Night Owl Cards

I didn't think I could ever get excited about a combined no-hitter. It's not a new phenomenon. There were several before I was born or actively interested in baseball. The first time I really took notice was when the Orioles used four pitchers to no-hit the A's in 1991. "What was that?" I observed. "Is that a real thing?" Since then the Dodgers have been no-hit by a Mariners pitching assortment and now have thrown the 12th combined no-hitter themselves and for the first time in their history. No-hitters against the Padres still do count, I'm told, and it was the first MLB no-hitter thrown outside the U.S. and Canada. This all happened late at night, making for a fun-filled last few minutes at work between this and Albert Pujols' 3,000 hits. I was pretty excited that Walker Buehler was involved and gets the most credit for the no-no. I don't know about you but when someone does something notable, particularly when it involves someon...

There is no 2017 Stadium Club at my neighborhood big box outlets. There is no Bowman of any kind. There is no Archives, for crying out loud, which appeared and disappeared in a month (or less) without me seeing anything except rack packs. At Target, the same stale offerings have been available for weeks -- Series 1 and 2, a smattering of Heritage and Bunt (plus all the non-baseball products you could ever hope for). At Walmart, there is the same, plus large gaping holes where product should go. I've stopped at the card aisle to soothe my periodic ripping fix three or four times now and left empty-handed each time. These are not cards I want. Today, we're holding a yard sale. I quickly boxed up some sports cards that I'm sure none of you would want and added them to the sale. Usually cards vanish at yard sales instantly. But the boxes are still sitting in the yard untouched. These are not cards anybody wants. What's going on? Can't we find a card match...

A few times now I've joked about becoming a super-collector of a particular player. There was the time when I said I was the world's No. 1 collector of Jon Link cards. Because how in the world would anyone else have accumulated more than 7 different Jon Link cards at the time (or currently, even)? Even more recently I've joked about collecting Tom Murphy cards, because the Rockies catcher grew up not far from me and I weirdly seem to keep pulling his cards. In fact, here's a new Murphy card now: This was sent to me by Zippy Zappy at Torren' Up Cards . He always seems to have some Bowman cards just sitting around. ZZ sent me another card that has me stumbling into another accidental super-collection. It's an autographed card of Dodgers reliever Yimi Garcia, who all but disappeared this past season with various injuries. The Dodgers could have used him this year, instead of continuing to trot Pedro Baez out there. Garcia isn't all that wel...

For the longest time, I associated the word "zapped!" with the R-rated teen comedy whose only objective was to see how many times it could show Heather Thomas' clothes popping off. As a teenager at the time of this movie's release, I had no problem with this. And the lousy movie gets entirely too much credit just because it showed up when I was 16. But while my teen years are now filed under "ancient history," and movies like this are no longer viewed as acceptable behavior, a new definition for "zapped" has emerged. And I would mourn the loss of my youth over this, except that this new definition involves receiving free baseball cards. Sorry Scott Baio and Willie Aames, you never existed. Once again, I am on the receiving end of a zippy zapping! Heather who? This is just one of the many fine cardboard pieces I received from Zippy Zappy, who runs Torren' Up Cards . ZZ's packages tend toward prospects, Asian cards and long-...