Night Owl Cards

Team cards are an often overlooked source of an entertainment when it comes to collecting. I am referring to the team cards in which the whole squad (and the traveling secretary!) poses on bleachers for a few snapshots, not the ubiquitous on-field celebrations that pass for team cards today. These staples of my childhood appeared on Topps cards in different stages over the years: 1956-1968, 1970-81 and 2001-07 (and Heritage until 2012). I've written about them many times and pointed out several different aspects. They're really quite fun and you never know what you're going to find. Elephants roaming in the background (1980 Padres), Burt Hooton with his head down , players with missing body parts . The possibilities are endless. I mean check out this phenomenal assemblage. The Phillies are posing in front of a baseball sculpture that once stood at the podium level of old Veterans Stadium. The sculpture first appeared in 1976, which means the Phillies were stil...

I've mentioned several times the amount of Jackie Robinson cards I own. The current total is 251. Only two of those cards are from when Robinson was playing. A total of 24 were made prior to 1997. The rest were churned out in the last 20 years. My Robinson total is no great feat. The amount of modern-day Jackies created has helped tremendously as have the many collectors who know my appreciation for the Dodgers and historic Brooklyn baseball figures. I can't help but accumulate a large total. To illustrate further, let's take a star from a slightly earlier period than Robinson, Joe DiMaggio. How many cards of him do I own? I own seven. I possess the beauty that you see at the top of the post. Why doesn't every card look like that? And the others that I own: Quite a varied group for a mere seven cards. From the subversive Baseball Enquirer Mr. Coffee card to the mind-numbing hitting streak inserts, my collection is a catch-all for DiMagg...

I am a member of the MTV generation. There is no mistake about that. MTV was born a month before I entered my junior year in high school. It was the latest, greatest invention, at least according to the most receptive market for these kinds of things: teenagers. MTV videos made up the daily conversation in the cafeteria, where it was mixed with movies, homework, girls, TV shows and idiot teachers in a hormonal stew. For me, and others of that generation, what has happened to MTV is criminal. The station that proclaimed the death of the radio star with its very first video, also killed what made it great, what the people who worked there were so excited about in the first place: music on your television, all day and all night -- and in stereo . The videos that MTV played during those first few years were exactly what we wanted to see. They spoke to us. And the ones that spoke the loudest were the new groups that we were witnessing for the very first time on music television. Ev...

Twenty-five years ago this Saturday, a well-known stand-up comedian debuted a little-known sitcom during the 4th of July holiday week. It would be nearly a year before another episode appeared and probably a good two years before "Seinfeld" took hold with the American public. But I can safely say that I have never seen or probably ever will see a funnier television show. "Seinfeld" is the sitcom of my era. The generation before me had "All in the Family." The generation after me had god knows what -- do they make sitcoms anymore? I remember watching one of the earliest Seinfelds sometime during 1990 in my co-worker's apartment, thinking "what is this?" I believe it was the one where Kramer fills the washing machine with cement. Sometime after that, I was a faithful Thursday night watcher, like the rest of TV viewers. When the show hit syndication, I copied them on to videotape because I knew that a show this historically funny sh...