Night Owl Cards

  I received an email yesterday from Bob of the best bubble , informing me that my other Beckett magazine article is out. This one is about my Dodgers fanhood and is in the latest Beckett baseball magazine. I don't have a subscription to that, so I'll have to wait until I have time to find a Barnes & Noble or grocery store that's carrying it. I need the extra time anyway because I haven't even devoted a post yet to my article that is in Beckett Vintage Collector this month. So with two magazine articles out now, and writing almost every day on this blog, and an actual job that involves -- guess what? -- writing, it's obvious that writing is what I do. What I like to do. What I need to do. Who I am, basically. But how did I get here? You'd have to go back to when I was a kid with a flourishing and overwhelming need to read. I read as a child a lot. From Sesame Street books to the Hardy Boys to The Bronx Zoo. By the time I was about 10, just about the only thi...

  I may be giving my late grandfather too much credit but I think he was the one who hooked me on the great Roger Angell's writing. My introduction began with "Five Seasons," which I believe was Angell's second baseball compilation from his writings in The New Yorker magazine. "Five Seasons" covered the Major League Baseball seasons from 1972-76 and some of the talked-about topics in baseball at the time: growing labor unrest, free agency and Charles O. Finley. I found Angell's writing so interesting, even as a preteen, that I checked his first book, "The Summer Game" out of the library and read about a time even earlier than mentioned in "Five Seasons". Angell captured everything I wanted in a chronicling of baseball season. Insight. Detail. Humanity. Fun. But my favorite articles from him came when he traveled away from the ballpark. My favorite of Angell's from "Five Seasons" is "Three For The Tigers," a pro...

(Today is "Best Friends Day." What better day to appreciate others in the card blogging community? I do consider my fellow blog-ites friends. And I appreciate all that you do. Time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 34 th in a series): Notice how I follow up a "worst card" post with a post about a card I really like? Life is all about balance, people. It is a bit odd that I should like this card so much, only because I do not like the 1968 Topps design at all. I've written about that before . In fact, for me, the '68 Topps set is very similar to a lot of modern sets in one particular way: I have very little interest in collecting the set because of how it looks, so therefore I try to find only the Dodgers and be done with it. Besides the Dodgers, I have only five cards from the '68 set (I've traded several away). One is the Ed Brinkman "yellow letters" variation card. One is Sam McDowell, because he's one of those 1960s pitche...

Here is a post about various items, none of them particularly related except for the fact that they all have to do with baseball cards. First, even though I already responded to Dinged Corners' New Year's Baseball Card Questions in the comments, I noticed that others had responded on their own blogs instead. I've enjoyed reading their responses, which are much more detailed than any comment can be. So, I figured I'd do that, too. Some of these questions I've already rambled about, so bear with me. 1. If I didn't collect baseball cards, I'd collect --- A: I don't even like to think about this. It's like asking me what I'd do if I was a girl. I like myself just the way I am thank you! Anyway, I suppose I'd collect baseball magazines or yearbooks or something like that. I did a little of that when I was a teenager. If there were no cards around, I'd still have to keep it baseball. 2. My baseball heroes include one that you probably wouldn...