Night Owl Cards

  This is the second of two posts inspired by the 1983 Topps Jeff Newman card ( the first one ). You never know where you're going to find inspiration. By 1983, Newman and the A's had experienced Billy Ball and a slight improvement in their fortunes, although they'd backslide in the mid '80s until the Bash Brothers came along. But Newman was part of the worst team of my childhood, the 1979 Oakland A's. They went 54-108 for a .333 winning percentage and they seemed like the most pathetic club ever produced. Here is a general look at that team from the 1979 Topps perspective: I know these are actually pictures of the 1978 A's, but they weren't very good either and, still, what a collection of "who???" In hindsight, players like Tony Armas, Mitchell Page and Mike Norris would go on to be name players. But when we were collecting these cards, very few of these guys were familiar. (This should have been a Joy of a Team Set post). As I pulled Taylor Dunc...

  It's rare that a single card gives me two post ideas. Now consider that the card is this 1983 Topps Jeff Newman and the odds of that are incalculable.   One of my very favorite parts of Topps Traded sets, especially those from the 1980s, is how they capture the passage of time, even if it's really only a year or half a year that's gone by. That passage is demonstrated in how players sometimes change their look.   In the very hairy 1980s, that meant changes in facial hair and there was no better way to demonstrate that progression than in the Traded sets of 1983 and 1984, which each provided inset photos of the player in head shot form.   I was reminded of this with Jeff Newman's two 1983 Topps cards. His 75th birthday was yesterday and I took the opportunity to showcase his different looks:   Look at the drastic change in inset photos. It's almost as if Jeff Newman ducked into a bathroom stall, pulled out a razor and gave himself a trim, stuffed his Oakland A'...