Night Owl Cards

 (Woof, blog views have taken another downturn, basically in the last two weeks. Maybe everyone was too busy watching the Olympics! Anyway, for those still reading, this is called Cardboard Appreciation and we're at the 365th in a series):   As far as I can tell, this is the first time Shoeless Joe Jackson has appeared on a Topps card.   I pulled it when I went back for a hanger box of 2026 Topps last week. I opened it at work. When I saw the card I didn't think anything of it other than "that's a weird-looking thing."   But later I remembered how MLB removed Shoeless Joe and other deceased ballplayers from its permanently ineligible list last spring, making them available to be voted into the Hall of Fame. Also, since Topps doesn't make a move without MLB approval, that means Jackson (and I assume Pete Rose) are eligible to appear in current baseball cards.   Up until now my Shoeless Joe cards have been created by Upper Deck, Donruss/Playoff/Panini/Leaf, vari...

(I am preparing to have my dinner at the office again tonight after yet another prediction of a late afternoon/early evening snowstorm. This is convenient for 9-5 workers, who can close up shop early, but definitely not for me. Let's see if I can get out of the work parking lot late tonight. Time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 363rd in a series):   My collecting during the junk wax era was sporadic. I've written many times that I didn't collect between 1986-88 (save for one pack of Topps I bought in '88). I collected Topps like crazy in 1989, then went cold turkey again in 1990. I came back somewhere in 1991 collecting casually and then bought a bunch in '92 and '93.   I can see good and bad points to this. The good: I have no fond memories for mediocre sets like 1990 Donruss or overvalue 1989 Upper Deck. The bad: I missed several players commonly known by junk wax devotees, who were kids at the time and memorized the front and back of every card.   For...

Topps is never going to change. For as long as I have been collecting baseball cards, more than 40 years now, Topps has been creating alternate reality on its baseball cards. It has placed players into uniforms of teams for which they never played. It has moved an entire ball game scene from Boston to L.A. It has erased umpires and bat boys. It has pictured living players posing with dead players. And it hasn't just been Topps doing this. Fleer and Upper Deck and probably others each have their own very well-known examples. But this is a Topps card so I'm making it an example: what the heck are the Dodgers doing wearing red numbers on their uniform backs? This has been pointed out by at least a couple of other bloggers already, but I can't let it go as a Dodgers devotee. Red numbers have been a part of the Dodgers' uniform since 1952. They were created for TV. Owner Walter O'Malley liked the idea of bright numbers on the front that TV viewers could see....

Just one day remains before I receive some well-deserved time off. There are any number of ways to celebrate breaking the chains of societal demands and I'm sure I'll imbibe in all of them -- food, booze, babes (well, one babe) -- in the week to come. But as for right now, it's quite simple: I wanna rock . Recently, I received a sizable chunk of the 1991 Pro Set SuperStars MusiCards series from The Writer's Journey . I've made no secret of my love for music trading cards -- I wish there were more of them, there should be more of them (and if there were more of them this would be a baseball blog no more) -- and lately have been focusing more on finding them. One of the easiest sets to find is the 1991 Pro Set ... uh, set (stupid Pro Set and its stupid name).  And it is my goal to complete it fairly quickly. I will be posting a want list just as soon I can figure out what I received from J.T. here. I bought a number of MusiCards ... uh, cards (sheesh) i...

As one of the few card bloggers currently blogging who was also blogging in 2008, I can divide those who were writing nine-plus years ago into a few different categories: 1. Still blogging, who knows why 2. Quit blogging, but still collecting 3. Quit blogging, ditched cards, and took up butterfly watching or skeet shooting or whatever 4. Basically quit blogging but throws a post on the old site maybe once a year I don't want to speak for everyone who was blogging in 2008, but I think anyone who was writing about cards then, whether they're still blogging or not, is somewhat disenchanted with the current state of cards. Anyone who isn't, hasn't been blogging for almost 10 years. I think that's only natural. As you grow more experienced, your tastes become more well-defined. You know what you like and don't like. Newer items aren't appealing because they don't match your established tastes. And so it is when I buy current cards. I still mak...