Night Owl Cards

  Well, the timing for the start of this post ain't great after my Bills didn't show up last night. Thanks to the NFL's wild, any-and-all-days-and-times scheduling, that was the first time I've gotten to see them play on TV live this season (meanwhile I've seen the Ravens three times already). But I turned off last night's game pretty early. So in a slightly less triumphant mood, I just received a selection of Bills cards from Johnny's Trading Spot ! I'll get right to the weirdness. These are all from the same set, though it doesn't look it at all. Topps created something in 2023 called "Topps Composite". If you still have PTSD over Topps' Fusion baseball set from 2001, then look away. This is just like that -- except with football players. I suppose Topps had to do something -- it doesn't have a license to put out sets with current players, so I guess this was its idea to stay in the game? Aside from the wide variety of baseball-ce...

  When I completed the 1970 Topps set a couple months ago, I mentioned that I'd like to extend my run of Topps complete sets a little bit longer. The run was complete from 1970-91. I wanted to stretch that out a little bit on either end. 1969 is a definite, provided I can raise some dough for the toughies. But I knew 1992 would be up next, just because it would be easy enough. No real plans though, I'd get to it when the time was right. Little did I know, the right time would show up as I wandered through social media a couple weeks ago.   A collector on Twitter, from whom I've bought cards before, had decided to downsize his collection and he was holding a major sale that involved selling a whole bunch of his complete sets from the '70s, '80s and '90s, as well as a few from the '50s and random stars cards from the '50s and '60s. (He's dedicating his collecting life to pre-war cards and Tigers -- neither of those appeal to me, but best of luck to...

  Apologies for the negative self-talk in the blog title here. This isn't about you, it's all me, and I need to work on that. But I thought if I wrote things out I'd finally get myself into gear. I've needed a few binders and the pages that go with them for several months now. The completed -- or about to be completed -- sets are piling up. I don't like stashing complete sets in boxes, that's a terrible fate for something so carefully crafted. So they are stacked and waiting all around the card room, and, yes, a couple are in boxes as a last resort. In stacks are my complete 2024 Heritage set and my soon-to-be-complete 2024 Topps flagship set. Another stack contains what I have for 1987 Fleer. It's a long way from completion, but it's there, quietly telling me that a binder is needed for that, too. Two sets that should be in binders are now in boxes -- the almost complete 2024 Heritage minis set and the getting-there 1985 Donruss set. These guys need to ...

  Today is the 50th anniversary of the surgical procedure that gave Tommy John is career back and, by extension, hundreds upon hundreds of major league pitchers, as well as amateur pitchers, too. So much has happened since that initial surgery that merely the mention of it can spawn all kinds of discussions, and "Tommy John Surgery" has been the "nickname" for decades for the ulnar ligament replacement procedure in the reconstruction of a pitcher's elbow. I've talked to Tommy John a couple of times for stories and each time his surgery came up. I can imagine he's talked about it hundreds, if not thousands of times. I had the opportunity to talk to him again recently, but, frankly, I couldn't think of anything new to discuss and didn't want me or him to repeat ourselves, so I passed. But I have something new when it comes to his cards ... well, it's old, but it's new to me.   I've mentioned many times that Tommy John's 1974 Topps c...

  Four months ago I was contacted by a collector from Toronto who sent me some cards from his childhood collection, all of them O-Pee-Chee from the 1970s. They came from his basement -- I'm guessing they were patiently waiting for someone to come around, as cards in the basement do -- and while I expected just some Dodgers, Jeff sent me so much more. Well, I got another unexpected envelope from Jeff last week and I was blessed with some more basement cards -- almost all of them '72 OPC!   There was a nice selection of cards from all areas of the 1972 set.      I'll start with the team cards since I led with one with the White Sox (record loss No. 121 is on the docket with a defeat Tuesday against the Angels). I'm not turning over all these cards to display the French on the back, but I'll do it with one of the team cards so you know everything is on the up-and-up. There you are, frappeurs and lanceurs.   There were some Rookie Stars, too. Though I'd say no...