Night Owl Cards

  Topps released its Update set last week and in my customary fashion of the last few years, I absolutely did not rush to Target to see if I could find some.   This time of the year is for putting away the year's cards, not for adding more of them. Boxing up the current year's cards that have been on display in my card room since last winter has been the late October/early November tradition around here for quite awhile.   I usually put away the brands I know I won't buy the rest of the year first and then Topps flagship is the last to be filed (what to do with this year's very late arrivals, Allen & Ginter and Stadium Club? Well, if I get any, they'll probably go straight to the box).    I ended up with 253 cards in the 2022 flagship set, which is around 38 percent. Thirty-eight percent is the definition of Casually Collecting A Set. I've been so casual about it that as I was boxing them up, I realized I hadn't looked for night cards from the set. I...

This is the first in what should be a regular series featuring cards of players photographed at night. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, I collect cards like this because they are totally awesome, or whatever the kids are saying these days (I've watched "Fast Times ..." a few times. Sue me). Part of the trick to "night cards" is first figuring out whether they were actually photographed at night. For example, a number of photos on cards taken during games at Yankee Stadium, especially in the '70s, look like night shots, but they're not. The darkness of the stands there seems to give the illusion of a night game. Once that's established, I like to figure out the date of the game in the photo, especially if it's a card that doesn't feature a postseason game. It's usually simple to pinpoint the date of playoff games. This one was a little tricky, and until I stumbled upon one key fact, I was about to put out a plea to White Sox Cards to ...