Night Owl Cards

    Two weeks ago yesterday, I had the great luck to do something that not many get to do.   I interviewed the man whose baseball card was the first one I ever pulled out of a pack.   Kind of unusual, right? First, how many people remember their first card way back when they were a kid? Then, how many get to talk to that person decades later for a story?   That's what happened to me and Tommy John.   I've mentioned John many times on this blog. Not only was his card the first I pulled back when my mom gave me that cello pack in 1974, but he is responsible for my Dodgers fandom. He became a key figure during my formative years of following baseball and also was my first encounter with a baseball player turning to "the dark side" as John left the Dodgers to become a Yankee before the 1980 season.   All of that was a long time ago, of course. I am now more than 30 years into my journalism career and John is 78 years old. But he has continued to be a figur...

  For the first 20 years of my life, I lived an hour-and-a-half away from the Baseball Hall of Fame. As close as that is, even in the '70s people didn't travel as often as they do now. So anything farther than 20 miles away seemed far to me as a kid. And the first time I ever went to Cooperstown is a journey in my mind. But I have been blessed by where I grew up. I have been to the Hall five times in my life, although the most recent visit was more than 25 years ago. Because of that, my memories of my Hall visits are pretty shaky. I don't remember most details or dates and almost no Hall of Fame displays. But there are a few things that continue to stay with me and probably will for the rest of my life. None of them are all that exciting, but -- they are exciting to me. And when you have a blog, that's all that matters. Here are some of the things I recall from those Hall visits: Approaching the entrance My first Hall of Fame visit came in 1975 when I was 9 years old. E...

  Here's another update to my series where I figure out the number of Hall of Famers in each Topps flagship set, which will end in discovering which set has the most. (Yeah, I know, "1983"). I just did one of these in July and I said I'd have another one on the occasion of the Hall induction ceremony this week. I'm trying to speed up these posts because they're getting long and also I want a final answer soon. Today I am adding three sets in honor of three of the inductees: Ted Simmons, Larry Walker and Derek Jeter. I chose a set to include that featured these players. I selected 1979 for Simmons, 1991 for Walker and 2006 for Jeter. You know the drill. I am listing only players/managers who were playing/managing at the time the set came out. So, for example, Mickey Mantle's inclusion in the 2006 set will not count toward the total because he wasn't ... um, even alive in 2006. As I've said before, a card showing a player who eventually went into the...