Night Owl Cards

  Ron Hodges passed away just about two weeks ago. Unless you're a Mets fan, you may not remember him. I barely remember him from the time I watched Mets games on WOR with my grandfather. I remember him more from my baseball cards.   Hodges was a longtime backup catcher for the Mets and just the Mets. He was there for about a dozen years. You probably couldn't get away with that today -- well, you could but not without a bunch of people crabbing on social media about how you don't hit and what's wrong with management and get rid of this guy already.   Hodges was 74 and I'm pretty used to players from my childhood passing away now, but it hit me a little bit harder. While thinking about it over the last few days, I realized it might be because Hodges played during my collecting sweet spot -- and only during my collecting sweet spot.   That collecting sweet spot is also what I refer to as "my first collecting period." I've probably listed this before but...

I have two confessions to make. First, this is not a 1980 Topps card. But you knew that. Second, this post is recycled. A rerun. Leftovers. ABC gum. Sort of. The topic is familiar to you only if you were a follower of the aborted 1978 Topps blog by Andy of Baseball-Reference fame. But since I pointed out the phenomenon there, then I think I should be able to show the whole thing here, with all of the card illustrations and everything. So that's what I'm going to do. If that bores you, well, I don't care. I've got two people in the house who are bored by what I say on a daily basis. You can't hurt me. Anyway, this card and the next few cards illustrate just how lazy and/or desperate card companies can get. Take a look at the 1976 Topps Dale Murray card above and note the background. Note, especially, the chaw in Murray's mouth and the post behind Murray on the right side of his head. It's 1977 now. But Murray looks exactly the same as o...