The thrill is gone

Tonight after dinner, the family and I were browsing at Target (the toy shelves are piled dangerously high at this time of year). As usual, I stopped by the card aisle to see what caught my attention. This has to be the peak time of the year for card variety and the boxes were stocked.

I could've bought a couple of packs of Masterpieces (because I'm still looking for that Russell Martin card), or Upper Deck Series 2 (I might have all the Dodgers, I'm not sure) or Upper Deck X (just because I haven't yet) or Bowman or Bowman Chrome (just to say I wasted my money) or Allen and Ginter (for the minis) or Baseball Heroes (for the colors) or Heritage (still collecting that thing) or Topps Series 1 (is that STILL around?) or Topps Series 2 (I can't think of a reason).

Instead I went with Topps Updates and Highlights -- reluctantly. I had a blog topic in mind, and that's the only reason I bought them. Isn't that a piss-poor reason to buy cards? But that's the point of this post, Updates and Highlights does not excite me. It's kind of like HOMEWORK.

Seriously, did you think of anything when you saw the two Randy Wolf cards up there? I know Dodger fans thought something and it wasn't very nice, but I'm guessing the cards didn't even register for everyone else.

OK, now, for those who remember collecting back in 1982, what did you think when you saw this?:

Wasn't that the most mind-blowing time to be collecting cards? It was for me. The two Griffey cards are the '82 Topps original issue and the '82 Topps Traded (I don't care if the term "traded" is technically inaccurate with rookies and such, I like that term so much more than "Updates & Highlights"). It was the second straight year Topps had issued a traded or updated set. You couldn't buy the traded set in stores; you could only send away for it, out of Baseball Digest or something.

I couldn't afford to buy the first set in 1981, but I bought the '82 set (lucky for me, the Ripken card was in that one), and my head exploded with what I saw. Back then, the card companies issued one set each year and whatever team that player was depicted on in that set was the team that stuck in your head for the entire year. I probably looked at each player's card hundreds of times during the course of a summer and every square inch of that card was catalogued in my brain.

So when I saw Griffey in a Yankee uniform, especially after all those years with the Reds, it was like Topps had tinkered with the laws of space and time. Hey, I knew that Griffey was traded to the Yankees in the fall of 1981, and watched him play for the Yankees on TV the following summer. But the '82 card said Griffey was a Red, dammit. Topps, you magical wizards, HOW did you do this?

They also altered the backs the first few years, which I thought was freaky, too. I had been staring at that Tom Burgmeier cartoon for eight months and it had always been green.

That 1982 Traded set was filled with other wonderful, bizarre discoveries as Topps transformed Reggie Jackson from a Yankee ...

... into an Angel ...

... and Davey Lopes from a Dodger ...

... to (sadly) an A ...

... and Reggie Smith from a Dodger ...

... into -- GAAAAAA! -- a Giant.

Of course, part of my fascination with this set was that I was approaching it with child-like wonder. I was still a teenager at the time. But the major reason these first few traded sets had such an impact is because they were ground-breaking. Nothing this revolutionary had been done before (The '74 and '76 traded sets didn't really have the same impact in my opinion as they were exclusively airbrushed deals and brutally close headshots. The '72 high numbers? Well that was just a handful of cards).

But after years and years of traded and update sets, I think a lot of the thrill has disappeared from the sets. It has for me. I pick up some cards here and there in hopes of getting the Manny Ramirez card (which I more than likely will end up getting through a trade). I'm not crazy about all the extra All-Star cards, HR derby cards and combo cards either.

When you think about it, have card companies come up with anything as revolutionary as the traded sets over the last 25 years? Chrome and refractors are cool, but it's just added bling. Not a lot of substance there. Autographs? Very cool, but it's not blowing anyone's mind, I don't think. Relics? Yawn. (OK, mini-yawn, but it's still a yawn).

I'd like to see Topps or UD or someone come up with something that can shock collectors with what is mind-blowingly possible with cards. Kind of like how I was shocked in '82.