Night Owl Cards

  Yesterday, Robert from $30 a Week Habit showed off the 1986 Topps Jerry Rice card he just landed for 25 bucks.   The card had some minor corner scrapes but he said it was preferable to paying the $75 for the card that he had been seeing prior to then.   I have very little knowledge of mid-1980s football sets, but $75 for any card from 1986, superstar or not, rookie or not, seems outrageous to me.   I'll say that for any mid-1980s sports card that wasn't issued in rare quantities. I don't think anyone should have to spend exorbitant amounts to land an '85 McGwire or Gooden, an '84 Dan Marino or even a 1986-87 Michael Jordan. Were any of those cards issued in limited quantities? All mid-1980s cards should be cheap. None of this "I wish I had a Jordan rookie," which I see collectors lament all the time. Every man, woman and child should have one by now! When I was collecting as a kid, teenager and into my 20s, you paid high prices for cards only if the car...

  As an adult with a home, bills, family and job, there is nothing quite like the feeling of no commitments.   I'm never totally free of every commitment. There's always a bill or some hovering work thing, but I happen to be in a period in life in which a couple of problems that I have fretted over since adulthood began are no longer an issue. That's a tremendous feeling. It's like a Saturday afternoon in the summer with no responsibilities and the sun shining away.   But I'm a responsible person, who feels responsible, so there is always something I Must Do, even in the hobby.   Usually that hobby commitment is sending return envelopes to those who have sent me cards. I don't get in a yank about that as much as I once did. You should have seen me in 2008: "What? He's sending me cards for nothing? Oh the guilt . MUST RECIPROCATE. MUST RECIPROCATE."   I don't do that anymore. But I do like to be nice and respond when I get a card from someone. S...

It is becoming apparent that looking for cards in a big box store card aisle is going to be a futile exercise at least through the end of the year. I refuse to hunt down the distributor's schedule and stalk the poor worker, congregating with other stalkers amid a pandemic. There is absolutely nothing released in 2020 that is worth that. I collect cards. I don't flip them and almost never sell them. So, really, what's the point? I don't need you card aisle. Yes, you and me have been friends -- along with card counter and card end cap -- since the 1970s. You have been a happy destination for many, many years. But it's time to address what has become mere habit for too long. Nothing in your card aisle is needed anymore. Find a set like 2015 Topps flagship or Allen & Ginter between 2006 and 2011, or a scenario when Fleer and Upper Deck shared the shelves with Topps, or when Chrome had borders. Then give me a call, card aisle. I'll be there. Repeat...

If I want to be impressed/disturbed by how old the set is that I'm currently "attempting" to complete, all I have to do is look up the songs that were popular the year the set was released. For 1967 Topps, those songs would be "All You Need Is Love," "Respect," and "Groovin'," among many others. It doesn't take much analysis to know those groups and even many of the singers are long gone. "The Summer Of Love" is more than 50 years ago now, and what the heck am I doing trying to complete a set that old? Still "Groovin'" fits with how I'm attempting to collect the set. I don't want to think about the impossible high numbers -- as impossible as high numbers get -- right now. I just want to relax and enjoy the '67 Topps cards that are coming to me. Oh, 1967 Topps: life would be ecstasy, you and me endlessly, groovin'. Surprisingly, people have been sending me '67 Topps recently, and one...

I just got back from a quick jaunt to my folks' house to continue with the never-ending clearing out process. What a project. When I returned and walked through the door this afternoon, the mail from the last two days was sitting on the computer desk. It contained two pieces of junk mail and five -- five! -- envelopes containing cards. Five! For a moment I was transported to 2010 when that kind of card bounty was a semi-regular occurrence. To what did I owe the cardboard pleasure? Back in those days, I was so buried in cards from others that sometimes I had to feature more than one card package in the same post. I haven't done that for a long time. But I'm doing it here now. Because my brain is a bit fried from a long drive. This will be quick though. I'm showing only three of them and two of the envelopes contained just one card and the other contained two. Each, however, is quite interesting in its own right. OK: The first card arrived from Peter...

Peter from Baseball Every Night offered to send me this fine 2019 Topps card of Ross Stripling. It's much appreciated and I'll answer him back with some cards around about late May (you think I'm joking, I am not). I like this card because although I touted the benefits of being able to see the full ballplayer on yesterday's post, closeups are fun if they're presented in an interesting way. This is. It's horizontal, the glove is giving off that 3D vibe and Stripling is making funny faces. My guess, though, is that Stripling doesn't (or won't) like this card when he saw (sees) it. Let's flip to the back for why: That's a rundown of Stripling's many, many stats -- it's so nice to have complete stats on the back of baseball cards again. If you filter out all the minor league stats, you will find that Stripling has three years of major league experience, in 2016, 2017 and 2018. His earned run averages for those three years, as ...

The new issue of Beckett Baseball Magazine is out. The folks at Beckett made the January issue all about the 1980s and the card craziness from that decade. The nostalgia for the '80s seems to be lasting longer than nostalgia for other decades. Nostalgia for a particular decade usually arrives 20 years after the decade in question and then fades after about a decade. But here we are, just about 30 years after the close of the '80s and '80s tributes are everywhere. Included in those continuing tributes are a couple of '80s baseball card countdowns. One is in the January edition of Beckett magazine -- the top 80 cards of the '80s. The other one will be on my blog -- hopefully starting in January -- and is called The 100 Greatest Cards of the '80s. There will be some similarities between these two lists, but there will be lots and lots of differences. I don't have a subscription to Beckett magazine (I probably should think about it if I just wrote an ...