Night Owl Cards

Imagine pulling the likes of Fred Norman out of an insert set issued by Topps in 2020. You can't. It would never happen. Sure, Norman pitched for a World Series championship team the year before this card was issued, the 1976 Cincinnati Reds. He was the starter in Game 2 of the Series. But he was hardly a star. His stats were respectable but if anyone was going to mention pitching on the Reds -- and no one hardly did because the Big Red Machine operated at the plate, not the mound -- it would be Don Gullett or Jack Billingham. But still Kellogg's placed Norman at card No. 8 in its 57-card set in 1977. Another pitcher. Same set, same story. Doug Rau was a solid thrower for the Dodgers. I thought he was underrated and didn't get enough attention. He was definitely No. 4, though, on a starting rotation list that consisted of Don Sutton, Tommy John and Burt Hooton. Some days, even No. 5 hurler Rick Rhoden surpassed him. But do you see Sutton, John or Hooton i...

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...