Night Owl Cards

    I don't think I need to tell you that I love lists. Half of my blog, probably, is some sort of list. I love making lists. I like compiling those lists into a series (a list of a list). I like organizing my cards according to lists.   I've been doing that since I was a relative tyke, sitting on the bedroom floor, laying out 10 cards (five on each row) in order of career batting order on the back, selecting the next card off the stack to my left, and then shifting the lined-up cards over one according to the new arrival's stats.   Lists are an easy way to make information digestible and entertaining. Creating lists enjoyed a big boost in popularity in the early 1980s, as there seemed to be new books every week about this list or that. Lists fell into overkill, especially since the advent of the internet and a whole bunch of fly-by-night websites that want clicks. But a well-maintained, thoughtful list is always interesting to me. I gravitate toward lists: Top sitco...

Bobby Shantz is a familar player from my childhood. No, I'm not 72 years old. But I did collect baseball cards in 1975 and as you know that was one of the first Topps flagship sets to feature players of the past in a current set. The '75 MVP subset, as Topps congratulated itself for making it through 25 of years of creating baseball cards, displayed a card of the AL and NL MVP for each year between 1951 and 1974. This is one of the cards I pulled during my first collecting year in '75: Well ... that's not entirely accurate. THIS is one of the card I pulled during my first collectin year in '75: Even with the thoroughly rounded corners, you can see Bobby Shantz on the left. He was named the MVP after winning 24 games for the Philadelphia A's in 1952. This is what the card said about that season: I am impressed with the mention of the walks-per-inning on a card from 43 years ago. All in all, certainly a great year for Bobby Shantz. Bu...