Night Owl Cards

  I picked up some manager cards last month in a Twitter sale (I've decided I'm going to call that site "Twitter" until it dies). They were all from a period when I was not collecting, 2001 and 2002.   The 2001 ones are above, if you're as clueless about cards as I was then.   Here are the ones from 2002:   These are all very nice and most are brand-spanking new to me -- if I ever want to collect a set where every card is new-and-fascinating, well 2002 Topps is a good place to start. This period beginning in 2001, I believe, is the start of the third manager card invasion, which lasted until Topps booted managers to Heritage about 10 years ago and now they've whitewashed the job off of cards altogether, except for sporadic appearances in A&G and such.   But speaking of "manager card invasions," this made me remember the post I wrote about the "second manager card invasion," which was the 1980s (and into the early part of the '90s)....

I've been typecast. My card collection "success" is a reflection of how people see me as a collector. I'm known as "the guy who collects Dodger cards". I'm known as "the vintage guy," and "the set collector guy" and "the oddball guy." "He likes night cards" and "He likes Allen & Ginter," etc. It's true, I like all that stuff. And there are certain cards I collect more enthusiastically and fanatically than others only because I know I will like everything -- every last card of that type. But I can find beauty in any kind of card. Doesn't have to be vintage. Doesn't have to be a Dodger. Doesn't have to be part of set. Oh, it helps. But I can find a card from a junk wax set I wouldn't even dream of attempting to complete that I like. I can find a card released so deep in the 1990s that it would take me a good two weeks to determine the set that it's from ... and lik...

As much as I don't like to admit it, there are some people that I know who view me as nothing other than "the boss." I don't like being known as "the boss." I cringe when people call me "boss" or "bossman." I want to be known as a regular guy who really isn't any different than he was the day he took the title of "boss." But that can't happen. For one, being the boss means you have to do boss-like things that fundamentally change you. You're not the same person as you were before you acquired the title. Your job has made it so. Secondly, people look at you differently when you're the boss rather than a co-worker. They expect things from you (boy, do they ever) that they would never expect from you as a co-worker. And even though your personality is the same, nothing else is. When I first became a boss, I had some issues. They weren't any different from the issues anyone else has learning a new job,...