Night Owl Cards

When you've been blogging as long as I have, collecting as long as I have, you come across milestones every year. For example, this year is the 45th anniversary of the first time I opened a pack of cards (1974 Topps). It's also the 10th anniversary of the first time I evaluated Topps flagship on this blog. That happened with the 2009 set. That means I have evaluated an entire decade of flagship. And therefore, I can rank the flagship sets from an entire span of 10 years -- 2010-19 -- which I will do for you now. The best part of this exercise is I can go back into the archives and find what I said when I was looking at the set for the first time ... because I've been doing this for 10 years. So, the rankings for Topps flagship from 2010-19: 10. 2016 This set will always be remembered as the first Topps flagship set without borders. That is not a point in its favor. However, I"m more disturbed by the way they went about the set. The "smoke" e...

Here is a card featuring a couple of players celebrating (actually there are three, but for our purposes it's just two). Little did we know at the time that this card was created that one player would go on to be used for good and one be used for evil. Justin Turner is now manning the hot corner for Dodger Blue, while Pagan has been his annoying, unsmiling self for the Giants for seemingly forever. Neither of these players purposely chose to go directly to my favorite team and least favorite team, respectively. But it brings up something in sports that I often think about: the separation between the players playing the game and the fans watching the game. We fans have all kinds of ideas, beliefs and perceptions about the teams we see play everyday. Each team has a personality, and that personality continues year after year for fans. Depending on your perception, the Cardinals are adorable and the best manifestation of "baseball done right" that's ever existe...

This all-time set countdown is based primarily on design. I am somewhat of a designer at work. Although it does not come easily to me, I try to create a sports page that looks pleasing to the reader. Unfortunately, I cannot invite the readers in to evaluate whether the design looks good before the page goes to print ... on second thought, fortunately, very, very fortunately, I cannot invite the readers in to evaluate whether the design looks good before the page goes to print. So, I have to be my own critic. I decide, while in the act of creating the page, whether it's an appropriate and interesting design. So, while I have never designed a baseball card except for the ones I sketched on index cards 40 years ago when I was a kid, and I probably couldn't do anything innovative if you told me "here, design a baseball card from scratch", I know what I like. And I think my opinion is somewhat accurate. That doesn't mean this countdown doesn't play favo...

Next week is a big one for card collectors. The first Topps baseball cards of the season are scheduled to arrive, and no matter how hardened and cynical you have become, this news will always produce a thrill in your cold, unfeeling bones. I already know that I will not be attempting to complete the set for a fifth straight year. But that won't stop me from taking more trips next week to Walmart and Target than I would normally make in an entire year. Every year, it's the same. I have to get my hands on the first few packs of the season. I'll do it again next week, or whenever the hell the cards finally arrive in this frozen tundra. But, regardless, I'm sure I'll do it again. And you'll do it again, too. We'll all do it again. This has been ritual for me for 40 years. With only a few exceptions in the late '90s and early 2000s, I've sought out packs at the start of the year, getting those first glimpses of cardboard goodness. To prepare myse...

I was quite pleased when we all turned the calendar over from 2012 to 2013. As I've mentioned a few times, 2012 was rather difficult for me. Yes, I'm grateful for the lessons learned during that year, but I don't think I want to go through anything like that again. It nearly killed me. So I deserve everything I get for returning to that year. But I had a good excuse. I wanted to finally update my Dodger team set needs for 2012. As often happens, I get a little bored during the second half of the card season -- especially if I don't like the designs -- and I fail to add the new sets onto my want list. I went back and added Bowman Chrome and Panini Cooperstown and was pleased that it was so brief. I figured, "what the hell, I'll add some of the many parallels from 2012 Topps to the want list, too." Big mistake N.O., big mistake. Totally oblivious to the horror before me, I dutifully went through the Walmart blues, Target reds and Toys R Us purpl...

I think it would make a nice test case study if you could put non-card collectors in front of a card display, featuring every kind of current card imaginable, and come to some conclusion based on what kind of packs they select instinctively. I kind of do a mini-version of that study -- all in my head, of course -- at Christmas time. I've now gotten to the point where I know I'm going to get something related to cards each year at this time. But since I refrain from asking for specific items -- I'm not going to make them track down a 1958 Duke Snider -- I'm basically sending them out into the woods and asking them to shoot at the first thing that looks good. And from the looks of what kind of cards they find for me, I can draw some horribly inaccurate and unfair conclusions. But it's fun, so what the hey. For example, my in-laws would be the shiny mojo type. I know this because almost every time they've purchased cards for me on the last 4 or 5 occasio...