Night Owl Cards

  Here we are: One of the years of my past that is lost in the black hole of time and continuing memory loss. 1996 will be known to me for two things: the year I bought a house and the year the most hated boss of my life left town. Aside from a few assorted song favorites (Oasis, Garbage, Smashing Pumpkins, you know the ones), that's all I can recall. But what about the baseball cards? Yeah, about that. 1996 was also the first year I did not buy a single card since the time I knew what a baseball card was more than 20 years prior. So, how am I supposed to evaluate the cards from this year? I sure don't feel qualified. I've said this for the last couple of editions for this series. The enthusiasm is low. And in typical '90s fashion, the cards make it difficult. How do I trim it down into something manageable and coherent? For 1995, I limited the sets I was reviewing to only those that could muster 500 cards in their set. But in 1996, Topps pulled a fast one and issued a ...

Here we are. Welcome to another blogger counting down every Topps flagship set from worst to best, according to his own biases and prejudices. As someone who strives for objectivity in his job, you won't see much of that here. I considered being as objective as I could, taking a step back and evaluating the sets as they exist outside of my own influences. Perhaps the countdown would be more legitimate that way. But, frankly, that's boring and only the kind of thing that you would find in a publication in which the writers are getting paid. This countdown will not produce any coin in my pocket, so it's going to be filled with my kind of fun. There will be 16 countdown "episodes". Each episode will feature four sets. This way, I can write as much as I want about them without boring the entire card collecting public and, most importantly, me. (Well, maybe I will be the only one not bored, but I don't care). Also, each episode will have a theme, in this...

So, the "Future Stars" subset is back. Everyone knew it was coming back because when Topps released its prototype of the 2014 design back in August , it plastered "Future Stars" script on its Yasiel Puig mock-up card. Topps is obviously rather proud that the "Future Stars" are back. It's a nod to collecting from the 1980s when Topps first featured the phrase on its cards. Those who first collected back then probably got all gushy when learning that it would reappear. Me? Well, other than indicting "Future Stars" for the ruination of the card collecting hobby, I didn't give it much thought. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's look at the beginning of the "Future Stars" tradition. And no, I'm not starting with 1987 Topps. "Future Stars" first arrived in 1980 with Topps' traditional rookies subset. In previous subsets, Topps labeled the new players "rookie stars" or "rooki...

It's been awhile since I added another set in my continuing quest to figure out which Topps flagship set has the most Hall of Famers. I thought now would be a good time since six new people were recently announced as Hall of Famers. It's also a good time to update previous sets that I've already tallied with the new additions. And I wanted to add a set that included the three recent players that made the Hall, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux and Frank Thomas. So I chose 1996 Topps, which has all three. I came across something interesting when I counted up the Hall of Famers in '96 Topps. It'll probably cause someone to blow a few blood vessels in the comments, and I apologize in advance about that. But before I get to that, I'll get to the sets that I have totaled previously. I have added Bobby Cox, Tony LaRussa and Joe Torre where applicable. I have also included the cards for when they were players after reversing my decision last time to include all of a...