Night Owl Cards

  Among my favorite types of cards are ones that show catchers in action. I'm sure many collectors will agree that is a cool shot.   I'm not sure why action photos of catchers stand out more than action photos of pitchers or hitters or infielders. Perhaps it's because they're less common, or all the equipment they wear, or the funny backward hat. I just know that I like them and I always have.   I started collecting in the '70s, but I really noticed a surge in catcher action shots during the 1980s. That's understandable, cards really shifted over to action in the '80s. And recently I began to wonder which '80s set featured the most catchers in action.   Aha, we now have a post.   I considered the Topps sets of the '80s first, of course. If I ever look for the catchers in action for Donruss and Fleer, that will be a separate post. And I had my ideas about which set might have the most. I've dedicated a whole post to the catchers cards of 1986 Topp...

I still have some cards to purchase with birthday money. I wish it wouldn't take me so long to spend money on something I enjoy so much, but you know how life hates cardboard. When I do finally get those "birthday cards," you can be sure you'll see them. But for now I'd like to relay the tale of how my daughter found a thrift shop that had baseball cards for sale. I know. How's that for teaser? "What? How? Who in the world set up a thrift shop in night owl's barren outpost?" Well, settle down and listen. So, I always lament to myself whenever someone blogs about their latest thrift shop score, or flea market find or antique market steal. Those things don't exist near me, or if they do, they contain boring stuff like plates and salt shakers and, gracious, people sure have a weird idea of "interesting," don't they? There is an antique shop on the corner in the city that I've mentioned before. It used to be the...

So, writing three blogs is kind of pain in the ass. It requires quite a bit of devotion and sacrifice and I would be lying if I said I didn't think every now and then about returning to just one blog. But if I wrote just one blog, I'd be eliminating a considerable source of material. I get ideas, man from the other two blogs. Maybe they're not the most fantastic ideas -- it's not like receive a Christmas break, you know -- but they amuse me. For example, I posted the above card of Steve Carlton on the 1985 Topps blog a couple of days ago. It's Carlton's 70th birthday on Monday and I mentioned that, too. But I can't look at a card of Steve Carlton for very long without thinking of how he trolled the 1984 Topps set. Carlton, if you remember his greatest days, was one of the most prominent players in the major leagues in 1984. His team, the Phillies, had just appeared in the World Series the previous year. Meanwhile, Carlton enjoyed status as both a s...

The year 1984 marked a change in my collecting priorities. For the first time, instead of going to the store and buying packs and attempting to complete sets but failing virtually every year, I just bought the whole damn set. I was in college. I went to college with this kid I knew from high school. We both collected cards. He had boxes of complete sets. I had no idea how he got them. He was always pestering me to buy cards from him. (I went to a school reunion last fall and he still had cards to sell me). And, this time he succeeded. It was cool to own the whole set in April. But I didn't focus much on the cards. I eventually figured out this wasn't the way to go for me. Collecting was a process that one experienced card by card. A treasure hunt. It took 1984 and 1985 for me to realize that. Years later, I'm still discovering 1984 Topps. I find it much more colorful than I ever thought back in '84. And, although it's repetitive of the 1983 set, I think ...

With no ability to buy cards right now, the next best thing I can do is research them. I have several card research projects stagnating, and I decided to do a little bit with one of them. The "One and Done Players" project involves researching which players received one -- and only one -- card during their playing career. There are a few guidelines that go along with this that I outlined in the original post , but I'll repeat them here. "By one card, I mean one card. The player can't have appeared on a previous 3- or 4-player rookie card. The player can't have appeared on another set issued at the same time (for example Fleer or Score). The only exception I'll make is minor league cards. They can have all the minor league cards in the world. I won't count it against them." I have another rule to go along with the above, but I'll wait until it comes up later in the post. A few people have been nice enough to help me with what is sur...

When it comes to easy targets, no team features a larger bull's-eye than the Padres and the Cubs. Sure, I dislike other teams more, but the Padres and Cubs have long since moved beyond "lovable loser" status into "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!" I know that's not exactly an attractive trait of mine, but if you're not wearing blue caps and red numbers on the front of your white uniform, you're taking your chances. Still, 30 years ago this year, both the Padres and the Cubs made it to the National League Championship Series. Yes, it was just as shocking then as it would be today. The year prior to 1984, the Padres were a .500 team. The Cubs were 20 games worse than that. And the two teams had more things in common than suddenly arriving upon a stellar season after years of bumbling. Both teams featured a third-year star of the baseball card community in Tony Gwynn and Ryne Sandberg (their second-year Topps cards are eac...