Night Owl Cards

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 ...

As a collector, my thoughts on this day go directly to Topps' old Father & Son subset, first issued in a five-card series in 1976 Topps. The Father & Son set continued Topps' habit of displaying its old cards on a current set (Topps did it in 1975 with its MVP subset and in 1974 with its tribute to Hank Aaron). It is a nice contrast, the old card of the father paired with the current photo of the son. The card back is very nice, too (excluding the misspelling of "influence"). The current players "write" about what kind of effect their major league-playing father had on their career. I often wondered how Topps received these "letters" from the players. Did they interview the players or actually ask them to write something down? I have a feeling they weren't interviewed, or at least Topps didn't use the words from the interview verbatim. I'll show why later. Almost 10 years later, Topps tried the Father ...