Night Owl Cards

  I completed the 1982 Fleer set today. This is the fourth set I've completed in 2021 and it was long overdue. According to the labels provided by blogger, I have written about 1982 Fleer more often than any other non-Topps set. This is post 44 about 1982 Fleer, breaking a tie with 1993 Upper Deck. (For those suddenly curious about which baseball sets I've written about the most, here ya go: 1975 Topps - 259 times 1956 Topps - 146 1972 Topps - 135 1977 Topps - 99 1971 Topps - 94) If I've written more than 40 times about a specific set, I probably should be completing the thing. So, thank goodness, 1982 Fleer is done. I just rechecked. These are the last four cards that I needed: Three Hall of Famers and -- what the heck? -- Jim Slaton? Slaton was the second-to-last one, too, pulled out of an envelope just before the Tim Raines card. I think I've written so much about this set basically for the same reason that I seek out interesting stories -- human interest stories -- ...

You hear a lot about "baseball lifers." Those are the guys who play the game professionally, then go into coaching or managing and spend the rest of their time on this earth doing good baseball works until they're carted out or called home. But baseball lifers are good for yet another activity. It's one that lets me know exactly how long I've been collecting cards. What I like to do each year is find a person in major league baseball who has a current card and then find a card of that same person from my very earliest days of collecting. It has to be a card that I pulled back then. Then I add up all the years in between and that gives me an indication of three things: 1. The player has been working in professional baseball for ages. 2. I have been collecting cards for ages. 3. Everybody is way too damn old. Last year, two specific people pointed out how long I've been collecting cards. I pulled Topps cards of  managers, Dusty Baker and C...