Wild about checklists

Heh, that post title will draw in the readers!

You can tell how quickly I got over 2020 Topps. The last two posts have been about a 95-year-old author and checklists.

But no apologies, let's move forward. Or, um, backward:

These are the checklists of my youth. Ugly little things, aren't they?

Like most collectors from this time period, I wasn't exactly thrilled to pull these out of a pack. But I don't remember audibly uttering "awww, a checklist." There were 10-to-15 cards in a pack. Not every one was going to be a winner. And, besides, every card had a number on the back. You need every one to complete the set.

Still, I'm not advocating for these to return to card sets. We actually do still have them in sets. They look like this now:

The fronts of the cards are terribly random and usually don't have any sort of connection to the rest of the set.

But there's that checklist if you want to go nuts with your favorite writing implement. (Hey! My birthday is mentioned!)

I barely notice these checklists, though. It's not really what I miss about the cards from the '70s and '80s.

In terms of checklists from that time, what I really want is team checklists.

Yeah, stuff like this.

Bring THESE back.

I know we don't really need them. You can check out the players you need to fill out your team set on a variety of online sites.

But there's something about having that whole team checklist on one tidy card. You can hold that cardboard checklist in your hand and know exactly which players are on the list and which ones you need to finish off your team. It's very handy and it's not something the online team checklist can replicate -- maybe if you printed it out and then shrunk it down to 2 1/2-by-3 1/2 card form and then sealed it to some sturdier card stock.

So, yeah, I do miss those team checklists.

Recently, Bill, from Bill's Baseball Card Blog (no doubt about who's running that, huh?), sent me four team checklists.

Look at all those handsome signatures. These were the last four team checklists that I needed from the 1973 Topps set. My '73 set is now officially, officially complete (yeah, I know, still need a second Alston and a second Schmidt rookie).

And what's this?:

Not a one is checked on the back.

I do appreciate that. I think I have one or two that have one or two boxes checked.

Because, as much as I prefer unchecked checklists in my set completion bids, that IS the way you knew what you had and didn't have for the team set back then. There was no other way. I certainly don't blame collectors for checking those boxes, I did it plenty.

So, yeah, team checklists, I can still see a use for those. Sometimes you just don't want to get online for EVERYTHING.