Night Owl Cards

  It's time for another birthday post.   It's a milestone one this time. The kind that you don't even want to say out loud because it can't possibly be right and if someone hears you, they're going to throw a blanket over you and haul you off to the elderly farm.   I shall distract myself with dinner out, gifts, cake, ice cream and this post.   I have posted almost every birthday since starting this blog and have tried to tie the occasion to cards or baseball. But I'm all out of stuff. In fact, I thought about not posting this time. But I can at least update a couple of past birthday posts with more information.   For instance, three years ago I posted about active players in the majors who share my birthday , focusing on a then-new discovery, Jarred Kelenic.   Kelenic is still going, on a new team since last time, and still over a year younger than my daughter.😬     I also happen to have recent cards of three other active players who are ce...

  Last night, Teoscar Hernandez became the first Dodger to win Home Run Derby. As annoyed as I am by this overhyped event -- the introductions and podium standings practically made my skin crawl -- it was nice to see such a happy guy from my team survive to the end over some more-capable mashers. And, yes, I know he wouldn't have had a chance had Judge or Ohtani participated.   I am hoping that this is a good sign for tonight's All-Star Game. It's my birthday again today and for just the third time ever the All-Star Game is on my birthday.   This pretty much makes it the best day ever. Sure, the ASG does dumb things these days like putting players in weird uniforms, canceling out one of the best aspects of the ASG for the first 50-plus years of my life. But I will always love the Mid-Summer Classic, despite all the modern poop-and-circumstance.   This is such a special convergence that I know quite a bit about the first two All-Star Games on my birthday. And neither...

I was in Target a couple of days ago, as I often am at this time of year, not to hunt out baseball cards but because this is The Birthday Month in the house. I did step over to the card section, of course, and grab a few 2024 Topps packs. I was actually hoping to pull a particular card, but I didn't. The card is the one above of the Royals' Michael Massey. I thought it would be a nice card on the occasion of my daughter's birthday. Michael Massey turns 26 today. So does my daughter. Massey is the only player to share the exact same birth date as my daughter. I have just one card of Massey but at least it's his rookie card, right? Even though my daughter is not much of a sports fan, she has a connection to baseball that I don't have. There is no MLB player who was born the exact day that I was (only in other sports). And I like that I know this Massey factoid because it keeps me young, even though my daughter being more than halfway through her 20s makes me feel old....

  It's another birthday today.   I've tried to post on my birthday every year of this blog, seems like the thing to do when you're writing a blog about yourself.   So I've started to run out of 716 topics, except I haven't posted about 716 cards.   I have always enjoyed that I was born on 7-16 in Buffalo, whose area code is 716. I don't suppose that is very unusual. Just think of all the people in NYC born on Feb. 12. But I think it's a nice tidbit.   Cards with 716 as a number don't come around too much. Until the late 1970s, it was fairly uncommon to produce a set with as many as 716 cards.   But I found 10 that are interesting enough for me. Let's check them out.     1991 Upper Deck Julio Machado Do I have this card? Yes. I've always liked this one. Machado looks more like a construction worker, joining his work buddies on the side of the street for a well-deserved break.   2002 Topps Ichiro Suzuki MVP  Do I have this card? Yes This i...

    Today is Mrs. Night Owl's birthday. It's not easy to mix cards with her birthday. She just doesn't care about them. She's been great about my hobby all these years, never saying a word of complaint about it, the accumulating, the spending, the scattered cards that she might trip over, none of it.    She even was the first to suggest the card room, although I'm sure part of that was to make sure the cards were finally confined to one place. That's mostly succeeded. She does find some of my collecting interesting, and one of the few times I can grab her attention on cards is when I say, "guess what stupid price this card is going for?" That was a fun pandemic game. It doesn't happen quite as much anymore.  Other times I can get her card attention is when I find something that I know is related to her interests. Then there are times when I'm sorting cards and she'll walk past and comment on how she likes how a certain card looks, the desig...