Beginning next week ...

During my carefree days before I began this blog, but immediately after I discovered that people were blogging about baseball cards, there was only one card blog that I knew and read.

At this time two years ago, any free evening included a visit to The Baseball Card Blog. I don't know if it was the first card blog -- I'm not going to get into that garbage -- but it was the first one for me, and for a lot of people.

Ben Henry shared my fascination for cards and, unlike some other veteran card blogs of the time, his interests were my interests. He liked cards from the '70s, he liked vintage cards, he liked dissecting them in brutally precise fashion, and he was amusing in the process.

During that summer of 2008, when I wasn't focused on 200 other blogs and writing two blogs myself, The Baseball Card Blog continued a long-running countdown of the worst-to-best sets during what some would call the golden era of wax, 1948-1979.

I found that countdown very interesting and couldn't wait for the next installment. Unfortunately, I don't think Ben ever finished the countdown, which, basically, pissed me right off.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that I'm going to continue the countdown.

Nope. It's been done. It gets a great, big, red "INCOMPLETE," but it's been done.

What I am going to do is count down the 50 best card backs of all-time.

That's right, I said card BACKS.

Card backs fascinate me. They always have. A giant part of the appeal of baseball cards for me is that the card is a tiny square of information. Sure, it has a pretty picture and design, but if that's all it had, I wouldn't be nearly as interested. That route works only on cards of supermodels. When a gal looks like Brooklyn Decker, I don't need to look for stats on the back.

But with dudes, I do. And the way the card back looks, and the way in which it presents information, is important to me. It has been since I was a wee one.

So, starting next week, you're going to get my personal rundown of the best card backs EVER. Most of the cards featured in the countdown will be from older sets -- like possibly the 1984 Topps set at the top of the post. I mean who cares what was on the back of the 1995 SP set? Upper Deck certainly didn't.

Like The Baseball Card Blog countdown, I won't use every blog post for the countdown. I'll mix other stuff in between as always. But hopefully, you'll at least be a little interested in the countdown, because it's going to extend through the summer and probably into the fall.

Maybe, it will persuade someone to turn the card over and look at the back. Backs are people, too. Or something like that.