Night Owl Cards

Today is the day to talk about shadows. Did the groundhog see his shadow? (Punxsutawney Phil did not ). Will there be six more weeks of winter or an early spring? Only the shadow knows. Baseball is the season to talk about shadows. More than any other major sport, shadows are a factor. Outfielders struggle with them. Batters fear them. TV commentators complain about them even though the network scheduled the game for a time when shadows would wreak the greatest havoc. But what about shadows on baseball cards? Do we care about shadows on baseball cards? Well, I do. I write about it all the time. When I was first collecting baseball cards -- in the mid-to-late 1970s -- shadows were a way of life on baseball cards. Topps had just started experimenting with action photos on its cards in the early '70s, and was quickly finding out how difficult it was to get a clear shot of someone from that far away -- while the sun was shining. Unlike the portrait shots of the 1950s an...