Night Owl Cards

  I wrapped up the Dodgers team set for 1961 Nu-Card Baseball Scoops with the arrival last week of the Johnny Podres card.   There are 11 Dodgers-themed cards in the set, which is a lot for an 80-card set but not as much as the Yankees, who are featured 16 times. I acquired most of the cards from card shows, oddly enough -- they just don't seem appealing enough for collectors to have them on hand like some other sets from around the same time.   But I love them, for obvious reasons, and I made a renewed effort to finish off the set over the last month or so. Fortunately, the cards aren't particularly expensive. I guess you'll pay a bit for the big-time stars, but I was lucky enough to get the Jackie Robinson early (and if I had to guess I'm thinking someone sent it to me -- sorry no time to look through every blog post). The most I can recall paying recently is $12 for the Roy Campanella at the latest card show.   The '61 Baseball Scoops set is the second one from N...

  Father's Day ended in pretty sucky fashion yesterday. Right in the middle of a dinner prepared to my specific requests, I heard hushed voices coming from my laptop over in the living room. I ignored it for a little bit -- I really like burgers and deviled eggs -- but it kept hushing and I had to go and check it out. There I saw people hunched over Mookie Betts, who was having difficulty getting up. I couldn't see the number so I couldn't tell who it was, I just knew it was a Black man. It didn't seem like Jason Heyward, not large enough. It didn't seem like Teoscar Hernandez, not enough beard. Finally I saw the name and, well, that's how you ruin Father's Day. Thanks a lot, Dan Altavilla, who I had never heard of until yesterday. I used to write about the Dodgers as a fan quite a bit on this blog. A lot of rah-rah rooting stuff. I moved away from it because I never felt comfortable with it and focusing more on cards seemed more natural. But I am still a Do...

  My latest sportlots order is in and I went the "even I can afford that" route, which is mostly sportlots' reason for being.   Most of these were cheap upgrades and easy team set-fillers. There are a handful that don't fit easily into a compartment other than "cards I want."   I'm not going to show the upgrades other than the '70 Jesus Alou up top (replaces the one I have with tape on it) and the '76 Lopes Record-Breaker comparison:   The card on the left harks back to my collecting days in 1976. It's a nice keepsake but doesn't fit with my modern collecting standards. I've owned a cleaner copy in my '76 Topps set for quite awhile but another version for my Dodgers binder has not shown up at the house until now.   The other upgrades are related to the 1975 Topps set, specifically the minis. I will continue to upgrade '75 cards for as long as I'm collecting. Some of the minis I accepted just to get the set done so now it...

    As a veteran blogger, I know that post titles will decide how many views you get. Sometimes it's a catchy phrase or something that sounds controversial or confrontational in nature. Maybe it's a word that sets off the bots, like the other day when I accidentally wrote "Cardboard Appreciation" instead of "C.A." and created a frenzy of clicks (Bots love the word "cardboard"). My last post about the glorious vintage I got to wander through didn't get the views but did get the comments. That's how you know you're getting the right people to your post. Just put "assessment" in your post title and find out who isn't scared easily. With that in mind, I changed today's post title from "minor league Sunday" to "a minor achievement," just to grab a few who might automatically ignore someone writing about minor league cards, which I'm about to right now (although maybe you got the hint by the card ima...

  I haven't completed, nor attempted to complete, a Stadium Club set since I finished the 2015 set.   Although nothing since has inspired me enough to try to complete it, I do still like Stadium Club and I do try to buy some of it just to get my fix. I've done that for six years now ... well, five years because I never saw 2020 SC in stores. So it's been five years of a sample here and a sample there. It's what passes for Club-hopping for me these days. Mostly what I want these days is simply to complete the Dodgers team set. I've done that now for all of the most recent series of Stadium Club, from 2014 to, as of last week, 2021. A few days ago, I received the last two Dodgers I needed to finish the base set. Cody Bellinger and Corey Seager. (Sorry for the crooked and light photos. Without my trusty scanner, I've discovered I have zero patience for photographing cards, especially glossy ones).   I exchanged some Stadium Club cards with regular trade partner, Jo...