Night Owl Cards

The release date for 2017 Topps flagship is less than a week away. I happen to have that day off and will probably be driving myself crazy that day trying to find it in local stores, which is usually an impossible task. I'm happy that I'm still excited after all of these years -- even though I don't intend to collect the set, even though I already see things I don't like about it, even though I fully plan to mention those things on this blog -- but I wonder if the whole modern card collecting thing has passed me by. For instance, Topps released the checklist for Series 1 today, complete with announcing that Kris Bryant is card #1 in the set, which means almost nothing to me. What does still mean something to me is how later cards in the set are oriented. Once upon a time, card No. 100 in the set meant something. Hank Aaron, Willie Stargell, Mike Schmidt, Mike Piazza, those were the players who received card No. 100 -- for decades. I had to look up who Nat...

Every year at this time I buy some Opening Day and I apologize for doing so. I was going to do the same thing again this year (because I already said somewhere else that I wasn't going to buy any), and then I decided I'm not going to do that. I was out shopping for another birthday yesterday and I ended up in the card aisle and grabbed a fat pack of Opening Day. Everyone else would do the same. It's new. It was the first pack out of a brand new box. You're not a collector if you see an untouched box in front of you and don't grab a pack. (Oh, god, I just uttered the "you're not a collector" line. I'm sorry, so, so sorry). Opening Day has been pretty good to me the last couple of years despite the limited attention I've given it. Two years ago, it produced the Stadium Lights insert set and I drooled all over the thing . Last year, I bought a single blaster and pulled an autograph . So there's your incentive for buying a pack. Plus...