Night Owl Cards

   Yesterday, Shohei Ohtani hit his 30th home run of the season, and became the seventh Dodger to hit 30 home runs in three straight seasons.   There was some online fanfare for the feat, but it's more muted these days for Ohtani, not like his first few years in the league when Ohtani hysteria was high and I almost had to cover my ears with all the yelling.   Ohtani has been in the majors for nearly 10 years now and that'll happen. He's not the new thing anymore, even while he continues to do new things. But I think along with that, ever since he came to the Dodgers, people are more reluctant to sing his praises. There may be more Ohtani fans than ever, but there are an awful lot of brain-dead gambling jokes from Barstool acolytes and grumbling about deferred money to go along with it. I seem to read about that more on social media than any cool thing Ohtani has done.   It causes me to wonder where all the Ohtani fans went -- I'm still seeing his cards sell for ...

  As the resident "ink-stained wretch" of the card blog world, it's my duty to note history as it pertains to newspapers from time to time. Today, I find myself walking through the newspaper morgue, which is not where they stash the dead bodies of old newspaper men, it is the name for any reference room at a newspaper, where clip files are stored, digital reference computers, reference books, etc. One thing you might find there, if a newspaper has proper respect for the sports section of its paper (so few do), is a copy of the final edition of The National. The National died on this exact day 30 years ago. I have the final copy, sent to me by a generous reader a few years ago. This paper was momentous at the time of its release, for sports fans but especially for sports journalists like myself. I was just starting out in the business at the time of its debut in January 1990 and to see something like this -- a daily publication dedicated to nothing but sports -- was exciti...

  Happy Veterans Day to all who have served our country, including my departed dad, who was a veteran of the U.S. Air Force. I haven't written a Veterans Day post every November 11th, but there are a few, here and here and here .   For this Veterans Day, I thought I'd do something a little different, and take another cue from a reader. It's the second time this week I've acted on a reader's suggestion. I must be running out of my own ideas!   Anyway, after I posted the layout I created for the Dodgers' World Series victory, someone suggested that I should show off some of the layouts that I've saved over the years.   I didn't think anyone would be interested in that -- we're all about cards here you know -- and I still wonder if I'm boring people who consider newspapers a relic of their grandfather's era or whatever. But newspapers are very alive on a daily basis in my world, so let's take a look at a few of my favorites. (You're g...

Today is Phil Niekro's 81st birthday. Are you sick of hearing about this? If so, blame, Matt . He is the No. 1 person I think of when "folks born on April Fool's Day" is mentioned. Although he's not the only person as Rusty Staub, Willie Montanez and Ron Perranoski were all born on April 1st. So was April Sargent, who you probably don't know, but I really need to do a Brush With Greatness post on her someday. But back to Niekro. This 1988 card was quite the ... heh ... score during Score's trading card debut. This is the only card in 1988 showing Niekro in his final MLB uniform. Niekro's last season was 1987 and he played in one game -- ONE GAME -- for the Braves at the end of the season. Here's how it went: Niekro was pitching for the Indians for much of 1987 when in early August, he was dealt to the Blue Jays, who were trying to win a pennant. He was then released by the Blue Jays at the end of August and his career was practically o...