Night Owl Cards

  Whenever I add cards to my 1970 Topps set, the 1969 set is not far behind. I either add a few '69s at the same time or I have them on my mind when I'm thinking about 1970. Compared with 1970, I have a lot of work to do on '69 and it's difficult for me to see progress when I still have around 70 cards to go and a lot of big names and several upgrades, too. But I shouldn't think that way, I have made progress this year. A blog is good for charting that. When you're in a card funk, just look through the past year (which I'll be doing in detail next week) and you'll be amazed at the advances you've made. For example, upon reviewing I was surprised with all the 1969 cards I've picked up over the previous 12 months. I've really been at this '69 pursuit seriously for only the last year-and-a-half, spurred on by my (now former) co-worker's collection that I helped evaluate .   I checked my inventory to see which team sets that I had complet...

Before I get into the final vote-off that leads into the semifinals in Cardboard Appreciation, the Review 3, I'd like to mention a few baseball/hobby-related goings-on that have happened to me in the last 24 hours. Because everyone's just got to know 'bout little ol' night owl, right? First of all, if you haven't heard about the untimely passing of George "Boomer" Scott, I hate to be the one to break it to you. He died on Sunday at age 69. I have written at least a couple of odes to Scott during the life of this blog. He is, after all, a member of the Bad-ass Club and the man who taught me the importance of the home run . He is at the very center of my first real introduction to the powers of baseball. During that late spring/early summer of 1977, Scott was part of a Red Sox home run bash that was the topic of the sports world. As I mentioned in that earlier post, Sports Illustrated put out a story on Boston's HR binge and it became one of...

This is not a post professing my love for an alt-rock chick named "Dusty," although if I ever create a comic book series, the heroine will be named "Dusty Chrome." No, this about my long-delayed discovery of cards at a drug store. Many, many, many months ago, I read about bloggers finding 2009 Topps Chrome for sale at Rite Aid. It made me positively giddy. First, you don't find cards at drug stores very often anymore. Secondly, there  actually is a Rite Aid in my outpost hell. Two of them in fact. However, I've reached the point in my life where my brain resists absorbing new information. It's a fun side effect of turning 40. I've rejected a great many new-fangled items that I have stumbled across in the last couple of years, just because my brain has turned its nose up at them. So months went by and I never even entered either Rite Aid store. Neither of them are conveniently located. One is way on the other side of town. The other has a ...

Topps has done a dangerous, dangerous thing. It has put its vast catalog of cards in image form on its Million Card Giveaway site. I often insist on using only the scans from my collection for this blog, unless a post absolutely requires the image of a card that I don't have. But with Topps' MCG site, I almost never have to scan in a vintage card again. That would be very lazy of me. So I'm going to try very hard not to use the MCG site as a crutch. But because I don't have some of these George Scott cards for this "Best of the '70s" post, and because it's still freakin' March, the most kick-my-ass month on God's green earth, all of these scans were filched. For the record, the 1970s Topps Scott cards that I do have are from 1971, '73, '74, '75, '76, '78 and '79. I will gladly accept your 1970, 1972 and 1977 Scotts. All right, you know the format: I show the 1970s cards from one of the decade's more notable p...

As a child, life's greatest concepts are a mystery. They must be unraveled bit by bit until the full realization hits you like a line drive to the chest. That's the way it was for me with George Scott and the concept of the Home Run. I knew who George Scott was. The first card of his that I saw was from 1976 Topps. I liked it instantly. The Brewers were this nebulous midwestern team with a borderline teenager at shortstop and public fixation with beer. Scott's 1976 card helped put a face on the Brewers. A jolly, pleasant, hulking face. Kind of like Prince Fielder, except with less repressed rage. I thought I knew what the Home Run was, too. My first televised baseball memory was a home run, Carlton Fisk's almost-foul blast in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series. I had watched a number of home runs since then and they were interesting. Maybe not as interesting as Matchbox cars, but worth seeing. But it wasn't until spring of 1977 that I grasped the true mea...