Night Owl Cards

  Upon first opening 2025 Topps, I realized that this set was going to be a lot like the others from the last five, 10, 15, 20 years. Perhaps even farther back.   Topps still plays it numbingly safe with flagship. The pictures look mostly the same year-to-year. The backs look mostly the same. The inserts are a mindless excuse to utilize their legends licenses. The short-prints are "interesting photos we don't put in flagship." The league leader cards are a lineup of three action shots in a row (except 2016-21 when separate individual cards were made and not my idea of improvement).   If you get the feeling it's all been seen before, you are justified. I'm not one of those collectors shouting "where's the innovation?!" I don't think cards need bells and whistles, that's not why I collect. I just want to see things changed up a little bit.   Here's an example that's been going on in Topps flagship longer than everything I just mentioned...

  Ever since I've been writing magazine articles for Beckett, it's been a goal of mine for one of those stories to make the cover. I guess I'm never satisfied. It should be blessing enough to get paid to write about baseball cards and see those writings show up on store racks all over the country. But you've got to have goals, right? I shipped off my article on 1991 Topps to Beckett's editorial director and Mike mentioned it would likely be going into the main Beckett baseball magazine, not the Vintage magazine where most of my articles appear. I've had one other story appear in the main baseball issue but that was a reprint of my 1975 Topps mini Vintage magazine story. A couple of months later, Mike emailed me back, mentioned he liked the article and said it would make a good cover story. Score! The cover was mine. But, of course, I had to see it in person -- none of this digital-only crap for me. So, the publication arrived yesterday and there was young Chippe...