Night Owl Cards

As this is published, the Buffalo Sabres are either en route to their ninth straight victory or their first loss since Nov. 4th. I'm not used to this kind of success for my favorite hockey team. I don't follow hockey as much as I did in the 1990s and part of the reason for that is because the Sabres -- except for that red-and-black blip in the late '90s -- have been consistently mediocre-to-bad for years. They haven't made the playoffs the last seven seasons. During the 1970s and '80s, the Sabres were consistent contenders. I didn't really collect hockey but I knew who the players were. Then the Sabres and I gradually went our separate ways until the point that if you told me Richard Smehlik was still on the team, that would totally make sense (FYI: Smehlik is 48 years old and retired in 2003). This Sabres' win streak has convinced me to start paying attention to the team again. Yes, I'm a fair weather hockey fan. Sorry not sorry. I have a full-...

For the longest time, I associated the word "zapped!" with the R-rated teen comedy whose only objective was to see how many times it could show Heather Thomas' clothes popping off. As a teenager at the time of this movie's release, I had no problem with this. And the lousy movie gets entirely too much credit just because it showed up when I was 16. But while my teen years are now filed under "ancient history," and movies like this are no longer viewed as acceptable behavior, a new definition for "zapped" has emerged. And I would mourn the loss of my youth over this, except that this new definition involves receiving free baseball cards. Sorry Scott Baio and Willie Aames, you never existed. Once again, I am on the receiving end of a zippy zapping! Heather who? This is just one of the many fine cardboard pieces I received from Zippy Zappy, who runs Torren' Up Cards . ZZ's packages tend toward prospects, Asian cards and long-...

Even though I don't kill my own dinner, drive a pickup with the tailpipe cut off to wake up every last person, or punctuate each sentence with "what-not," I'm your basic red-blooded American male. I like meat. I like girls. I like baseball. Most of my tastes are fairly basic and mainstream, especially when it comes to baseball. I follow the major leagues. And I'll go to a minor league game. Everything else, well, it just muddies the situation. I don't have time for it. I collect the same way -- in other words, baseball players I've heard of, please. But there are those who try to take me out of my comfort zone. Sometimes I go along for the ride, sometimes I hide under the covers until they go away. Recently, the operator of Torren' Up Cards , dropped another Zippy Zapping on me. As you know, ZZ likes cards that fly off my radar. Some I am aware of but generally ignore. Others I've heard of, but only because there are blogs like Torren...