Night Owl Cards

I received this card from Rod of Padrographs several weeks back. It's one of those scout autograph cards from Bowman. I think that Rod, as a reader of my blog, thought I might have a few things to say about this card. As a matter of fact, Rod, I do have something to say. Here it is: (*ahem*) Baseball scouts are our greatest and truest national resource and should be treasured by generations past, generations now and generations to come. That is my only statement. Except that this card will be off to Dave of Tribe Cards as soon as I can get around to it. He will enjoy it quite a bit more than I will. Nice try, Rod. But I am definitely not stepping into that one again. I had my fun the last time . I've got enough stress in my life.

I received an interesting email several weeks ago. It was from the writer of a card blog that I hadn't heard of at the time. The email was rather ominous . It said something like this: "I have some Dodgers for you. Send me your address or it's off to the firepit with them." FIREPIT ? Wha? ... huh? ... why? .... but, but, but ..... WHOONEARTHWOULDEVENEVER THINK OFSUCHATHING ? So I instantly emailed him back, saying that I would definitely rescue any unsuspecting Dodger cards from a fiery doom. And that he should seek counseling for coming up with such a dastardly plot (I actually didn't add that last sentence, but I don't think you could blame me if I did). Then, after that exchange, nothing. No email. No package. Before long, I had resigned myself to the Dodger cards' fate. They were no more, I thought. Mere ashes, hovering through the polluted air. Oh well. I busily prepared a stack of Giants for burning in my backyard. You know, just to even the scor...

Scout Larry Pardo responded to my post here . He didn't like it very much. I can see where he's coming from. I called this one of the worst cards of 2009. He thought it was indictment of the scouting profession. He stuck up for his job. He belittled my blog. (Don't worry. Working in newspapers, I'm used to this stuff). You might want to go back and read the comments. But if you're lazy, let me just say, like I did in the comments, that I have nothing against scouts or the scouting profession. Being a scout sounds like a great idea, just like sportswriting sounded like a great idea to me as a youngster. Unfortunately, much like sportswriting , scouting doesn't pay much, it involves long hours, and requires endless travel and time away from family. When I was around 12 or 13, I read Roger Angell's article titled "Scout," in which he followed around a scout for the Angels, Ray Scarborough. That article stayed with me. And since that time, I have ha...

I never expected to find seven worthy candidates for the Worst Card of 2009 by early June, but those card companies are up to the challenge, aren't they? I also never expected to find a card that could top the first candidate for "Worst Card," the Topps Ryan Braun card. But I do believe we have a very appropriate contender here. And you might be surprised to know that this card also is connected to Ryan Braun . What we have here is an official 2009 Bowman scout card, autographed by the scout in question, Larry Pardo . As the esteemed motherscratcher would say, "I crap you negative." The first time I saw one of these cards was during a Bowman break on Crackin ' Wax . My comment on that post was the following: "Scout? Auto? Mind. Just. Blown. To. Smithereens." Seriously, what bowling ball thought inserting autographed cards of scouts was a smashing idea? But surprisingly, after reading that post and a similar one on Wax Heaven, I forgo...