Night Owl Cards

The percentage of times that the wrong player has appeared on a baseball card is remarkably small. It's actually admirable -- when you look into it -- that baseball card manufacturers have avoided the gaffe of featuring a card of a player with a photo of someone else as easily as they have. Speaking as someone who is forever coming across (or being notified of) misidentified players in photo captions in his line of work, I don't know how the card companies, particularly Topps, do it. It can't be easy. It happens so seldom that when the goof is made, it becomes so famous that most collectors are very familiar with it. The card above is a rarity: I had no idea it was an error until I started researching this post. I have had this 1982 Donruss card of "Shane Rawley" in my collection since 1982. I didn't suspect a thing. Who can tell 1980s Mariners apart anyway? But I probably should have had my doubts. Rawley's uniform is dirty, like he had been sl...