Night Owl Cards

Fifty years ago today, the Beatles arrived on our television sets. Perhaps you've heard. At that particular time, the Dodgers were the defending world champions. And kids were getting ready to pull Sandy, Willie and Don out of packs of 1964 Topps. In some ways, not a lot has changed. OK, the Dodgers don't win Series titles anymore. But we're still talking about the Beatles. And we're still waiting for that next time when we can pull cards from a pack. The new cards are out now, but I haven't bought any since that hanger box from a couple of weeks ago. The weather -- yes, it snowed again today -- has kept me from even thinking of turning my vehicle in the direction of the big boxes. Not that I've been all that curious. Fortunately, I haven't had to risk getting rear-ended by some newbie winter driver from South Carolina (I live near a military base) for the sake of some current cards. People from the east, southwest and northwest have all sent me 201...

This Wednesday, I will have been on Twitter for a year. It's gone a little better than the first time I was there. I think I've adjusted to the weirdness that is, and I've learned not to expect too much out of it. For me, the benefits outweigh the annoyances. But I'll be clear, if there is one thing that Twitter outlines over and over again, possibly even more than regular life does, it is this: "I don't get people." Twitter is filled with strange stuff: people saying harmful and shocking things just for the sake of doing so, people getting their panties bunched over the most pointless happenings. Twitter is life without a filter and that is still odd to me, but I have adjusted. But what I don't think I will ever get used to is the endless, endless, endless criticism tweets that come from certain very prominent fan sites. I try to follow the Twitter accounts of some team blogs because other fans do, they're popular, and I like to stay info...

What's wrong with this picture? Well, if you know the history of Topps Heritage, you know that Topps tries -- or claims to try -- to pay tribute to a past Topps set by faithfully recreating that set down to the smallest detail, but while featuring current players. Usually it does a fine job. The design is faithful to the original 1963 set. The colors are relatively faithful to '63s (make a side-by-side comparison and you'll see slight differences). Card backs are faithful, too. I'm always impressed by how Topps is able to recreate the cartoons in the exact style of the cartoons from days gone by. Topps even goes to unnecessary lengths to recreate the errors that appeared in '63 and other past sets. As for the photos, Topps makes an attempt to recreate the style and look of the previous set -- going with more head shots, portraits and posing styles of the past. But there's usually something that's not quite right with the images. After all, Topps...

If everything goes on schedule, my first Baseball-Reference.com blog post should appear next week. What can you expect from those periodic posts? Well, basically the same stuff you see here. Consider them "Cardboard Appreciation" posts, but with a wider and much more intimidating audience. But I do feel up to the task, which is why I agreed to jam the gig into my schedule. I appreciate that Andy asked me to help out, and that he sent some cards my way, possibly as "payment" for my assistance. I do love getting paid in cards. Andy sent me exactly 136 cards off my want list for 2009 O-Pee-Chee. I now need just 20 cards to complete that wonderfully wacky set. Among the cards he sent me are the typically strange and typically wonderful, which is what '09 OPC is known for: Floating heads. Giants heads. Strange camera angles. Commentaries on the attendance habits of South Florida fans. Now for the wonderful: The home run by Soriano appears to be...