Blogging in detail can take a lot of time and effort. I’ve got several observations and pick-ups to discuss and none of them are worth dedicating a whole post to — so let’s drag out the “housekeeping”‘ label and piece together a bunch of unrelated topics! I do that a lot, though not since 2024.
Up first is this terrific Hideo Nomo Dueling Dugouts insert from 1997 Pinnacle Inside. I’ve been intrigued by these from afar for a long time and finally received my first one last year (Karim Garcia on “the back” of the Vladimir Guerrero card). It was time to get a full-fledged Dodger one this time.
The kicker to these is you can turn the dial on the side and it shows the player’s stats for that year in the center windows. So cool. Here is a look at the other years on this card:
Outstanding. Interestingly Nomo’s stats with the Japan Pacific League’s Kintetsu Buffaloes are shown for 1994 but 1993 is blank despite Nomo playing for the same team that year.
This dial “technology” is something that fascinated me as a youngster in the ’70s. I wish I could remember what kids’ activity book in which I first saw this.
There are four Dodgers in this set so I’m halfway through.
I was reminded recently to go through my 2026 Topps cards and see if I could plug any into holes in my night card binder. This Jake Fraley card has gained entry.
I will have lots more candidates to find and purchases to make thanks to the “Tags” feature on Trading Card Database. This thing is a goldmine for “type” collectors and my “type” is night cards of course.
I have lots of work to do now.
It’s fun to go through the entire list. The “Family” tag is a hoot. So is “Funny Face” and “Staring Into Your Soul”. Also, these appear to be works in progress, of course. For instance, there is no way there are only 15 cards showing a Four-Point Stance.
The Bluesky account “Grand Cards” (also a former card blogger) has been going through his Detroit Tigers Topps collection from the 1950s to present, showing them one 9-pocket page at a time.
A couple of weeks ago he showed his 1963 Topps Tigers pages and remarked on the differences from card to card with the team name and position. Some of the cards have the team name abbreviated and some don’t, as you see in my example with “L.A. Dodgers” on the Larry Sherry card and “Los Angeles Dodgers” with the Daryl Spencer card.
Also some cards spell out the player position (“Pitcher”) and some abbreviate the position “SS”.
So is there a reason for that? The first thought is that the position is abbreviated when the team name is not and vice versa, as on these two cards.
But going through my Dodgers that isn’t the case.
Here is an example of both the team name and position name being abbreviated.
I couldn’t find a Dodgers example of both the team name and the position name spelled out which seems to indicate an attempt to conserve space but, like Grand Cards mentioned, there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason overall (nor does it depend on the series, which was brought up). I did find an example of both the name and the position being spelled out with almost no looking. Here’s another.
Another nine-pocket page question was brought up just today on BlueSky, Nick asked how many of the 1975 Topps pages, when paged by card number, do not contain repeat color combos. Doesn’t that sound like a question for night owl?
The answer is there are five pages in the set that don’t include a repeated color combo. These are those:
#55-63 (Bobby Bonds to Steve Swisher)
#64-72 (Dave Chalk to Royals team card)
#298-306 (Johnny Grubb to Batting Leaders)
#478-486 (Tm Burgmeier to Ray Fosse)
#631-639 (Lee Lacy to Steve Kline)
I said on BlueSky that there are six total but I caught my mistake later, which is why I have a blog, because there’s no damn edit button on social media but when you blog you can think things over for awhile!
One last single-card acquisition before I get out of here.
I was wandering through ebay the other day when I discovered that the 1973 Topps Walter Alston card wasn’t priced all that highly anymore.
Back in 2019 when I completed the 1973 Topps set, I didn’t bother getting a second Alston card (there’s one in my Dodgers team binder, too). It was too expensive, so I made color copies of the Alston card and the Schmidt-Cey-Hilton card and slipped them into my ’73 binder to signify “complete.”
Then I promptly forgot about them for years. Alston — a high-number — is now around 5 bucks. Wish I could say the same for Schmidt-Cey-Hilton!
But that’s a nice development. I hope I don’t have to wait six years for the price to come down on a 2025 Heritage Pete Crow-Armstrong short-print — especially since he’s forgotten how to hit — but it’s confirmation that cooler heads do prevail sometimes in the hobby.
(RIP, “Scrap Iron”)