Night Owl Cards

  I'm making good on a promise I wrote back in July with this post, with just one day to spare.   During the last One-Card Wonders post I finished all the 1970s one-card wonders and said I wanted to do the same with the 1980s in the next post, which I said would happen before the end of the year.   Well, the end of the year is here and I can't let all those people who have been waiting for the last five-plus months down! So don't worry, be happy! The last OCW post of the year is here!   In this episode I'm covering 1988 and 1989, the only years I haven't touched from the 1980s. I'm also tackling not only the Topps sets from those two years but Donruss, Fleer, Score and Upper Deck, too (This means I'm technically not done with the '80s after this post because I still haven't uncovered OCWs for some of the other 1980s Donruss and Fleer sets).   As a reminder, I define One-Card Wonders as cards of players who appeared on one major release only. I discou...

  I mentioned when I completed the 1988 Donruss set that it marked the first time I had completed four major sets from a given year.   I don't see that happening for me ever again. After the '80s, it's difficult for me to find multiple sets I was interested in enough to try to complete them. For example, I've completed 1993 Upper Deck, I wouldn't bother throwing money at any other '93 set outside of a token Topps complete-set buy. (I'd take a gift of a complete '93 Stadium Club or Pinnacle set but I'm not buying them).   So '88 is a milestone, a one-of-a-kind collecting feat. I like that it's '88. That's the year the Dodgers won the World Series; it's the year I graduated from college; it's the first full year of my wife and I going out. It's basically the last great year before adulthood stomped everything to hell.   To mark the feat, I thought I'd take 10 notable players from this time and compare their cards from th...

  A guy I work with is a Tigers fan. Every once in awhile, the Tigers' recent history of ineptness or fairly recent Detroit World Series failures will come up and he will end it with a sigh and add "well, we'll always have 1984." I knew the feeling. For me, and all Dodgers fans, it was "well, we'll always have 1988" for quite awhile. During this past World Series, I read more than a couple of L.A. fans' wishes, that if only everyone could stop bringing up 1988 all the time, that if the Dodgers could win the Series, it would end, or at least lessen, the references to '88. And so, it happened. The Dodgers won the 2020 title, and, now, this is me putting 1988 aside with this post. It's time for a new episode of Joy of a Team Set, featuring those 1988 Dodgers. I'm going to do it a little differently this time. I've always wondered how the various card sets that were around at the time covered the '88 Dodgers. I've known that 1988 ...

Stop tapping your foot. I have my reasons. I was out of town during my daughter's college orientation. My dog has arthritis in his back and neck and lets out the most ear-piercing, heart-wrench squeals of pain. I'm juggling about five different tasks at work that each, by themselves, is known for being time-consuming. Baseball cards are still on my mind. But that's as far as those thoughts travel these days. It's 10:45 at night and I'm really too tired to type out words, but it's important to show the cards that people have sent me. Some period of time ago, I received an email from Kyle of Nolan's Dugout reconnecting and letting me know he had some cards off my want list. Back then I had time to reply to emails, and that's why I have some cards now to show. Ah, yes, clearly I am out of practice and need to go back to blogging school if I'm starting out with a 1988 Fleer card. But actually it's the final card I needed to complet...