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There's nothing lamer than a post explaining why there won't be a post that day.

So I won't explain.

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I am totally unmotivated.

Oh, Perry! Look!

Fran's calling me from the living room. I don't even have the energy to respond.

The raccoons are back!

Saw one this morning.

One's almost swimming! It IS swimming! It just shook itself off!

Wet raccoon. Uh huh.

There are THREE of them!

Moe, Larry, and Raoul.

One's going up a tree! And another!

I could grab the video camera, but I'm too tired.

Oh, he's climbing on our chair. He's on our chair. He's sitting on our chair. How cute!

Okay, it sounds like Animal Planet in our backyard. But I'd have to get up.

I wish I had a video camera.

Oh, all right.

This summer's least-awaited non-blockbuster: "Raccoons II: The Power of Four."

Sequels are never as good as the original- this is no exception. Four interminable minutes of raccoons in the back yard, with a guest appearance by Ella the World's Most Famous Cat, an eerie apparition in the window, and four- count 'em, four- raccoons. It's great if you're really into raccoons.

Enjoy.

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How cool is this one?

The Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago put this up- WGN-TV Chicago on May 15, 1960. Don Cardwell had just been traded by the Phillies to the Cubs two days earlier. This is the 9th inning of his first game with the Cubs- a no-hotter. It was the peak of his career, other than being one of the '69 Mets.

And check out Moose Moryn's catch to end the game.

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You get close to some time off, and, of course, you start to slack off early. I could swear this was Thursday, but it wasn't. I start a week off work on Friday evening, and it cannot get here soon enough- these 3:45 am-to-9 pm days are feeling more exhausting than ever. What's left of my brain feels like it's melting. I can't concentrate on anything. The finish line is in sight. I have senioritis. There's another inning to play, but I'm already in the clubhouse.

So my mind is drifting, wondering, for example, why not one but two seniors in the Torrance Y locker room always hum to themselves. I wonder if all senior men hum atonally. I wonder if I'm seeing my future. I wonder, if I'm lucky enough to make it to 80 or so, if I'll be wandering around humming to myself, the tune sounding in my mind like, say, "Since I Fell For You" or "Blitzkrieg Bop" but sounding to the rest of the world as if I'm just bleating out random notes. I'm not sure if this is endemic to the entire male senior population. There are worse problems to have, but it's strange.

And I've been alternately watching and listening to the Phillies game tonight, which is at present in a rain delay, and... Geoff Geary. Ryan Madson. Will the madness never end? Pat Gillick was in the TV booth early in the game, and he was smart enough to be there when Chris Wheeler and Gary "As Well" Matthews were on- no Harry, nobody to ask him tough questions, like if we knew that the bullpen was going to be this bad, why he didn't make a move in the Winter instead of waiting until there was no hope and no help anywhere. He can talk injuries all he wants, but Geary and Madson were part of the equation even before the injuries. The injuries rid the Phillies of two closers (one of whom was already pitching horribly poorly for the entire seond half of last season), but the bullpen can't get them to the ninth anymore. It's a matter of hoping that the offense piles up enough runs to compensate for the nearly guaranteed bullpen meltdown. But why should we expect better from the Phillies? They're the Phillies. They'll hang in there, slump for a while, make a late run, win about 85 games, and fall short of the wild card again. We know this will happen. It always does. For a very interesting story of how the Phillies got to the precipice of 10,000 losses, check D-Mac's Philadelphia Weekly cover story this week here.

Are those items random enough? Wait until you see tomorrow's "The Letter." Consider yourself warned.

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This week's All Access newsletter was written with one foot out the door...:

So, what's this about you taking a week off?

Like a Ryan Howard homer. Have a great Independence Day, a great Canada Day, and a great week.

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We cleaned out some stuff from the garage this week, and while I was pulling boxes of receipts from 1989 out of the storage area I came across boxes I'd been thinking about for quite a while. About 10 years ago, I'd pulled most of the superstar baseball and basketball and football and hockey cards I had from when I was a kid and I put them- the "good ones"- in special sleeves and stored them away.

Those aren't the ones I was thinking about.

When you become an adult and think about the cards you used to own, the ones Mom threw away, you think about the "good ones." You think of Mays and Mantle, of Namath and Jim Brown, of Bird and Magic. But that's not what card collecting was really about. Sure, you got your Willie Mays card, but you ended up with a lot more of these:

Or these:

Or these:

You got the punter. (I know, I know, he was mostly a running back) You got the utility infielder or the middle reliever. You got the guy on the bench. And that's what I still have, because my mother, God rest her soul, didn't throw my cards away. And 40 years later, at the back of a storage closet thousands of miles away from where I first accumulated them, the cards have emerged again.

If I had to pick one card to represent my sports card collection, it's this one:

Ed Kranepool "in action." It is to Topps' everlasting credit that the "action" picture of Ed Kranepool is one of him taking a throw to first base. Kranepool couldn't run. "Action," always a relative term, meant almost nothing to Ed Kranepool. This card came from the 1972 set, after maybe his best season (.280, 14 homers, 58 RBI) in '71. Kranepool was always billed as the Last Original Met, although that wasn't quite accurate- he debuted as a pinch hitter at the end of the '62 season, but he wasn't an "Original" in the strictest sense. Still, as a kid, Kranepool always seemed old. Never mind that in '72, he was 28. He couldn't run, he'd been with the team since the black-and-white Polo Grounds days, and he was aggressively mediocre.

And maybe that's why I kinda liked him. He didn't do anything special- he wasn't horrible, wasn't spectacular, he just... was. That could be how I saw myself- not spectacular, not horrible, just an average middle-of-the-road guy. Some kids dreamed of being a major league superstar. I figured I'd settle for Ed Kranepool status. Someone has to ride the bench- why not me?

I didn't get to ride the bench, either. And sitting in the stands isn't so bad- they bring you hot dogs and beer right to your seat, so how bad can that be? But this card is a good reminder that while we like to think we're all about the Mayses and Mantles, life is more like Ed Kranepool. Average. There are worse things to be.

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I remember exactly where I was on February 25, 1972. I was eating a slice of Sicilian pizza at V&J Pizza on Hamburg Turnpike in Wayne, New Jersey, right next door to the Jerry Lewis Cinema (which later became a porn house), across the parking lot from Robert Hall. The TV was on over the counter, and a sports report said that the Phillies had traded Rick Wise to St. Louis for Steve Carlton, and I remember thinking, hey, Wise pitched well for the Phillies on a bad team- I'm surprised they traded him. Even at that very young age, I was a terrible judge of talent.

V&J still exists, although it has apparently moved. It was among my favorite pizza joints when I was a kid. I wonder if it's still any good.

Word association:

Yes, "acid" is correct.

And speaking of guys best known for off-the-field activities, it's Bo Belinsky's running mate:

For a guy who was semi-legendary for his exploits on the L.A. party circuit, and also perceived as a bust who threw his arm out early, he won 20 games twice, had a career ERA under 3, won the Cy Young Award at 23 and the Comeback Player of the Year in the AL in '67. On the other hand, he was out of baseball by the age of 30. His record for the Mets in 1970? 0-1, 13.50 ERA in three games. This was the 1971 card- by the time Spring Training was over, he was traded to the Tigers, where he didn't last the season. Turns out, by the way, that be became a pretty big deal in the boxing world- he's the president ot the IBA.

Check out the airbrush job on this:

Topps would airbrush out the logos on caps after a guy changed teams. Bunker went to Kansas City in the exp[ansion draft, so they wouldn't have a picture of him in a K.C. cap and uniform. In Wally's case, though, this 1969 card used a picture of him from 1965 at the latest- the uniform is the Orioles' early-60's style. Maybe it was easier to airbrush because the cap peak was black in those days and orange in 1966 and later, but it's still odd to go back four years.

I always associated Wally Bunker with Bob and Ray. It's the name, of course.

On July 5, 1970, at Connie Mack Stadium in North Philadelphia, I saw this guy get a save:

Mets 5, Phillies 4. It was my birthday, and we took Amtrak from Newark to North Philly, walked that scary few blocks to the ballpark, and settled in just a few rows behind the Mets dugout along the first base line. Jerry Koosman won the game, Woodie Fryman lost it, Ron Swoboda hit one for the Mets and Deron Johnson one for the Phillies. The day before, Donn Clendenon had hit one over the center field fence, a massive wallop. The thing I remember most was the last Phillies pitcher, Lowell Palmer, who pitched wearing sunglasses, an unforgettable sight, and Doc Edwards catching- he'd retired and gone into coaching, but got pressed back into service, seemingly ancient, although he was only 33. Frisella pitched two innings and gave up a run but got the save.

It's sobering to realize how many of the guys who played in that game are gone- Tommie Agee, Donn Clendenon, Joe Foy, Deron Johnson, Rick Joseph, Dick Selma, and, of course, Frisella, killed in a dune buggy accident during the off season between the '76 and '77 seasons. I think that was one of the early times I realized that relatively young people could die, too.

I saw this guy pitch, but there's only one thing I really remember about him. Can you guess what it is? Hint: it has something to do with my career:

Steve Arlin's grandfather was a pioneer radio broadcaster and supposedly the first to do baseball and football play-by-play on the radio, at KDKA/Pittsburgh in 1971. Whatever he did as a pitcher, Steve Arlin will always be the guy whose grandfather did the first baseball broadcast.

Does this not look like Al Downing's watching number 715 fly over his head on the way over the left field wall in Atlanta?:

And, finally, I'll bet you thought Rollie Fingers was born with That Mustache:

Apparently not.

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