Night Owl Cards

I still plan to post my annual review of the past year in baseball cards but I needed a bit of a breather after yesterday's decade review. Both posts take quite a bit of research. Besides, I wanted to try Diamond Jesters' blog-bat around idea of filling a "yearbook page" of 2019 cards before the year was out. Matt's yearbook idea contains all kinds of rules and I admit they nearly killed the whole idea for me. But more on that later. The Yearbook Page is supposed to summarize 2019 in baseball cards. The first pocket (upper left) is to contain a Topps flagship card from 2019. The next five pockets (2 through 6) can contain a card from any of the other Topps brands. The seventh and eighth pockets should contain a 2019 insert, and the ninth pocket is a wild card, which is a card of your choice. Matt adds a couple of other restrictions involving not repeating designs (no Chrome or Opening Day) and not filling the page with just cards of your favorite team....

When I was a young teenager, the 1970s ended and we all looked to the '80s as a futuristic age that would helps us forget many of the issues of the previous 10 years -- inflation, Vietnam, presidential corruption and  disco. The '80s weren't the savior we all thought they would be, although I do admit it's been the greatest decade of my life. But the beginning of the decade was pretty cool because end-of-the-decade retrospectives were everywhere. I'd read about the biggest moments of the '70s and listen to countdowns of the greatest hits of the previous 10 years. The baseball magazines I read back then would recount the best players from the '70s and look forward to the projected stars of the '80s. I soaked it all up, but I didn't do the same for the decades that followed. When the '80s ended, I couldn't be bothered reviewing the past 10 years. I was too busy looking for my first full-time job. When the '90s ended, I was too ...

I'm not one to think that Topps seeds packs with cards representing the cities in which they're pulled. In other words, I don't believe that if you live in New York, you have a greater chance to pull Yankees or Mets, or if you live in Kansas City, you pull a whole bunch of Royals. But sometimes I wonder. I took a trip to see some relatives over the holiday break. A bunch of them live in the Buffalo area, which is about a half hour from the Canadian border, sometimes less depending on where you are. I happen to live close to the Canadian border, too (also about a half hour away), but for some reason, I think of being closer to Canada when I'm in Buffalo. I guess that's because Canada is talked about as more of a realistic destination for activity when you're in Buffalo than when you're in my town. Plus, there's all that hockey talk in Buffalo. We don't get that where I live, although we should. So, while in Buffalo I received some cards f...

All right, nobody cares about 2019 cards with four days left in 2019. That's what you're telling me. I get it. The only reason I care about them is because I'm a hopeless team collector. But actually my heart is somewhere else. It is somewhere far, far, away. From a distant place and time, back when there was just one set to collect -- well, maybe sometimes two -- but definitely not more than that. The cards were a lot more colorful. The players in the pictures didn't move a lot, but the graphics took care of that. They were bright and loud, and on the back, a cartoon balanced out the rows and rows of numbers. Yup, my heart is in vintage. That's what I'm saying. Whap! Vintage. David has sent me another Christmas box. It's the last of the Christmas card greetings to reach my house this year. And I was totally surprised. Not a soul told me that I was going to receive a 1953 Topps Joe Black card. Sweet mercy. I'm getting closer and...