Night Owl Cards

  I have no problem with how anyone in the hobby wants to collect. Their preferences are their own and I'm glad they're happy. If the way they collect is different from mine, there's a good chance I won't understand it. But still, their way is their way and mine is mine and we can co-exist peacefully, each collecting in our own corner. Except in one instance. There is this one type of collecting that interferes with how I collect. In fact, our two kinds of collecting often butts heads. I'm referring to player collecting, a popular style of collecting for the last 30-to-35 years but something that I am on record as not understanding and I admit I've called it names in the past. But it's probably just the frustration of being a set collector coming out. Set collecting was king when I was a kid in the '70s and remained that way all through my first stage of collecting into the mid-1980s. We '70s set-collectors rarely encountered other collectors hoardin...

It seems strange to say in our phone culture, but there used to be a time when you didn't necessarily take pictures when you went to a baseball game. You certainly didn't take pictures of yourself, I know that. I own zero photographic proof of the first Major League Baseball game I ever attended, the Royals and Yankees at Yankee Stadium in July of 1978. My father may have taken some photos with his camera, he was the picture-taker until my mom took over. But I've never seen any. Any images of that game have resided solely in my mind's eye for 42 years. Such was the case for a number of major and minor league games that I attended through the 1980s and '90s. Camera? Why would I want one of those? There's a game to watch out there! And food to eat! There's no time for snappy, snapping! Well, that thought process certainly changed. Look at the stands of any baseball game. The phone, with that camera, seems much more interesting to many people in the ...

I had one of those ugly days at work yesterday. About as bad as it gets. A day that will linger into the months to come. That's how ugly. The next day, today, was a day off. And you know what that means: major decompression. Even if I wanted to do something today, the forces inside my body would conspire against me: "Do you know what happened to you yesterday???? Eat whatever you want! Do whatever you want! Sleep the entire damn day!" I can't resist the forces. I'm too weak from yesterday. So I hit the "decompress" button hard and shut down. No, I didn't sleep the entire damn day, but I did the next best mindless thing: I stuck stickers. Really, it's the proper thing to do when you can barely sit up. Find the right square. Peel. Stick. Do it again. That's the entire thought process. And, thanks to Bert at Swing And A Pop-Up , I received a whole bunch of stickers for the only sticker album I'm trying to fill -- the 1982 Topps St...

I'm expanding on my most recent post from the 1985 Topps blog. That's the advantage of having more than one blog -- the other blogs sometimes give you ideas for the main blog, and that is very key. Until Topps issues a product every day (don't say "ToppsNow," wise guy) or there's a card show every day, it will always be a challenge to come up with material on a daily blog. So, this post is about the power of the mustache, specifically referring to one player. I would hope that everyone familiar with 1970s/80s baseball players knows about the power of the mustache. The sudden surge in ability for players like Ron Cey, Mike Schmidt, Davey Lopes, Steve Rogers, etc., once they grew some lip hair is right there in the statistics. But for me there is one player who documents this phenomenon better than any player. Dwight Evans enjoyed a long and prosperous career, mostly with the Red Sox, from 1972-91. But the tone of his career shifted about midway thro...

I'm getting to that age where I start losing memories of entire years. That sounds like something is terribly wrong with me, but I think it's just me getting old. For example, 1993. I remember where I was living, where my job was, and some people I knew at the time. I remember that I became immersed in alternative rock music of the time -- Smashing Pumpkins, Cracker, the Breeders, Belly, etc. I remember Mitch Williams' gopher ball to Joe Carter. And I remember it was the year I changed my card habits in a major way and shunned all other brands for Upper Deck. As for the rest of the year, I'd have to do some research and look through some pictures. But I fear the small moments and nuances from the year, which I have down to sight, taste and smell for, say, 1977, are probably lost forever. That means I have to guess on some stuff that I actually lived through, llike why is Dave Fleming the cover boy on 1993 Pinnacle? Isn't that the same high-hat Mariner tha...