Night Owl Cards

   I realized just the other day that I have been rooting for the Dodgers for 50 years. Today, the first Dodgers game of the year, marks exactly 50 years -- although according to the calendar I guess 50 years wouldn't arrive until April 9, which was the first Dodgers game of the 1976 season.   Anyway, for 50 seasons I've been a fan. Last year I celebrated 50 years as a collector and the year before that I celebrated 50 years of owning baseball cards. I'm still waiting for my awards.   I've mentioned before that although I started collecting in 1975, I wasn't watching any baseball games. My allegiance to the Dodgers was demonstrated almost entirely by wearing a Dodgers hat, which was really a Los Angeles Angels hat. I'm wearing it in the photo above on the occasion of my 10th birthday.   Outside of that, being a Dodgers fan in 1975 meant getting as many of the '75 Topps Dodgers as I could. I did not watch any regular season games on TV until 1976. That's...

    Sometimes I'll read about another collector's devotion to 1990 Donruss or '91 Fleer and my heart will go out to that individual.   "That poor collector," I'll say. "They have no idea what's good."   But those particular collectors can't help it. They know '91 Donruss is junk -- or at least they should -- but the pull of nostalgia is too strong. The meaning behind that set, what they were doing, who they were, the discoveries and intrigue when that set came out, is now sealed within every card in that set. It's all they can see. It's made them stupid ... for a set ... that, objectively, isn't anything all that great.   I know that because I've gotten stupid over too common, too pedestrian sets myself.   One of those is 1991-92 Pro Set hockey.   The cards from the set are everywhere. The design isn't all that great and, frankly, the set seems to have been put together rather haphazardly. It's also a victim of the...