Night Owl Cards

Yesterday, I was reminded again that Melvin Upton Jr. is a Blue Jay. It's difficult to keep track these days as players seem to be change scenery more and more often. And in this very "life goes too fast" year of 2016, I'm in a perpetual state of catch-up. It doesn't help that players like Melvin Upton Jr. are on a new team each year. It doesn't help that players like Melvin Upton Jr. didn't even have the same name he did less than two years ago! Yes, Melvin Upton Jr. started out on very different terms not so long ago. He played for a team formerly known as the Devil Rays. And Upton was formerly known as "B.J." That transition was marked by Topps in 2015, with a card in flagship and a card in Update: And a very helpful notation of the name change on the back of the Update card: That got me thinking about other name changes. I'm not referring to wholesale name changes, like David Arias transforming into David Ortiz,...

I am absolutely indifferent about the 1987 style mini inserts in this year's Topps set. I have been from the beginning. When the people who need to be first about such things breathlessly announced that Topps would be issuing a mini insert set in the style of '87 Topps, I let out a half-hearted: Huh? And then a vigorous: Meh. You didn't know a "meh" could be vigorous, did you? It can. The "meh" was because, as I've said many times, I am relentlessly bored by '87 Topps. It will be the only '80s Topps set that I never complete. Or, at least, the last one I complete. So not even a mini version of '87 Topps could get me to purchase product. The "huh?" was because I didn't recall mini versions of 1987 Topps back in '87. Most mini card sets of today are tributes to past mini cards -- think '75 Topps, tobacco era minis from A&G and the T-set issues -- but for which set were the '87 style minis a tribu...