Night Owl Cards

You ever play that game in which you calculate how many years it's been since you were a kid and then take that total and subtract it from one of those years when you were a kid and come up with a difference that causes you to instantly turn off all the lights in your house and hide in a dark corner of your room? Yeah, that's not a fun game to play when you start to hit a certain age. It's been more than 40 years since the 1973 Topps set has been issued. Subtract 40 from 1973 and you're in the Great Depression -- in more ways than one. The only time when this exercise is fun is when it comes to cards. I am combining two recent packages that I received because each of them feature 1973 Topps (I can't have every post being '73s, as wonderful as they are). The '73s were central to the package. But with 1973 at the center, each package contained a card from either side of the spectrum -- 40 or so years after 1973 and 40 or so years before 1973. Now th...

In 1992, U2 came out with a song called "One." It was hugely popular. I liked it, too. U2 was my favorite band since way back in 1982 when no one outside of the U.K. knew what a U2 was. But not long after One, Mysterious Ways and Achtung Baby, I started to lose interest. U2 got a little strange for me, and Bono, who was always the "look at me" sort, seemed like he was ready to swallow the whole band. In fact, if rock stars wore jerseys with uniform numbers, I'm pretty sure Bono would wear the No. 1. That's how some of us view that number, as a blatant way to draw attention to oneself. "Look at me, I'm No. 1" And then there is the corresponding reaction: "Who does he think he is, wearing the No. 1? This is a team game. Nobody is above anyone else. Nobody is "No. 1." But I get the feeling that for baseball folks, the No. 1 means something different. Or at least it does with the Dodgers. The Dodger associated the most wi...