Night Owl Cards

Being a Dodgers fan means you take the bad and the good. Your team's postseason history isn't filled with never-ending highs, like the Yankees. Your team's postseason history isn't filled with demoralizing lows, like the Cubs. It's sort of in between. I try to dwell on the positive sides of the Dodgers in the postseason. Kirk Gibson. 1981. Koufax. The '63 sweep. Charlie Neal. Johnny Podres. I attempt to avoid the negative sides. Tom Niedenfuer. Gary Matthews. Reggie and his hip. Joe Rudi. The '66 O's. Wait 'Til Next Year. Mickey Owen. The most embarrassing part of the Dodgers' postseason history is something I have rarely mentioned on this blog. That's because I don't like mentioning it. It's the matter of that little no-hitter that Don Larsen threw in the 1956 World Series. It was the only no-hitter in postseason play, and it came against the Dodgers. I wasn't alive then, but damn that must've been embarrassing. ...

Ah, the perils of gold foil. There's no use in making the letters all fancy and shiny if nobody can READ them! Isn't that right, 2008 Upper Deck? Actually, this is 1993 Donruss, but you can see by UD's base set offering this past year that someone hasn't learned much in 15 years. In defense of the '93 card, gold-foil technology (which is a smidge behind micro-laser brain surgery technology on the world-wide criticalness factor scale) was in its infancy. That gold pixie dust, or whatever they used back then, was bound to fade. But I guess no one thought of that. In case you've never seen this card, it's a Spirit of the Game subset card from the Donruss base set. "Spirit of the Game" is written in script at the top (if you look at Kevin Gross' glove you can see it). And "Donruss" is in the bottom right corner. This card commemorates the no-hitter that Kevin Gross threw against the Giants while with the Dodgers on Aug. 18, 1992. Gross w...