Night Owl Cards

There was a time when I thought baseball players suddenly appeared one day on a baseball field on TV or on a baseball card. There was no sense of "where they came from," their family history, or even the path that they took through youth baseball, the school years and the minor leagues. For awhile, I was aware of only the player, and if that player had a dad who played in the major leagues, I had no idea. Baseball players didn't come from other people. They were just THERE. That changed a little bit when Topps issued the Father & Son subset in the 1976 set. That's where I found out that Buddy Bell and Bob Boone had fathers who also played in the majors. When Cal Ripken Jr. arrived in the majors in 1981 and became a sensation in 1982, I'd hear about how his father -- Cal Ripken Sr. -- was a coach on the team. But since I didn't live in Baltimore and didn't care about coaches, that knowledge faded quickly. Somehow, while collecting cards in t...