Night Owl Cards

I began collecting as a kid in the mid-1970s. I knew '74, '75 and '76 Topps intimately. They were all around me. If I saw a picture of a baseball player, it was often framed in pennant flags, or brightly colored two-tone borders, or featured a tiny drawing of an anonymous player fielding his position. Early '70s cards were old and unattainable. Only grown-up collectors -- which to my 10-year-old eyes also included teenagers -- had cards like these. But one of my friends had this beat up Fred Norman card from the 1970 Topps set. He wasn't interested in baseball, so the card was mine. For three or four years, the Norman card was The Oldest Card I Own. This was an important aspect of my collection. I think it was for everyone at that time. It was a marker of exactly how serious you were as a collector. The older the card, the more serious the collection. That way of thinking doesn't fly quite as much today, with all the mojo box breakers out their salivati...

I am continuing my recollection of when the Dodgers were good by focusing on the large number of exceptional players that the Dodgers have had in their history. This was brought on by two things that happened over the weekend. One was the Diamondbacks retiring Luis Gonzalez's number. I'm a stickler on things like that, and I don't think Gonzalez warranted having his number retired. These are the things that 12-year-old organizations do, I suppose, but I believe that you basically should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame or have played virtually your whole career for an organization to get a retired number. The Dodgers have retired 10 numbers. Nine are of people in the Hall of Fame. The other is Jim Gilliam, who died at age 49. The second thing was the Indians and Orioles inducting former members into their respective team Halls of Fame. This is a pretty standard practice for a lot of teams. Several have a "team Hall of Fame," which I consider the junior var...