Night Owl Cards

   There's a certain amount of isolation built into being a blogger, or a writer in general. I don't know if that's exactly the right word but I definitely have the feeling of being on my own island from time to time, and probably more often lately.   There's no easy way to gauge who is reading your copy or how often. Blogger (and I'm assuming Wordpress) is imperfect like that. All you have are comments -- and Blogger has now made that more difficult by requiring you to use the Google Chrome browser to comment on its blogs (but I make sure to go that extra step to comment on other blogs). And also you have reader numbers, and wow is that inaccurate, especially lately.   Have any other bloggers experienced this?:      These are the viewer numbers for my posts on NOC for the last week or so. Numbers are on the far right. They are wildly beyond what is typical. The same holds true for my 1993 Upper Deck blog, where posts the last couple of cards is in tri...

(Greetings. I am currently sitting through about the 59th dreary, dark day of this fall/winter. It's been even more pronounced lately. When you get no snow for weeks, there's nothing on the ground to brighten up the gray sky. And the worst part is it's impossible to take card pictures for this blog. Filching scans it is! Time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 317th in a series):   I play this little game with myself, which sometimes I also air on Twitter, where I ask myself the following question:   "Dodger card?"   This 1994 Score card was the latest example. It was one of the cards that Bob sent in that box I blogged about yesterday . He threw in a couple other cards that I'm thinking were just to mess with my head.   Now, the perfectly logical and serious-minded collector, with RULES and GUIDELINES would be adamant that this is not a Dodger card. The guy is listed with the Astros, he played with the Astros at that time, he is wearing an Astros uniform...

This year seems to be the year of "send a flat-rate box to night owl". I don't want to sound like I'm complaining because all of those flat-rate boxes contain cards. Also, in some of the cases (not all) I asked for them. But night owl's eyes (you've seen an owl's eyes, right?) are bigger than his card space and even more importantly, they are bigger than the amount of time it takes to process cards coming in at that rate. I mean look at this: Who has time for this? I received this box of goodies from Chris at The Collector as prize winnings for participating in his Sports Cities Tour series, which was quite the captivating collection of posts. Among the prize possibilities was a selection of Renata Galasso Greats from the late '70s -- just about nothing interests me more that is not already in my collection. I was about to add that to my "haves" when Fuji swooped in at the last second and nabbed it. Oh, well, So what'...

One of the best ways to endear yourself to an Upstate New Yorker like me is upon hearing that I am from New York say things like: "How can you stand the traffic?" Yeah, that's the best. Or ask me if I've watched any Broadway shows, or how much Yankees/Mets tickets go for, or if you can still visit the Statue of Liberty. The fact is I live in a place where traffic is almost never an issue (except for exceptionally slow drivers), and where I have as much access to the Yankees or the Statue of Liberty as someone who lives in Virginia. Upstate New York is very different from the perception. It covers a large area. It has some cities, but there are places I can go to in Upstate NY that look very much like you're in the middle of Wyoming. In fact, there is a county in the state named "Wyoming." Still the vast majority of out-of-state people hear "New York City" when I say that I live in New York. So one might assume then that all of us...