Night Owl Cards

I have told the story numerous times of my father coming home from work one night with a large paper grocery bag filled with 1950s baseball cards to give to myself and my two brothers. Overcome with glee but knowing we would have to share and share alike, we set up all the cards on the dining room table, scattering them in a giant pile in the center and took turns selecting them. The few superstars that were available -- I nabbed the '57 Willie Mays with my first pick -- went first. But the majority of cards, around 300 of them, were players we didn't know at all. At this point we were collecting pictures, not names. But ever since I started collecting back in 1975, I have been drawn to certain cards of unknown players for unknown reasons. The 1977 Bob Tolan, the 1976 Steve Renko, the 1975 Jackie Brown. The names didn't matter. The pictures did. I wanted that '56 Elmer Valo card. I had no idea who Elmer Valo was. I barely knew what the Kansas City A's w...

I'm considered a rational, level-headed sort both here and in everyday life. That's good to know, because there are many times when I don't feel rational or level-headed. In fact, I've been known to "go off" periodically. If I see something I don't like or something gets me frustrated, I won't hold back. While that's probably healthy, it can cause trouble, and it did a couple of days ago. I was reading a post late at night from Cardboard Junkie in which he spelled out his mission statement on collecting Heritage. I enjoyed the posts and could relate to them because I have a love-hate thing going on with Heritage. But when I read the first post, I began to feel aggravation with Heritage and Topps and what they had done to this poor set-collector who loved the brand so much but couldn't collect it in the traditional way because of the stupid tinkering that Topps does with the set. Although his post wasn't bashing Heritage for this, it...