Night Owl Cards

First, I just want to say a little something. Just a little aside. Incidental, really. A minor thing. Here it is ... .... ... I TOLD YOU SO! Come on sports fans. It's so obvious. Here is what I've had to suffer through from others during this postseason: "Oh, gee, it looks like the Giants aren't going to win. Oh, gee, they're two games down to the Reds. The Reds look so good. Wait? What happened? The Giants won? How did they do that? Oh, those scrappy lovable Giants! What raspscallions! How unexpected they are! But the Cardinals are tough. They're defending champs. Look, see now they're ahead of the Giants three games-to-one. OK, this is it for the Giants. There's no way. Just no way. Nobody has ever done it. Wait? What? They did it again? How can this be? How? Oh, chuckle, chuckle, I don't care, they're such a do-or-die group of chums. Just so easy to root for, ho, ho. Jolly good show, chaps." Here is what I've...

OK, let's get this out of the way. This is the funny thing about orange. I actually like it. A lot. Love orange soda. Always have since I was a little kid. Cherry has since passed it as a personal favorite, but for the longest time orange soda was the best. There's some in my house right now. I like orange flavor of any kind. Those chocolate oranges that emerge at Christmas time? Love them. Orange sherbet? Fantastic. Orange-flavored Chinese food? Yes, please. Creamsicles? I think the cafeteria ran out of them when I was in high school. Your common variety orange? Great stuff. I like all spin-offs, too. Tangerines, clementines, etc. As for the actual color? I like that, too. The old Tampa Bay Bucs uniforms were amazing. Bring them back. The new Miami Marlins' orange jerseys? I don't know why people hate them. They fit perfectly with Miami. I'll never be a Dolphins lover, but whoever picked orange and aqua for colors was a smart boy/girl. Nice work. Even when...

No, I haven't lost it. In fact I've addressed this before (but can't find the post right now). Yes, the Giants disgust me. Yes, the very thought of someone rooting for that team while in my general vicinity repulses me. Yes, Giants fans stink like the dumpster outside Arby's (OK, that is only my personal experience with one fan, and a very small sample size). But they come in very handy in trading. Unfortunately, there aren't Giants fans around at all. I think everyone who blogs about cards realizes this. It had been almost two years since I've traded with a Giants fan. In that span, I've probably traded with 7 different Mets, Cubs, Orioles, Yankees, Red Sox, Indians, Braves and Tigers fans APIECE. Even the Giants lucking into a World Series title hasn't appeared to create any more Giants card collectors -- unless you include Tim "Smoky" Lincecum collectors. Until now. A Giants fan contacted me recently about a trade. I nearly de...

Unlike explaining why I hate the Yankees, explaining why I hate the Giants is not easy to do. It's a bit like hating Paris Hilton. She's harmless, she's all the way on the other side of the country, she does stupid, but ultimately meaningless things. She should be completely and totally avoidable. Yet I can't avoid her. She keeps showing up, forcing me to pay attention for even a millisecond. It really shouldn't cause me to dislike the woman. But it does. The Giants are a little bit that way. Imagine you're a kid in school. You're not the most popular guy. But you do pretty well for yourself. You have some friends. You get adequate grades. You try not to be a jerk. Most people seem to find you likable, or at least ignorable. You do your pleasant little thing and everything seems ducky. Then, out of nowhere, you hear that someone hates you. I mean, really, really hates you. And you can't figure out why. You haven't done anything at all to...

I've got a lot of disconnected thoughts about the upcoming World Series, so I thought I'd throw a few of them together here. But these aren't all of my Series thoughts. I have at least two other posts prepared concerning the Rangers v. Giants. Fortunately, Major League Baseball isn't in any kind of hurry to get the World Series started, so I can get all the posts finished before the thing starts. (Here's a plus for you, Fox. You may not have gotten New York vs. Philadelphia, but at least it's not going to snow on your broadcast). First off, even though I am a Giants hater and I want that team to die an ugly four-game death while clueless San Francisco fans puzzle over how Aubrey Huff couldn't lead them to a championship, I am enormously pleased about this matchup in one aspect. It kills the notion that money can buy a title. Money can buy a title sometimes. But not all the time. Yet, people are always ragging on baseball because teams like the Yankee...