Night Owl Cards

  I hate to be the blog known for bringing up the deaths of past ballplayers. Part of me wishes the blog could be happy and light all the time. But whenever I hear about one of the players from my younger days moving on, I feel like I need to recognize it as a form of respect from a longtime baseball fan. Today I heard that Bill Plummer passed away. He's known as the backup catcher to Johnny Bench during the 1970s. I've mentioned before that I almost had the chance to interview Plummer. He was managing a minor league team in California at the time and a player from our area was playing for the team. But the interview with the player fell through (he wasn't keen on talking) and I never talked to Plummer. Plummer is the 181st player or manager featured in the 1975 Topps set who has died -- yes, I keep track of that, too. It's alarming that so many of those people who I collected in my first year of buying cards are no longer with us. So, I decided to put a positive spin o...

    Big news for a lot of people's card collections yesterday, the Hall of Fame announced the selection of six players for induction. My collection isn't nearly as exclusive as those that feature only rookie cards of Hall of Famers and such. My collection doesn't focus on Hall of Famers at all actually. I do need to update my "sets with the most Hall of Famers" series greatly now, although I'll wait until the BBWAA vote next month for a new post. But as far as my collection, it reflects what I think about who has played the game, not who is in the Hall. There has been a lot of greatness, whether they're on a plaque in a building or not. I've written about stuff like this before. In fact, I already voted a bunch of the guys who the Hall picked yesterday into the Hall years ago .   "Small hall/big hall," "stats worthy/not worthy," I don't have time for those debates. What I do have time for is focusing on the players elected and s...

When I was a kid making visits to the Baseball Hall of Fame, the least interesting part of the experience was that room with all the plaques. Oh, is that the actual "Hall of Fame"? Yeah, that . That was the dullest part. Some of my boredom had to do with the presentation -- staid head shots on hunks of wood mounted on a wall in a room that felt like church. My footsteps echoed. I thought I was about to be shushed. I could feel myself getting math-class eyes as I attempted to read the words on one of the plaques. The other sections of the building -- what I guess was the museum part -- were so much more interesting. Tales of the World Series and baseball players' feats. Famous teams and uniforms. Characters of the game and baseball cards. Giant photographs, batting gloves, awesome pitching feats, lit-up scoreboards, old contracts, quips and quotes, barnstorming ballplayers, the old Federal League, the previous year's postseason. Every last bit fascinating. ...

Until it started inserting presidential candidates a few years ago, Topps steered clear of politics in baseball card sets. I appreciate that. I'm not a political person. I certainly don't want to see it in my baseball cards. But I wonder with this card. Maybe it's not politics. But it could be editorializing. Just a little. In 1973, the American League implemented the designated hitter rule. The AL team owners actually approved the DH during meetings in December 1972. It was the result of another downturn in offense, which had been going on since the late 1960s. Prompted by A's owner Charlie Finley, the AL decided 8-4 that another player would bat for the pitcher during games. The DH had been used in pro ball in 1969 as an experimental maneuver in the minor leagues. Teams even experimented with it during that period in spring training. So even though Topps had already completed and released its 1973 set by the time Ron Blomberg strode to the plate on April ...

Three of the 10 people up for Baseball Hall of Fame election by the Veterans Committee on Monday have connections to the Twins. Jim Kaat, Tony Oliva and Luis Tiant. Even though Gil Hodges is also among the 10, I don't really care who gets voted in tomorrow. Just as long as it's somebody . With that in mind, it's time to see how Topps treated the Twins in terms of colors it used with Minnesota's cards. Did it stick to blue and red, or did it stray into strange colors that you'd never see in the frozen north? The rundown for the years in which Topps picked colors based on the teams featured on the card: 1964: green 1965: purple and yellow 1966: light blue 1967: green 1968: blue 1969: blue 1971: red 1972: light blue, blue and orange 1974: blue 1976: blue and pink 1977: blue and yellow 1978: blue 1979: blue 1980: orange, purple and red 1981: yellow, red and blue 1982: orange and brown 1983: orange and brown 1984: purple and green 1985: blue, p...