Night Owl Cards

I've been pretty lax on my 1970 Topps set-building mission.

When I look at what I've purchased for cards over the last few months, almost none of it has been related to this set. Here is a look at where my card mind is at lately, based on what I've acquired recently and what is sitting in my carts:

-- 1975 Topps buybacks
-- 1967 and 1956 Topps
-- Dodgers (of course)
-- 2020 Heritage
-- 1970s Kellogg's
-- 1970s Hostess
-- TCMA issues
-- music cards
-- 1977 Topps football
-- '80s Fleer sets
-- '70s Wacky Packages
-- late '70s/early '80s minor league cards

All great stuff there, but there is just one 1970 Topps card in my COMC cart.

I'm not going to apologize for what I'm interested in with my hobby, it's one of the few areas in life where you don't have to justify what you're doing at any given moment (makes me wonder why everybody isn't collecting). But I do feel just a little guilty about my '70 Topps neglect.

I am the '…

As I continue to gather stamped buybacks of 1975 Topps cards, my enthusiasm for the quest ebbs and flows.

Oh, I'm always enjoying it, without a doubt. I am thrilled that I've found an interesting way to continue to collect the first set I ever bought in packs as a 9-year-old, and long after I've completed the actual 1975 Topps set and the mini version.

But sometimes I still wonder why I'm doing this, mostly when I see the outrageous prices some demand for these buyback cards, when the same unstamped version -- you know, the actual card not marred by a foil stamp -- goes for much cheaper. How in the world does that make sense?

But other times, my zeal is through the roof. That's when the '75 buybacks are arriving rapidly and the players depicted are more than your average commons.

Recently, I received some 1975 buybacks from Sportlots. Their assortment isn't as vast as COMC (that goes for most everything actually), but I usually can find stuff on Sportlots …

If you're dumb enough to be a team collector during, oh, the last two decades or so, then you know the feeling of always being behind, always trying desperately to catch up, reaching one destination and then suddenly discovering there are many more miles to go.

Topps' habit of issuing product after product, month after month -- and they're merely the only one to blame now, Upper Deck, Fleer, Pinnacle, etc., all did it -- keeps collectors, particularly team collectors, on a perpetual hamster wheel, paddling and paddling and never getting anywhere, never coming up for air.

It's like that every year. And it seems to get worse, what with the growing number of inserts and variations and online cards.

But this year might be different.

If you have been adventurous enough to take a trip to a Target or Walmart or maybe an actual card shop, you know that the card aisle is stuck in time. Ever since Gypsy Queen was released in March, nothing else new has hit the shelves.

Release …

It seems strange to say in our phone culture, but there used to be a time when you didn't necessarily take pictures when you went to a baseball game.

You certainly didn't take pictures of yourself, I know that.

I own zero photographic proof of the first Major League Baseball game I ever attended, the Royals and Yankees at Yankee Stadium in July of 1978. My father may have taken some photos with his camera, he was the picture-taker until my mom took over. But I've never seen any. Any images of that game have resided solely in my mind's eye for 42 years.

Such was the case for a number of major and minor league games that I attended through the 1980s and '90s. Camera? Why would I want one of those? There's a game to watch out there! And food to eat! There's no time for snappy, snapping!

Well, that thought process certainly changed. Look at the stands of any baseball game. The phone, with that camera, seems much more interesting to many people in the seats tha…

I've been fairly active these last two months.

While many people during the coronavirus pandemic have been stuck on PAUSE (the kind of awkward acronym that only a government agency could create), agonizing about their static lives and inability to move about as they wish, I've been fortunate to still be working. I'm actually working harder than ever in some respects, as I try to uncover sports stories when there are no sports.

And, just as sports were shutting down, I wrote another story for Beckett Vintage Collector magazine.

The June/July edition reached my mailbox late last week, which means it should be arriving at book stores and magazine stands by the end of the month or early next month. Hopefully, places like book stores will be open by next month so you can pick up a copy (my daughter has found the magazine in her local grocery store, too, if you dare to venture to one of those).

When I received my assignment for the issue, I could barely believe my luck. The que…