Night Owl Cards

I'm assuming this happens to everyone, but there are songs running through my head constantly. Often times I'll wake up with a song in my head and have no idea how it got there. Some songs pop into my head more than others and often it's so random and so familiar that I don't realize it's going through my head until hours or maybe even a day or two after it first appeared. One of the songs that makes a repeated appearance is the old Police song, "When the World Is Running Down You Make the Best of What's Still Around." The song is from their 1980 album Zenyatta Mondatta, the one with "Don't Stand So Close To Me" and "De Do Do Do De Da Da Da." My brother had the cassette and I was familiar with all the songs on the album in no time. "When the World Is Running Down" is natural head music because its repetitive chord progression is so catchy (it's been called "hypnotic"). But I also find myself hu...

I think it's pretty well-known that the Yankees have a facial hair policy. No beards. No girly hair. But mustaches are OK (and, so, apparently are Nick Swisher mohawks. That's right, no beards, but that monstrosity is fine.  I'll never decipher the Yankees). I think it's also well-known that the Reds had a facial hair policy for three decades, beginning in the late 1960s. It was some knee jerk reaction to hippies running wild and infiltrating our baseball teams. And it's probably known that when players leave the Yankees, or left the Reds back in the day, some of them grow facial hair because they had been deprived of this manly pursuit for so many years. I am going to focus on the Reds, because there's already way too much attention paid to the Yankees, and because I first noticed this phenomenon with the Big Red Machine teams of the mid-1970s. When players left the BRM, many of them suddenly appeared on their new teams sprouting mustaches and othe...

I made a trade with Jason from Hobbs' Knights a few weeks ago. He sent me a pack of 2012 Topps, which contained mostly cards that I didn't have -- always nice. He also sent this card separately, which is also nice in its own little "I collect that guy" kind of way. What's not to like about the player? But if I'm being honest I don't like these inserts at all. I think the gold commercials parody post I wrote a couple weeks ago made that pretty clear. But especially with these particular Golden Greats, I find the look epicly boring. The design, the weird gold coin logo, the faded picture, the questionable concept. It all smacks of an excuse to put a legendary player on another card. But the absolute most annoying part of this card is we've seen this photo of Jackie Robinson over and over and over again. It didn't used to be the way. Remember 10 years ago when the "Legends on New Cards" craze first began? Remember Upper Deck Le...

Hey! Any Cesar Geronimo fans out there? No? Well, too bad. I had a post idea fall through tonight. That's super deadly with the time schedule that I have. I don't have anything else in "research and development" that I can finish off quickly. Therefore, you get Cesar Geronimo this morning. Geronimo is the longtime member of the Big Red Machine, who had a great glove and a modest bat. But I'm referring to the Royals version of Geronimo. The Twilight Of His Career Geronimo. I featured his first Royals card a day or so ago in the "Look! Similar Photos!" post. The Geronimo '81 Topps Traded card looks a lot like the Geronimo '82 Topps card. Could be the same at-bat. Could be the same game. But then I was looking through my '83 Topps set and came across the Geronimo card there. Are we still talking the SAME AT-BAT? I have my doubts. It's probably not even the same game. But, damn, those are some similar photos. And what ...

Some of you need some cheering up . I think I have the perfect thing. I rarely wish that I was capable of video on this blog. But this is the one time that I do. I received a gift in the mail a couple of weeks ago from Andy of the Baseball-Reference.com blog . It was a thank you for my blog work and contributions to the B-R blog. The gift was one of the coolest items that I have received since blogging, and probably years before that. You're looking at the gift right now. The scan that you see is a scan of an unopened wax package of 1975 Topps MINIS . A 36-year-old wax pack dating back to the very first year that I opened packs of cards. And we're going to open it. I expect it to be something like this: Except, you know, more manly, with beer and babes and bazookas. But first we're going to take a look at the back of the wrapper, all nerdy-like. What a wonderful sight. Sealed just for me, and packaged with just the right amount of dextrose and B...