Aren't Baseball Cards for Old Men?

A coworked recently asked me via online chat, "Why do you blog about baseball cards? Isn't that an old man thing? Do they even still make baseball cards?" 

Sheesh. Cue the eye roll and massive sigh. 

That was a trio of absurd questions, questions I'm sure we've all been asked and are tired of answering--especially you old man bloggers (I'll let you determine what's considered old, but it's definitely a year older than you currently are). 

I started to respond but noticed a stack of cards sent to me from Spiegel of now defunct Nomo's Sushi Platter fame in the corner of my eye. I left my coworker's questions unanswered and decided to spend some time with the cards instead. Who really wants to answer those dumb questions anyway?

This was my second swap with Speigel (my first since 2014), and boy were there some fun cards in this package.

While I've never been a huge fan of the 1970 Topps, I've grown to appreciate it more and more over the last few months. It's a simple--though sometimes bordering on boring--but distinct design with some great photography. And if we're tracking the ease in which one can build a vintage Dodgers team set, it's probably one of the least difficult sets to complete. I still have quite a ways to go to complete it, however, with only four of the twenty-eight cards in my posession.

I'm doing a bit better tracking down 1981 Topps (10/32), despite the fact that I haven't actively chased any of the cards. 1981 is not a set I see appear on the blogs all that often, and I'm okay with that. It's one of my least favorites Topps releases of all-time, at least pre-90s. 

Am I the only one who constantly confuses the 1977 and 1980 sets? There are obvious differences, but that pennant element on the top of the cards always throws me off. It's great to add another Lee Lacy card to the binders. The former Dodger was incredibly friendly when I met him a few years ago. 

One of my favorite things about blind trades is not knowing might fall out of a bubble mailer. It's like ripping open a pack but knowing bloggers typically send far better cardboard than we might find in a pack. There's no better example than the fantastic 1977 Ron Cey card above. While I initialy thought this was Cey's card from the standard Topps set, I flipped it over to discover it's actually the O-Pee-Chee card. Mon Dieu! 

In addition to knocking off a ton of my flagship needs, Spiegel included a ton of other Dodgers, including a nice mix of new cards for some of my PCs. There were simply too many great cards to show off here, so I only scanned a handful, including a sweet framed Duke, a shiny Robinson, and an elusive Kershaw rookie card. 

After sorting through all of the sweet cardboard sent my way, and might I add, what a great way to spend a Friday afternoon, I remembered those pesky questions from my coworker. 

I began to type out a longwinded response about my motivations for blogging and how much I enjoy it. I wrote about how much I love showing off the cards in my collection, how I revel  in other bloggers' accomplishments, and how I appreciate the communtiy and friendships and trades, not to mention the joy that comes from Free Card Friday and BFG. I started to write about other collectors and bloggers in their 20s and 30s and the monolith that is Topps. 

And then I deleted the whole thing. I went to the fridge to grab a beer and headed back to my office. I sent her the URL to my blog and responded "You can answer your own questions here."