Night Owl Cards

  I'm already pleased with the brand-new collecting atmosphere on Bluesky as compared with Twitter. One excellent sign is I can find blog topics from the upstart site, which was a big Twitter benefit before it went south. The other day, the discussion turned to Roberto Clemente cards, and I realized that just about every vintage Clemente card that I have acquired comes with a story. I suppose that's a given with how treasured and expensive his cards can be, but it's just weird how the stories jump out with him. I don't know if I can say that about any other vintage player.   To demonstrate, I will go through each of my vintage Clemente acquisitions and the story that is attached to each. I don't have a lot of vintage Clementes, so this won't be long. Also, longtime readers have likely read these all before because I've recounted each of them on my blog when they happened. But this blog is about 70 percent regurgitation at this point anyway.   July 2024 1969 ...

  I noticed on baseball-reference the other day that Buzz Stephen had died recently.   The name vaguely rang a bell but I wasn't sure why. It turns out I had just come across his name while working on the latest One-Card Wonders post for this blog. That's life in my addled state, a name that sounds vaguely familiar isn't from 40 years ago, it's from the last couple of weeks.   I was going through the 1970 and 1971 sets to find players who appeared in those sets for their one-and-only card. I wanted to include 1972 as well, because each of these sets are large and I wanted to see if there were more one-card wonders in these sets (I've done 1969 already, another large set, but it produced a rather small total of five). But I ran out of time for '72.   Stephen is one of five one-card wonders in the 1970 set -- so same total as '69. Somewhat unexpectedly, he's the only Pilot OCW, although on further thought a team with such a limited history would have playe...

  I'm working on a couple of blog posts that involve research and I was hoping one of them would be ready today, but it turns out we're a long way from that. Thanks, work week. So I've got a fairly quick post instead.   I think we can all agree that among the poses that appeared on baseball cards from the '50s through the '80s, one of the best was the first baseman's pose with mitt outstretched waiting for the throw, or even better, with the ball nestled in his glove.   I liked those shots a lot. There's a reason that you haven't seen the few examples of that pose in the 1975 Topps worst to best countdown yet. They're just too good.   I believe the first time I became familiar with that pose was with the 1976 Mike Hegan card. It was so cool. Had no idea who Mike Hegan was (didn't pull his card in '75), but that card couldn't have been a better introduction. It sure left an impact, and it's never left my brain.   So any player making t...

Topps Heritage is scheduled for release on St. Patrick's Day. Although I enjoy the 1972 design a lot -- have I mentioned I've completed that set? --  I won't be buying much of this year's Heritage, probably no more than a sampling. I'm still too involved with 2020 Heritage, because that's how long it takes for a rational collector to complete a Heritage set. Actually it takes longer than that: I'm still trying to finish 2008 Heritage. But I've gotten a lot farther on 2020 Heritage than I ever imaged at this time last year. Recently I received six needed cards from the set from reader Ben. He sent a very nice "thanks for blogging" package and you'll see the rest of the goodies another day. This card put me four cards away from completing the non-short-printed portion of the set. That's pretty damn good for someone who hasn't seen much of this set for sale since a year ago at this time.   The rest of the Heritage cards in the package ...

Everyone seems to think I'm collecting the 2020 Heritage set, but I'm still not convinced. I received yet another massive stack of the set from a fellow blogger and collector, this time Greg from The Collective Mind . Just a few weeks after getting 75 cards from the set from Rod at Padrographs, I received another cool 70-or-so cards from Greg. So, I'm collecting it, right? I've GOT to be collecting now. Yeah, I don't know. After whittling down my want list yet again, here is where I'm at: 6, 8, 11, 16, 20, 38, 43, 51, 52, 54, 55, 59, 66, 68, 86, 87, 90, 93, 105, 109, 114, 115, 118, 119, 123, 124, 125, 127, 129, 131, 140, 153, 157, 159, 161, 168, 170, 172, 177, 183, 188, 189, 190, 193, 199, 206, 212, 234, 236, 238, 245, 254, 257, 265, 274, 281, 286, 287, 300, 304, 310, 321, 324, 328, 333, 336, 338, 339, 341, 348, 356, 369, 373, 379, 382, 387, 389, 397 That is noticeably smaller but it's still a bit disturbing how much I need. And that do...