Night Owl Cards

   More than five years ago, I wrote a post titled " The Kings of the '70s " in which I determined which players had their own Topps cards for every year of the 1970s -- 1970 through 1979.   I've wanted to do the same for the 1980s ever since I wrote that post. I realized doing the '70s post that while I adore that decade as the one in which I discovered baseball and I have great fondness for the players from that time, I don't know many of those players' earlier history. For instance, I never knew Woodie Fryman as a Tiger. He was an Expo! Lou Piniella was a Royal? No way, he was a nasty Yankee!   Diving into all the players with a Topps card for every year of the '80s would truly cover all the players I knew -- from the start of their career til the end of the 1980s. Guys who started mid-1970s -- think Keith Hernandez -- were there through the entire '80s.   Like when compiling the '70s list, I was surprised by the number of players who receiv...

  Twelve years ago I wrote a post about the return of the Topps Future Star(s) label and my lack of appreciation for it when Topps first broke it out in the late 1980s (although it also used "Future Stars" to describe its three-player prospect cards at the start of the decade).   Since first returning in 2014 -- actually its second return as the Future Stars went on hiatus for 1992 and 1993 before coming back in 1994 -- the Future Star has continued strong for every Topps flagship set except for one. It's so much a standard part of the base set now that I don't think anyone even notices it anymore, at least certainly not like collectors did in the late 1980s.   There's a reason for that, I think, outside of showing up every year. I went through the last 12 years and broke down the Future Stars for each. The idea for this post began as a dissection of the Future Star(s) logo, but I found totaling Future Stars for each year more interesting.   Let's start with ...

  Even though Mason Fluharty has pitched in 40-plus games for the Blue Jays this season, I first discovered him at the start of the Dodgers' recent losing streak just this past Sunday. (The Dodgers are not repeating).    I'm not a Blue Jays fan, but his arrival in MLB this year is notable for me. He is the 18th major league left-hander to be born on International Left-handers Day, which ... uh ... was yesterday.   I've written tributes to lefties on Left-handers Day in the past (I'm left-handed). I'm going to do it again. Today. A day late. Because that sounds like something a lefty would do, right?   I figured out all the MLB lefties who were born on Aug. 13, Left-handers Day, and will go through them now, with minimal commentary because all you righties aren't going to read this anyway. (The guy can't even do this on time!)   1. WINGO ANDERSON Years active: 1910 Position: Pitcher Teams: Reds Card shown: 1910 T210 (Old Mill Cigarettes) I don't own this...

    I've been updating my Dodgers binders again. It's lasted me all spring and through the summer. Not a coincidence it coincides with baseball season because I like to update binders while I'm watching a game. It keeps me busy through commercials (if I'm watching network/cable TV) and calms me through irritating announcers (Karl Ravetch, Chip Caray). It especially helps while watching Dodgers games as I almost can't conceive of viewing a Dodger game now without something else to do -- thank you Dave Roberts pitching changes. It's kind of like my blanket during a horror movie.   I'm nearing the end of this update, closing in on this year's Dodgers cards, and I've known all along that the Topps flagship count for the Dodgers is pretty large this year.   How large? Well, seven years ago I wrote a post in which I totaled the size of the Dodgers team set for each year of Topps flagship since 1952.  It ranged from a low of 15 to a high of 37. The 2024 set...

  I'm taking inspiration for this post from The Shlabotnik Report . OK, it's outright copying, but I can claim it's a Blog Bat-Around and it's all good. Shlabotnik's post listed the most common surnames according to the 2010 U.S. Census (this made me wonder if there was a 2020 U.S. Census and there was but apparently that same stat hasn't been updated, or I just can't find it because searching the web is much more of a disaster now). He then found the best Mets player for each of the 10 most common surnames . I shall do the same with the Dodgers. Per usual, the "best" can mean a couple different things. Is it the best player overall or a player at his best when he was with the Dodgers? I am going to interpret it both ways, depending on the name, as you will see. All right here are some names that I'm sure have also been used as aliases a time or two. I'll assume all these guys were using their real name when they were playing.   1. SMITH Th...