Night Owl Cards

  I don't know how many more times I'm going to visit my local monthly card show. I can feel my interest waning.   I skipped last month's show, mostly because there was a bigger, better show the next day. But another reason is the content of the local show is just not interesting to me. I've already mentioned how it's now dominated by RPG cards (Pokemon, etc.) and graded slabs of mostly modern football/basketball, but today it was particularly dire.   There was one table that I found dedicated to sports cards as I knew them as recently as 25 years ago. Just, plain, good, ol', unslabbed cards from the '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s. It was the usual table I visit. But often there are some other smaller tables with the same stuff, or dollar boxes I can sift through.   But not today. My dealer friend, of course, was not there, having passed last month . The other guy I know who used to work in my office hasn't been there for at least a couple shows....

  Vida Blue died yesterday. For any kid who grew up following baseball in the 1970s, this is a big loss. Vida Blue had the name of a superhero, and he might as well have been one during the early-to-mid 1970s. A pure power pitcher in a golden uniform, no kid could ignore that. Blue had a colorful name, uniform and career. Maybe best of all, his cards are colorful, too. This is my favorite Vida Blue card. It ticks every box on the rainbow.   If I'm being super-accurate, though, my favorite is probably his '75 mini.   This is my second favorite. I'm sure it's a lot of others' favorite. I completely understand. It's an iconic card. One of the best. A Cardboard Appreciation Hall of Famer . I've written about this card ... and Blue ... many times. My two favorites come together on one card that is straight out my first year of collecting cards. There it is in all of its glory. It's now framed with an assortment of other 1975 cards that I pulled out of the fir...

Last year on Mother's Day I used the occasion to show my newly gained 1960 rookie card of Carl Yastrzemski and say once again that moms get a bad rap in this hobby -- being accused for generations of throwing out collections. I said then, as I've said before, my mom never threw out any of my cards. I don't know if she even wanted to throw them out. If she did, it was an unspoken thought. That doesn't mean she had any interest in cards. She didn't. No interest in baseball either. But she did jump-start my card collecting habit by buying my brother and I a cello pack each of 1974 Topps at the grocery store. They were the first cards I ever owned. That was the last time I specifically remember her buying cards for me until around 15 years ago (I'm sure she had something to do with those packs of cards I received in my Easter basket around 1979 but I didn't see any actual purchase and I don't want to sell short the bunny hopping from drug store to ...