Night Owl Cards

There was a story out of Oklahoma City yesterday that the Dodgers are moving their Triple A affiliate from Albuquerque to Oklahoma City for next season. The Dodgers have been affiliated with Albuquerque for the last six seasons, and before that, the city and the Dodgers were together from 1972-2000. I grew up thinking that Albuquerque had been the top affiliate for the Dodgers for forever (although most of those great '70s Dodgers actually played Triple A games in Spokane, which was L.A.'s top affiliate throughout the '60s through 1971). Even though I've never been to Albuquerque, I don't like that the team is moving from there. The word is that Dodger management wants a better place to evaluate talent. Albuquerque, with its high altitude ways, has always been known for inflated batting stats, and that often doesn't translate to the majors. Of course that was an issue the first time the Dodgers were in Albuquerque (see Greg Brock/Mike Marshall), which ...

Remember, you have only until Wednesday night to enter my contest for a bunch of relic cards. You can either attempt to win six relics by merely saying "hey" on this post , or you can add five more key cards to the other six if you crack the code in that post, and are chosen the random winner. So far there has been one ... well, one-and-a-half ... attempts to crack the code. If I'm going to have a real chance at giving away those five other cards, more people will have to take a shot. So, come on folks. That's what lunch breaks are for. I thank everyone for entering. One of the cool things about contests is that you are reminded that there are more people out there reading the blog than just other bloggers. It's easy to be lulled into thinking that you're writing only for the very rabid collector who is so obsessed that they also write about cards on a daily or weekly basis. Then when a contest appears, an unknown voice pops up in the comments and you r...

In my feeble attempt to catch up on trade posts, I thought I'd show some cards that I got from the operator of For Card's Sake . He shares his name with a former Dodgers player (I wonder if he knows this?). But I'm not here to reveal people's names. Everyone knows him as longlivethewho, and that's good enough for me. Longlive happened to mention that he had three 1975 mini cards and wondered if I'd like them. Well, considering that time stops every time anyone mentions '75 minis around me, I certainly WOULD like them. And so I have them. Unfortunately, the one side effect of getting '75 minis is that you then have to dig out your corresponding regular-sized '75 card to scan in order to prove that you in fact did receive '75 minis and aren't just making up a convoluted tale of '75 mini love just to have something to write on the ol' blog. So I have done the dirty deed and here they all are, freshly undug: That Bec...

I was prepared to post on the finalized Dodgers' 25-man roster, since the deadline for announcing these things was supposed to be this afternoon. But the Dodgers are still frogging around with their bullpen and infield and have apparently boughten some more time. So instead, I'll just post some Dodgers I got in a recent trade. You didn't want to see a list of names anyway, did you? You want to see pictures! This James McDonald gold card is one of the cards I received from Ed of Roll Out the Barrel , a new Brewer-centric card blog. I'm featuring McDonald first because I do know that he was officially named the Dodgers' fifth starter today. Good for you, James. Don't get panicky, now. You've got everything you need out there. It's funny because I finally caught the MLB Network's Dodger feature on that "30 Teams in 30 Days" show. I'm not sure how early they tape those shows in advance, but Joe Torre, when asked about the fifth starter, me...

When I saw yesterday that the Dodgers had signed lefty reliever Will Ohman to a minor league deal, my first thought was "who?" I felt guilty about that, so I read some more, and saw that he had pitched for the Braves and Cubs. My next thought was "um, yeah, I think I kind of, sort of remember him with the Braves." Then I figured I'd mention the acquistion on the blog. Which prompted this thought: "Where am I going to find a card of Will Ohman?" It turns out I had one -- the 2006 Upper Deck card up top here. I forgot that when you want a card of just about anyone, you turn to Topps Total ... uh, er, Upper Deck. So, not only did I forget who Ohman was, but I forgot who he was even though I had a card of the poor guy. I tell ya, situational lefty relievers who are 31 years old get no respect. A few snippets about Ohman: he appeared in 83 games for the Braves last year. He missed two seasons after undergoing Tommy John surgery while with the Cubs. He was ...