Night Owl Cards

I'm a team collector. And that means I do things like this to myself. I put cards like this in my binders, which are supposed to be devoted to Dodgers and nothing else. I reconcile the sight of Tigers and Braves and Cardinals appearing in my binder by blaming the card companies for their diabolical schemes in which they put players from opposing teams on the SAME CARD. It places the guilt on their shoulders and absolves me of my own guilt for having non-Dodgers enclosed in a binder of such honor. But team collectors know this scenario well, and both I and they have written many posts about this particular predicament. And that's why, in a matter of days, I received the above card from Max of Starting Nine , as well as this card ... ... and then these two cards from Paul of Paul's Random Stuff ...    I'm telling you, Bazooka was evil. But both Max and Paul know that being the completist that I am, I'm required to have these cards. Even if a Dodge...

Freaked you out a little with that title, huh? Don't worry, there's plenty of inspiration on tap for this blog, even in these energy-sapping winter times. What I am referring to is my existence as a team collector. I still love the Dodgers and all of their cards, of course. It's just that I feel my grip slipping on every card that's Dodgerish, especially for more recent sets. I feel that I'm not as serious of a team collector as I was three years ago. Take this Panini Pinnacle card of Paco Rodriguez (gosh, that's a lot of "Ps"). It arrived from Adam of ARPSmith's Sportscard Obsession  -- you'll see more cards from him very soon. I took one look at it and knew that I didn't have it yet. But there was no number on a want list to cross off. Because I had never created a want list for 2013 Panini Pinnacle. It feels a little ridiculous making want lists for Panini in the first place. But I used to do it. I used to create team want...