Night Owl Cards

I've mentioned a time or two that back when we received free samples in the mail at the newspaper, I would periodically land a card or two from baseball or football sets. This was the late 1990s, and the cards were always Pacific or Pinnacle (brands I knew nothing about, by the way). So the designs were wild and strange to me. And, weirdly, most of the cards featured the word SAMPLE in giant letters traveling across the card. I was familiar with sample cards and knew they could be "exclusive," but thought it bizarre that they would effectively ruin the picture by stamping SAMPLE across it. Whatever, it was the '90s, I'm not going to pretend I understand much about cards then. I was just reminded of this by yet another mailing from Stephan of Vintage Twins . In the envelope contained a sealed pack of 1995 Pinnacle Zenith sample cards. There they are, eight players all trying to do their work with giant letters floating in front of them. This set of ...

Yesterday, the 2017 Topps Update checklist made the online scene and it's pretty much a disaster. Topps Update hasn't resembled the old Traded set that I loved so dearly in the 1980s for a long time. But the 2017 checklist seems exceedingly lousy. For Dodgers, I am blessed with five All-Star cards -- in other words, players I already have from Series 1 or Series 2. Then there are three other Dodgers represented: Franklin Gutierrez, who barely played because of medical issues; Brett Eibner, a prospect who barely played but he's in Update because ROOKIE CARD, and, of course, Cody Bellinger. Then there's Cody Bellinger and Cody Bellinger and Cody Bellinger. Four Cody Bellinger's in the set. Nobody needs this. Cody Bellinger's mom doesn't need this. Meanwhile there is no card of Chris Taylor, one of the most valuable Dodgers of this entire year. He's not in Series 1 or 2 because who knew Chris Taylor would do anything? But since the start of the ...