Night Owl Cards

(It's the end of February, meaning I'm as exhausted as all get-out, the perfect state of mind heading into the busiest month of the year. Yay! Time for Cardboard appreciation. This is the 268th in a series): Take a look at this card and what do you see? At face value, it is a "play-at-the-plate" card. In simpler times, I'd try to determine when this play happened and the outcome of the play. But let's go deeper. What else do you see on this card? Yes, it's a card of two future major league managers. Two future, current major league managers. A.J. Hinch of the Astros and Mike Matheny of the Cardinals. I'm sure two future managers have appeared on the same card before. But I don't know how many of them were involved in a play at the plate. To make this card more personal, though, it happens to be a card of two future managers who are younger than me. Ah, now you've reached the point. I don't like A.J. Hinch very much. It...

As much as I don't like to admit it, there are some people that I know who view me as nothing other than "the boss." I don't like being known as "the boss." I cringe when people call me "boss" or "bossman." I want to be known as a regular guy who really isn't any different than he was the day he took the title of "boss." But that can't happen. For one, being the boss means you have to do boss-like things that fundamentally change you. You're not the same person as you were before you acquired the title. Your job has made it so. Secondly, people look at you differently when you're the boss rather than a co-worker. They expect things from you (boy, do they ever) that they would never expect from you as a co-worker. And even though your personality is the same, nothing else is. When I first became a boss, I had some issues. They weren't any different from the issues anyone else has learning a new job,...

A couple of different blog posts and some baseball news led me to this post today. You've probably heard that the Twins are naming Paul Molitor their new manager. This is interesting to me because when has there been three managers in major league baseball with rookie cards that are coveted and famous as there is now? Not only do we have 1978 Rookie Shortstops card in the dugout now, but we have these other two notable rookie cards as well: All three of these managers made quite a name for themselves as players, which obviously is why their rookie cards are so valued. This is also interesting because of the old baseball theory that the best players make lousy managers (stop looking at me with one eyebrow raised, Dodgers and Phillies fans). But these cards interest me in another way. And that is: I have all three of these cards. We are now in an era in which a manager's rookie card is perhaps more obtainable than during any other time -- obtainable by me, anyw...