Night Owl Cards

I was scrolling through the Twitter this morning and coming across various May Day references as one does on the first of the fifth month. I'm not one to get into political meanings of holidays, I much prefer the whimsical, and fortunately there was some of that to see on the first of May, too. One referenced all the cards of baseball players with the last name of "May" that played during the 1960s and 1970s. That's always been cool to me and I pointed it out at least a couple of times on my 1975 Topps blog. Lee May, Milt May, Carlos May, Dave May, etc. But it didn't dawn on me until hours later that the Dodgers have their very own May celebrating his day today, and I have several of his cards from this year in my very own collection. I've already mentioned that Dustin May's Turkey Red card this year (above) is an early candidate for Card of the Year. That thing is phenomenal. And the same goes for other 2020 cards of his that I've acquired: ...

I don't know who first called the decade of my youth "Super," but it seems to be the default alliterative term for the 10 years from 1970-79 for a host of music compilations, retro websites and Twitter feeds, nostalgic books and news special retrospectives. The Super '70s don't seem all that super when you compare it with decades that followed. The 1980s, in particular, seemed to be all about Bigger and More. But there is no alliteration to "Super Eighties". And also, Topps didn't issue a set called "Topps Super" in the 1980s. To kick off the "Me Decade" (no alliteration in that one either), Topps issued special sets in 1970 and 1971 called "Topps Super". The cards lived up to the name. They were almost twice the height of a typical card and they were thicker than almost anything issued before and most things since. The thickness was a selling point to Topps as it pointed out the trait on the box -- extra thi...