Night Owl Cards

The Orioles do not appear on my radar that often. They are my youngest brother's favorite team, so I suppose they're not as ignored as the Rays or Twins. But since they are an American League team with no real ability to offend me, I pay little attention to them. I definitely do not build my collection around them. However, I have waited for the above card for a long, long time. As a set collector at heart, I am fascinated by the notable players who were not included in Topps sets because the two sides didn't have a deal. I've mentioned many of them before -- Maury Wills, Jason Varitek, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Rusty Staub, Ichiro. And there are a bunch of others: Kevin McReynolds, Chris Short, Joe Adcock, Tony Horton and many more. Each of their stories interests me, because since I was a child I have been under the impression that Topps chronicles every player from every year. There are all kinds of flaws with my impression, but it's difficult to sh...

This card makes my face scrunch up. These 2015 Heritage team cards have been displayed here and there online as off-handed commentary about a picture of a fourth-place team celebrating: "Yay! We're No. 4!" I tend to agree. But it bothers me on a professional level, too. I am forever striving in my newspaper job to make sure that the photo that we run with a sports story "goes with the story." That means that if Team A clobbers Team B, we don't show a photo of Team B doing something fantastic. I even get into "discussions" with photographers over this, because some photographers tend to only see the photo and not the context. But there is always context. And you can't run a picture of players jumping up and down after a home run if they lost 10-2. This is why this card bugs me. How are the photographers ever going to learn if Topps is pulling this? But I can't put the full blame on our beloved and benevolent card master. At leas...