Night Owl Cards

Staying with the card backs of my youth, here is the 1974 Topps set. These are the first cards that I ever laid eyes on, so it follows that these were the first card backs that I ever witnessed, too. The card backs were everything that a card back should have been at that time -- horizontal, green, statistics and a cartoon. At this young age -- I was 8 years old at the time -- the card back didn't register with me as it did with the 1977 set . But I did notice a few things that have stayed with me to this day. I particularly like the compartmentalization of the various categories, with bold lines sectioning off the various features of the card back. I also like that the signature is on the back of the card, rather than the front. But, without a doubt, the best feature of the back is again the cartoon. And the best thing about it is something I would have never noticed back then, and that is how many of the players held down second jobs in the '70s. I wrote about this ...