt that this is a Rockies card. Very nice. I'll reserve comment about purple and sports teams. But after a little research, my post was derailed by the sight of this: That is not one, but two Topps 2011 cards of the Rockies' Jason Hammel, who got smacked around by the Dodgers last night. The card on the left is #338 and the card on the right is #642. BOTH of these cards are in Topps Series 2. Neither card is some sort of leader card or "season highlight card" (Hammel is a career 5.00 ERA pitcher, you know). These are two different BASE cards of a No. 4 starter from Colorado. Here are the backs: Except for the card number, the head shot at top left, and the blurb on the right about whatever random card shares Hammel's TWO card numbe...

In these posts, I will explore the moments when the hobby ever so slightly crosses the line from decorum and fellowship into ... "What Tha?" Don't expect a major rant or sudden feelings of outrage. In fact, all I'm trying to get out of you is a simple: "Dude, that's not cool." OK ... I was in the drug store yesterday. As usual, I did a slow scan of the long checkout area, because this particular store sometimes displays baseball cards. They had some. Rack packs of Heritage and last year's Chrome. Pretty good stuff for a drug store. Especially on this side of town. But dopey me had to pick up one of those rack packs of "100 Baseball Cards, including 10 Hall  of Famers!" because they're cheap, and because I've done pretty well pulling relics out of the things. But apparently they save the bastard repack rack packs for the corner drug stores. While the fancy rack packs are hanging 6 feet in the air, living the high life an...