Night Owl Cards

  The trouble with me and O-Pee-Chee cards of the '60s, '70s, 80s and early '90s is that I am so fascinated with the differences from the Topps sets from the same year that I ignore OPC cards that look the same as the Topps cards. I mean what's the point of collecting another card that looks like the Topps card in every way? This is particularly true for OPC sets that don't note that it is an O-Pee-Chee set on the front. And, yes, I know there are always differences with the backs -- because there is French -- but as much as I emphasize how you must read your card backs, backs are backs. So, I'm in danger of never completing an OPC set as much as I like them because the cards that are different from their Topps counterparts are SO fascinating that it makes everything else boring in comparison. For example, the 1977 O-Pee-Chee set, which I think is the greatest of all the OPC sets because of all of the variations from Topps, is on my radar. But the only cards I e...

Happy Canada Day, once again, to my Canadian readers. This is getting to be a bit of a tradition now that I've referenced Canada Day on the actual day the last three years. Tell me, non-Canadians, what's the first thing you think of when someone mentions "Canada"? If you didn't respond with "hockey," you need to try again. Hockey is such a Canadian institution that if someone were to tell me that a famous athlete from Canada never played hockey, I'd be more surprised by that than just about anything. Even professional baseball players from Canada played hockey before they made baseball their career choice. Larry Walker, one of the greatest baseball players to ever come out of Canada, wanted to be a goalie in the NHL when he was growing up. One of his childhood friends was Boston Bruins great Cam Neely. Walker never played professional hockey. But there are several MLB players who were drafted by an NHL team, played in pro hockey leagues an...

We're just three months shy of the 40th anniversary of the advent of free agency in major league baseball. No matter what you may think of that development and the consequences over the following decades, you cannot deny Marvin Miller's impact and how he brought the basic concepts of organized labor to MLB players. Today, on Labor Day, I'd like to go back to that time of early free agency, specifically the first real group of free agents. Free agency began in December 1975 when arbitrator Peter Seitz ruled in favor of Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally, who had requested to be free agents. From that point, players were allowed to seek out better contracts from other teams. The offseason of 1976 featured the first group of genuine free agents. And 25 of those players signed new deals with other clubs. It was a brand new world. Players were paid record salaries. Teams who had little hope to contend, like the Angels, Padres, White Sox and Rangers, suddenly looked li...