Night Owl Cards

I spent some time in a hotel earlier this week. I love hotels. Maybe it's because I'm not a business traveler and rarely associate hotels with my job, but if the hotel is relatively well run I could live in it for a month and never ever care about coming home. The only drawback is when you're in your room, you're forced to watch whatever sports programming is available at the hotel (that is if you don't have all of the latest devices, which I don't). This often means forced viewing of ESPN. And believe me, I hate myself every minute I'm watching it. The only times I watch ESPN anymore are when I'm at work and again the sports programming options available there are limited. But at the hotel, I was watching it every morning, and then again late at night. As usual, I was looking for the latest information on baseball games, which ESPN thinks you don't need to know. What you REALLY need to see is the latest basketball trade featuring players ...

Like or not, someday you will be 40. Living in your 40s isn't as bad as younger folks think. As much as I thought, back when I was a teenager, how ancient I would be when I reached 40 many millenniums into the future, you spend a lot of time in your 40s marveling over how young you still are. Unfortunately, you spend the other portion moping over how old you are. The reminders are everywhere. It's not only your own body -- which keeps breaking down in ever surprising new ways and requires constant attention the likes of which you had never dreamed -- but it's everything around you. From the TV shows, to the advertisements, to the clothes to the gadgets to the activities to the music to the attitudes and opinions on every issue available, all of it shouts: YOU'RE NOT YOUNG ANYMORE. It's almost hurtful. But us folks in our 40s have a way of coping with this. It's called nostalgia. Boy do I ever get nostalgic. Half the time this blog is an ode to eve...

I remember it well. I was at work. It was a Monday. About 6:30 in the evening. I had just begun my nightly ritual of scanning the sports wire to review the news of the day. After reviewing a handful of stories, I came across the following message from heaven: "Urgent: Miller, Morgan out at ESPN" I couldn't believe it. What did I do? Well, I'll admit I may have shed a quiet tear of joy. The Associated Press item went on to cite a New York Times report that ESPN was looking for a new broadcast team for the first time in 20 years. It had not renewed the contract of Sunday Night Baseball color man Joe Morgan. It had also relieved play-by-play man Jon Miller of his Sunday Night TV duties, but had asked him to stay on as a radio guy, which if you ask me is the perfect job for him. I know you didn't ask me for my opinion. I'm giving it anyway. The next thing I remember there was much rejoicing. What? No, not in the newsroom. They're clueless ...

Thank goodness Randy Wolf hasn't bought into the "After Manny" B.S. I'm so sick of hearing that garbage. Did you see his pitching performance Wednesday night? That's how you respond to endless talk about your team losing your top hitter for 50 days. Good for you, Randy. Way to shut up the idiots who bring up after every single loss that "the Dodgers are now x-x since Manny Ramirez's suspension." Good God, what a simplistic way of looking at things. Sure, Manny is a great player. And he can help your team play at a much higher level. But he's not Michael Jordan and this is not basketball. It takes more than one player to elevate a team for an extended period. And the Dodgers aren't the 1950s Pirates with Ralph Kiner and no one else . The Dodgers actually have decent players on their team aside from Ramirez. Even without Ramirez, they're better than anyone in the NL West, with the possible exception of the Diamondbacks, who haven't b...

I don't expect anyone to read this, not with the nonstop televised baseball going on today. If I wasn't at work right now, I'd be right there in my living room watching the Dodgers stomp the Padres (that IS what's happening now, isn't it?). This is how much I'm thinking about baseball right now: Over the weekend while at work, I clicked on the ESPN site to find out which of the "ESPN family of networks" (die, ESPN, die ) was broadcasting the Braves-Phillies game on Sunday night. Off to the right side of the site they have a list of the big news items of the day. The top one said: "Giants release Burress over legal trouble." My first, and only, thought on that was: "Gee, that's weird. The Giants just named him their starting second baseman the other day." Yeah, I know. I'm an idiot. Anyone who follows sports knows that ESPN was referring to NEW YORK Giants receiver PLAXICO Burress. Not SAN FRANCISCO Giants second baseman EMM...

(A sampling of the various "appreciation days" out there: National Teacher Appreciation Day, Military Appreciation Day, Clergy Appreciation Day, Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day -- Jan. 28th for anyone interested. Notice anything missing? That's right, there is no Baseball Card Collector Appreciation Day! But there are plenty of days when collectors appreciate baseball cards. This is such a day. These are my all-time favorites. This is the 9th in a series): The Veterans Committee is scheduled to announce later today which former players they have elected to the Hall of Fame. Jim Kaat is on the short list, but I don't think he's going to be one of the players named. What I think would be cool is if Kaat eventually made the Hall of Fame as a player and then also was inducted into the broadcasters' wing. I always thought he was a dynamite broadcaster. He was the calm amid the bluster in the Yankees' broadcast booth (well, Ken Singleton is also calm), and I j...