Greetings in the last few hours of what I think was the very real year of 2024.
It's difficult to tell what's real and what's not these days. Just yesterday I saw a report that said the brilliant minds that run Facebook and Instagram plan to infiltrate both social media sites with AI-generated users. This kind of stuff freaks me out. I've seen very real cases of people I know being fooled by false information and fake facts on sites like these -- people I thought were reasonably intelligent. This is only going to make things worse.
As a member of the traditional media I am also disturbed by how cavalier people act about the demise of print and television journalism while also at the same time being duped by things that aren't true. And in general on social media there are certain people who act like all this is OK. "Don't you know there are AI bots influencing people already???" All right, but I don't think it's anything to celebrate.
Even with a well-trained skeptical eye, I wonder what's real and what isn't, and that's been more the case in the last year. This is why I feel the need to say, from my corner of the internet, that Night Owl Cards is real. No bots are creating this, I'm a real person and I hope I continue to be one, creating absolutely 100 percent, non-AI-generated content for the life of this blog.
I am happy I am still engaged in a real hobby that focuses on physical cards (there is a reason I never got involved in digital cards). Everything that I added to my collection is real, I can touch it. I can fold everything into a paper airplane if I wanted
So it's time to reflect on that very real hobby year of 2024. Join me if you can face the non-artificial facts:
BEST SET I COMPLETED
2024 was extremely successful from a set-completion standpoint. I really set out to finish off some stuff. I do that every year, but I guess my focus was just better this time. Maybe years of practice finally paid off in 2024.
The best set I completed was 1970 Topps. It was several years in the making. It completed the 1970s Topps run for me and is really what I considered the stopping point for me with Topps sets, I always thought 1970-91 complete would be all I need. That hasn't proven to be true, but I don't think I'll be extending things much farther.
Other sets completed:
1977 Hostess
1981 Fleer Star Stickers
1982 Donruss
1983 Topps glossy send-ins
1992 Topps
1990 Swell
1986 Topps Traded
1988 Topps Traded
1983 Kellogg's
2024 Topps
2023 Heritage
2024 Heritage
Amazing what you can do when the job isn't as satisfying as it once was, huh?
Apologies for not showing off some of the other smaller sets I completed, like the 2001 Sunoco Dream Team set and the 1980 Fleer sticker set. There was a lot of big stuff happening and this post can't go on forever.
BEST SETS I'LL COMPLETE IN 2025
Hopefully 1979 Topps football. It's definitely manageable if I can shove all my baseball card pursuits to the side for a few seconds.
1975 Hostess might take a little bit of dedication. We'll see.
Same goes for 1969 Topps especially. But I made some good headway in 2024!
Speaking of which:
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BEST PICK-UPS FOR THE FIRST QUARTER OF 2024
January - 1952 Bowman Billy Loes. First arrival of 2024. It gave me 14 of the 16 Dodgers in the set. I'm still stuck on 14.
February - 1970 Topps Ernie Banks. The big names in the '70 set were falling fast.
March - 1970 Topps Bob Gibson. Faster and faster!
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BEST SET OF 2024
Topps flagship with the almost universal appeal of the neon design (as with everything you'll find a few contrarians) was an easy pick as the best. It'd be even better if some of the pictures were more distinctive like the Drew Smyly card.
WORST DISAPPOINTMENT
The "worst" sets of 2024 were the usual suspects, stuff like Big League, Bowman and Panini everything. But the biggest disappointment for me was Stadium Club. This set regresses every year and this year's set cut back on the distinctive photos that made SC so appealing. The collation in virtually every break I saw was terrible and the color parallels this year really turned me off. They actually kept me from searching out any packs.
BEST REALIZATION OF A LONG-AWAITED MOMENT
I had been writing about the coming of 2024 Heritage for years on my blog and everyone caught on that this set would be on my radar. Although it turned out to be pretty wonky, it still reminded me of collecting the 1975 Topps set as a kid on some level.
People were eager to help and bombarded me with 2024 Heritage throughout the spring. Collector generosity combined with buying a box of Heritage myself proved that even a set with 100 short-prints can be completed in a mere six months.
BEST MOMENT I SHOULD HAVE ANTICIPATED BUT DIDN'T
I never really said I planned to collect the 2024 Heritage mini set, but given my overflowing love for the 1975 mini set that didn't matter to anyone. I was bombed with Heritage minis. I'm still around 18 cards short of completing the set -- and that's not even including all the short-prints. I don't know if I'll ever get it done, but it's nice to know people are thinking about me and my weird card habits.
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BEST PICK-UPS FOR THE SECOND QUARTER OF 2024
April - 2024 Topps Heritage Freddie Freeman black border. April was all about Heritage and the black borders aren't the easiest pulls. I was fortunate that the one I pulled in my box was from my team and the future World Series MVP!
May - 1967 Topps Carl Yastrzemski. The monthly card show really paid off in 2024 with items such as this. I've known about the '67 Yaz since my first year of collecting thanks to the 1975 Topps MVP subset and it finally became mine.
June - 1979 Topps Football Earl Campbell. Another monthly card show purchase, yielding one of football's coveted rookie cards.
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WORST TOPPS CROPPING JOB
Heritage showed off a wildly sloppy cropping for Fred Lynn's inclusion in the set. I think Lynn signed a whole bunch of cards for Topps in 2024, he should have been treated better.
WORST CARD TRIBUTE
After months of thinking about what the heck is going on with the Red Schoendienst-Whitey Herzog "mistake" in Heritage, the only thing that I've half-heartedly settled on is it's a tribute to the Steve Busby-Fran Healy error in 1975 Topps.
But Busby and Healy were players, not managers. They played for the Royals, not the Cardinals. Oh and there were no manager cards in 1975 Topps!!!! Maybe you can see my confusion.
BEST CARDS PEOPLE SENT ME
Let's wipe away some of the Topps angst:
Wow. Often I think how blogging has cooled and the usual interactions through the mail have slowed to almost nothing but apparently that's not quite true.
BEST BOOST TO A CRAZY PROJECT
I've been working on the 1975 Topps buybacks set quest for seven years now and I seized my moment with 2024 Heritage. Buybacks popped up for sale at a rate that I had never seen before and thanks to Heritage -- and a bigtime buying binge around June, I'm now over 500 buybacks into the quest. Actually 522 to be exact.
Things will cool back down again, I think. But I have my eye on one right now, so let's go!
BEST 2024 OBSESSION
It paled in comparison to the buyback quest but I got a little fascinated by the aqua parallels in 2024 flagship. These were Fanatics-branded set exclusives I guess and I was surprised to find a few things related to Fanatics' takeover that I didn't mind.
BEST PLEASANT SURPRISE, STORE DISPLAYS EDITION
A) In February I saw an old-school stand-alone display of 2024 Topps in front of the card shelves.
B) In August I found 2024 cards for sale at the local hardware store. Others reported finding cards for sale at their hardware outlets, too. I'm hoping in 2025 we'll find cards at gas stations and restaurants and grocery stores. Bring back 1982!!
WORST BLOGGING DEVELOPMENT
The slow evaporation of card blogs ramped up in the fall as three long-time blogs stopped posting and one even disappeared. I'm always sad when someone stops writing about cards -- I feel like they've lost joy in their lives. But if people do stop or take a break, I wish they would let their readers know. When people leave their blog hanging I can only think the worst -- and I really hate thinking like a mom.
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BEST PICK-UPS FOR THE THIRD QUARTER OF 2024
July - 1969 Topps Roberto "Bob" Clemente. Back to the monthly card show. I finally reclaimed the card that I had traded away in high school to acquire a 1955 rookie card of Sandy Koufax. I still need the '69 Pete Rose that was the other part of the transaction.
August - 1964 Aurovision Sandy Koufax. Speaking of Koufax, the most exotic pick-up of the year for me and something I have wanted for a long time.
September - 1972 O-Pee-Chee Roberto Clemente. Another Clemente. This came from reader Jeff in Toronto. One of the coolest items of the year. RIP, Mr. Clemente, who died 52 years ago today.
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BEST PULLS OF 2024
Not a lot, but I still did pretty good for opening relatively few packs.
The Varsho is the only autographed card I pulled this year and I no longer own it. The CC Sabathia relic may come in handy if he makes this year's Hall of Fame class. The Jackson Holliday is one of his many short-prints and I am debating giving it to my nephew, whose birthday is next month (but I'm fairly sure he's not interested in collecting anymore).
BEST SOCIAL MEDIA MOVE
I scrapped my Twitter/X account because the behavior on there had grown increasingly concerning. I moved to rival BlueSky, which reminds me of Twitter's old days, circa 2012. There are still some notable collectors who remain on Twitter/X for reasons I can only guess are related to engagement addiction. If you make money off your likes, that's one thing, but I don't think sitting in all that garbage for more clicks is worth it.
BEST PLEASANT SURPRISE, TEAM REUNION EDITION
I finally got to see former Orioles manager Dave Trembley in person and a team reunion and he gave me a big hug. Later I picked up a 1973 Topps card of Freddie Patek from one of the former ballplayers, who was randomly handing out Royals cards from the early 70s.
BEST MILESTONES
During the year I reached 100,000 cards entered into Trading Card Database and also eclipsed 30,000 Dodgers cards in my collection. TCDB does a great job of feeding the addiction.
WORST ACCELERATION OF A FACT OF LIFE
I have lamented the passing of baseball players from my youth for at least the last 15 years on this blog. 2020 was particularly difficult. But 2024 reached another level with the departure of Rickey Henderson, Pete Rose, U.L. Washington, Lenny Randle, Fernando Valenzuela, Rico Carty, Merv Rettenmund, Bill Melton, Al Fitzmorris, Luis Tiant, Rudy May, Ed Kranepool, Ken Holtzman, Jerry Grote, Don Gullett, Bud Harrelson, and of course, guys who I didn't see play but were major in Willie Mays, Orlando Cepeda and Carl Erskine.
This will continue of course. I'm not looking forward to it.
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BEST PICK-UPS FOR THE FOURTH QUARTER OF 2024
October - A bunch of 1969 stars. The mall show was such a success I can't settle on just one.
November - 1969 Topps Willie Mays. It was a lot easier to settle on a particular '69 this month.
December - 1969 Topps Reggie Jackson. I guess I saved my biggest pick-up of the year for last! I love it when that happens.
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BEST CARDS I SENT MYSELF
That's on top of the month-by-month breakdowns, obviously. Plus a whole bunch of other stuff you probably saw over the previous 12 months!
BEST SOMETIMES PROJECT
I set out to complete some of the Dodgers gold team sets from around 15 years ago. I got 2008 and 2009 finished. The project was sidelined by vintage pickups and that's totally OK. I'll try again in the coming year.
WORST DEVELOPMENT AS A WRITER
I wrote just one article that was published in Beckett this year, the story on collector Roy Carlson and all of his great Topps vintage discoveries. I wrote another story that has yet to appear and I don't know if it ever will.
I've hit a lull because I think I'm out of ideas and also because my main job is more demanding than ever. I just don't have a lot of extra time. But January is usually a good month for sorting out ideas so I hope I can get back to this again.
BEST CARD TO REPRESENT MY CHAMPIONSHIP DODGERS
There wasn't a lot to choose from in this very Topps Now world. But capturing the final gesture of the World Series works quite well. A single card actually is kind of nice -- but I'll be looking to see what 2025 card product does to pick up the slack.
And that brings me to the 2024 Person of the Year:
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It's Shohei Ohtani for the second year in a row!
I couldn't have picked anyone else. Ohtani joined my team this year and there were Dodger cards to collect of him and he led the Dodgers to a World Series title. I'm looking forward to 2025 when there will be even more cards of him, all of them in a real Dodgers uniform.
Ohtani was so impressive in 2024 that he turned me into a little kid, wowing over his various feats. They were so great it makes you wonder if it was all real. Because with the way the world is now, that's always a question.
Like the old saying goes: don't believe everything you read. Except here, here you can believe every stupid word written by 100 percent me.
Happy New Year everyone. I hope 2025 is a great card year.
(Persons of the Year: 2024 - Shohei Ohtani; 2023 - Shohei Ohtani; 2022 - The idea man behind Kellogg's 3-D baseball
cards; 2021 - Retail card shelf stockers; 2020 - Dustin May; 2019 - Gary
V.; 2018 - Kylie
Minogue; 2017 - Aaron Judge; 2016 - Justin Smoak; 2015 - Sandy Koufax;
2014 - Bill Wetmore; 2013 - maybe Josh Donaldson; 2012 - Adron Chambers)
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