Night Owl Cards

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Back in good graces

Catching up with the post the other day in which I pleaded to folks to take some of my Dodgers dupes -- your requests have been noted. I'll gather what I have for specific player interests ( Jeremy doesn't know it until right now, but I sent an envelope to him Friday). Chris Johnson and Brett Alan are throwing caution to the wind and willing to take whatever cards I want out of the house. So, speaking of post-office trips, I stopped by before work Friday. There was no line and I was out of there with a little time to kill before going into the office. I decided to stop at Walgreen's on the way for a couple of items. I've mentioned before that Walgreen's is one of those drug stores on my list of offending outlets who either don't sell cards or make things difficult. Walgreen's has made things difficult. Its cards for the last four years are in a locked glass box, way back where the toys are, far away from the registers. If you want cards you have to...

From a short stop to a center fielder

I'll say one thing for March, it's never not interesting. I probably go on way too much about this month, but it keeps coming up with new and irritating ways to mess with my life. And I have a story to illustrate. Since it's March, we're in the thick of state high school basketball playoffs, along with collegiate hockey playoffs and, heck let's start the spring season earlier and earlier because there's nothing else going on this month. It's always the busiest month at work and getting busier. A co-worker was scheduled to work Thursday, Friday and Saturday and travel to cover our basketball teams in state play two of those days. On Friday, he sent a text saying he had a cold and wouldn't be in Thursday, he'd work from home. OK, no problem, nothing to cover that day. But late that night, I realized he did no work from home at all, and I had to do it, because we've been shorthanded since 2023 and we've got only two guys. Friday came a...

Diamonds in the rough

I know it seems like I've settled on a schedule of posting every other day. But that's just March forcing me into that pattern. It's nothing planned. But you'll probably have to put up with it for at least a couple more weeks. I'm finally getting to the other big send of cards I received over the last couple of months. This showed up from reader Bill K. about two weeks ago and I've been combing through it ever since. Here is an idea of what I pulled out of the box: Those are four thousand-count boxes and they were all pretty much jammed full. The vast majority of it was Dodgers with a few "guys who used to be Dodgers" and an early '90s Buffalo Bills set added. Bill said he's been cleaning out/pairing down his inventory, which if the boxes are indication was filled with cards from the early-to-mid 1980s to today. As you might have guessed, I had a lot of these cards already. I mean A LOT. Perhaps you've heard I collect Dodgers. So mu...

Collectors are 'free to be you and me'

Normally I disregard such things, but yesterday I was plowing through updating some of those insane back variations for my 1989 Donruss Dodgers. You know the kind -- "this one has a period but just one asterisk, this one has a period but two asterisks, and this one has two asterisks, but no period!" Fascinating stuff. I decided to strain my eyes for the sake of checking boxes because I was sent several of the variations from reader and noted collector Bill K. (He's been mentioned a couple times recently on Johnny's Trading Spot). He sent more than just those -- a lot more that you'll see in a couple days. If someone is going to go through the effort of sending those, I'll see it to its conclusion. So I was squinting away wondering the whole time, "who in the world figured out the differences and why does anyone care?" I'll never understand that. But while I was updating, for some reason, the 1970s children's TV special "Free To B...

Team MVPs: 2015 Topps

I was surprised to see that I haven't written a post from this series in a year-and-a-half . That's long enough that I probably need to provide a refresher on the mission behind these posts. The goal is to find the best card per team for sets that I have completed. I've been running this series since 2010. And as I update the series, I go farther and farther back in time -- the ultimate goal, to get to the 1956 Topps set, which is the oldest I have completed. But whenever I complete a new set, I press the switch on the time machine that says "forward" and review whatever newer set I have completed. Since I haven't done one of these in awhile, I've completed several sets that need Team MVP reviews. The farthest back I've gone is 1981 but there is so much more recent ground to cover. Heck, I've completed 2024 Topps and 2022 and, ick, 2021. And then there are mid-1980s sets that I've completed more recently, like 1985 and 1986 Fleer. It's...

I don't know why I was surprised

I recently returned to my plan to chase down the Dodgers I'm missing in old Heritage sets. In almost all cases these are short-prints, and I quickly lose enthusiasm after seeing prices and drop the chase for months before coming back to it. But this time when I visited, the prices weren't bad -- it's just there weren't a lot available. I added the Kaz Ishii short-print from 2004 Heritage. Look at him roll his eyes at those short-printing ways. I also added another famous Japanese pitcher for the Dodgers, maybe you heard of him. Heritage short-printed his card, too, in 2005 Heritage. While I was searching for other Heritage SPs from this time period I happened across an insert from 2005 that I didn't have, so I threw that in my cart and called it a night. This card recognizes his two home runs on the final day of the 1956 season that clinched the pennant for the Dodgers. I knew the photo used on the front seemed ...