Night Owl Cards

  Among my favorite types of cards are ones that show catchers in action. I'm sure many collectors will agree that is a cool shot.   I'm not sure why action photos of catchers stand out more than action photos of pitchers or hitters or infielders. Perhaps it's because they're less common, or all the equipment they wear, or the funny backward hat. I just know that I like them and I always have.   I started collecting in the '70s, but I really noticed a surge in catcher action shots during the 1980s. That's understandable, cards really shifted over to action in the '80s. And recently I began to wonder which '80s set featured the most catchers in action.   Aha, we now have a post.   I considered the Topps sets of the '80s first, of course. If I ever look for the catchers in action for Donruss and Fleer, that will be a separate post. And I had my ideas about which set might have the most. I've dedicated a whole post to the catchers cards of 1986 Topp...

  Fifty years ago today, Major League Baseball played the All-Star Game in Milwaukee. The National League won, 6-3 (yay!). Bill Madlock and Jon Matlack shared the MVP award. (Reggie Jackson went 1-for-3).   At the break, the Dodgers had played 92 games or 56.8% of their schedule. This season -- 50 years later -- the Dodgers reached the All-Star break having played 97 games or 59.9%. Yet I read a social media complaint just a week or two ago about how the All-Star Game -- the supposed "midsummer classic" -- takes place too late because more than half of the season has passed.   The All-Star Game hasn't shown up at the halfway point of the season in a very long time. (And we're not even close to halfway through summer).   The ASG regularly pops up on either the second or third Tuesday of July. It's been that way for decades. It doesn't matter when the season starts, or how many games have been played, the second or third Tuesday of July is when the ASG exists.  ...

  I wrote a month or so ago that I've been working on a post on the 1991 Studio set. Based on the information provided by players on the back of that set's cards, could a personality profile be developed for the average Major League Baseball player in 1991?   I went through all 264 cards. For most of the cards, there are four categories listed on the back that allows you to know the player a bit more than the photo on the front: personal (birth date, family, place of residence), career, hobbies & interests and heroes.   I focused on the last two categories because they are the best window into a ballplayer's world in 1991.   I separated those two categories into six separate sub-categories: Hobbies & Interests, Music Interests, Collecting Interests;  Favorite Sports Teams; Heroes and Favorite TV Shows. Then I started tallying. When I was done, I came up with the Average Major League Player in 1991. Based on the most popular answers, this is what that pl...

(Good evening, it's National Brownie Day. I am a simple man, I prefer brownies without nuts, frosting or any other weird experiment bakers want to try. Naked brownies are perfect as they are, don't try to change them. Time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 315th in a series):   I thought it would be nice if I could leave the 1992 Diet Pepsi set that Angus gave me in its packaging. I figured there were no Dodgers in the set that I needed, why not take a quick look through the 30 cards and then put them back in the package forever? But of course I'm incapable of doing that. I was shuffling through the cards quickly, taking note of who was in the set and how they looked without any licensing, when a card leapt out of my hands and punched me in the head: There were two reasons for this. First, I realized that Brett Butler, as I had mentioned in my previous post, is NOT in the set, which meant there were no Dodgers in the set. Second, there ARE Dodgers in this set because ...

The All-Star Game is annually one of summer's highlights for me. It has been since 1976. I'm pretty sure I've watched every All-Star Game since that year, although there was an ugly period there when I was actually working during some of the games. I put a stop to that by always taking a vacation during the All-Star Game week. I'm not off this week, but I am off on Tuesday, so I'll be taking my usual spot in front of the TV, partaking in the usual snack of chicken wings and some sort of artificially sweetened beverage, just like I did as kid, watching the action in Kansas City. I will be watching the entire game from start to finish (but I will probably miss whatever artificial, mushy, made-for-TV event they've cooked up for the pregame). I can't stress enough how elated I am on this day. It makes me so happy. There is no angst around the game as there is with so many regular season and postseason games. Just the joy of baseball ... and lots and lot...

Although the Fan Favorites sets are fantastic in a wide variety of ways, it's easy to spot the cards that are a little bit off. Topps is basically a victim of its success here. It has created sets and designs that are so familiar that collectors notice immediately when something is not quite right. One of the most significant issues is with the 2003 Fan Favorites Monte Irvin card. Irvin is on the 1952 design, but his signature is missing in the box. There is another version with the autograph. But I won't be pursuing the other version. But there are other examples of some "not quite right" cards that weren't corrected. In many cases they are small things, but I notice this stuff, as I'm sure other collectors do, too. The Fan Favorites cards with the 1985 design always looked a little off to me, but I thought it was only because the letters in the team box were too small. I guess they are a little smaller than the letters on the actual 1985 ...