Night Owl Cards

    This is kind of a spin-off post from yesterday . Of all of this year's Topps anniversary sets -- 1953, 1963, 1973, 1983, 1993, 2003 and 2013 -- the one that I pay almost no mind is 1993. You will find odes, or at least solid mentions, on this blog for every other Topps set with an anniversary this year. But '93 Topps arrived at an unfortunate time in my collecting history. Let's review quickly: The first cards I owned were from a cello pack of 1974 Topps in '74. The first cards I bought and collected were packs of '75 Topps. I continued the '75 pattern all the way through 1983, even trying to operate in the same manner when Donruss and Fleer arrived in 1981. In 1984, my first full year in college, I knew I had no more time for this method and bought complete Topps sets in '84 and then in 1985. By 1986, I had moved away and also moved away from cards, buying almost nothing in 1986, 1987 and 1988. Post-graduation, I returned in force to Topps cards (and on...

By 1993, even dumb ol' me was waking up to the idea that the old collecting model wasn't going to work anymore. I couldn't possibly collect everything that was on store shelves at this rate. The objective every year since I started in 1975 -- find wax packs at stores, buy them -- was a solid purchasing model for years and years. But by the late 1980s, I couldn't keep up with all the sets out there and a lot of times I didn't care, and even in the years when I did try to buy them all, say 1991 and 1992, I was reaching the realization that this was stupid. So, in '93, I went into the collecting season with my eyes wide open. I would collect only what I knew or what appealed to me. And this is how the year went: Find Topps, buy Topps. Find Fleer, buy a little bit but I didn't really like it. Find Donruss, buy a little bit but I didn't really like that either. Find Score -- but it wasn't easy -- and buy it. Find Upper Deck and ... Holy smoke...

When Alan Trammell was selected for the Hall of Fame last December, it solidified this card as one of a kind. This card is the first and only multi-player rookie prospects card to feature more than one Hall of Famer. Trammell joins Paul Molitor in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown on Sunday and is also immortalized in collecting history. There is also another member of this year's Hall induction class that appeared on a rookie prospects card in the 1978 Topps set. He happens to have been a teammate of Trammell's. Jack Morris will be making an induction speech Sunday afternoon, too. Both Trammell and Morris are part of a massive Hall of Fame class this year, with Vladimir Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman, Chipper Jones and Jim Thome also being inducted today. I won't be able to watch the ceremonies tomorrow and I'm kind of glad about it, because that's a lot of speeches to sit through. Also, like I mentioned last year, the 1990s guys don't interest...