Night Owl Cards

I am trying the plow through that worst work week of all work weeks: the week after a vacation week. That week, always trying, was exacerbated by a compacted and very busy high school sports schedule. As usual I feel like I'm being punished for daring to enjoy a few days off on my own, like someone assessed a week's worth of penalties for the crime of having off-time. I'm now serving my sentence in the box. So I've been struggling to get to my hobby all week with spotty success. You are allowed only a certain amount of cards in the sin bin. I pulled together two different card packages sent fairly recently that each contained some of the same cards. Here are the cards from Starting Nine : Here are the cards from The Collective Mind : You can see I have two to spare. These are the tarot card-themed inserts from Gypsy Queen this year. A lot of people love these. I'm not into them. They go with the circus-freak vibe of GQ the last couple of yea...

You would think that going to the same card show three times a year would get to be routine. The same dealers, the same people, the same cards. But that's not the case. First, "routine" can be exciting -- I'm not 18 anymore. Secondly, it's amazing how often I find something new even though I'm walking into the same building and spotting the same faces. Thirdly, and most of all, collectors change and collectors' tastes change. Mine certainly have. I came away from yesterday's card show with the fewest cards I have purchased at one of these Syracuse shows and I've been to a lot of them. I got 16 cards. That's it. I used to come back with a hundred or more, and cackle with self-satisfaction about how high the stack was. But not once did I look at these 16 cards with regret. In fact, I think I did the best shopping job of any card show that I have ever attended. Here is why: I entered the card show looking for the dealer that I alway...

I don't keep up on the current major league baseball scene as much as I should. There are fantasy geeks and seamheads and stadium junkies. And then there's me -- a lover of baseball who tries to keep pace in a crazy, modern world, but knows it's impossible to memorize the No. 4 starter for the Oakland A's. When I get a chance to review the league leaders -- which happens about, oh, once a month (I remember when it used to happen once a day) -- I am perpetually amazed by who is in the top 10. Josh Willingham has 35 homers? Paul Goldschmidt has 42 doubles? Marco Scutaro has 180 hits? Fans of the teams who field those players may chortle, but it's a damn, fine feat that I even know who they are given what blows up on a daily basis around here. Mostly what I do is try to grab a few names as I rush out the door, hoping that they'll stick in my brain. Like Jurickson Profar. That name stuck. And I'm lucky it did. Because Matthew at Number 5 Type Collection...