Doom and Gloom

After seven straight losses, I figured it was time to post again. Also, Yadi is hurt.

I already have another Night Owl package in the queue, eagerly awaiting me to write something about it. Before I get to it, I had to dust off this stack of cards from the Night received back in mid-June, when folks were still excited about what summer had in store for us. A bunch of the cards filled needs in the most recent Heritage set, and I fittingly selected Lance Berkman's card to show off here. Why is he fitting? His season began with promise, but his continued knee troubles are causing all kinds of retirement talk.

In brighter news, Night Owl brought me my first look at 2013 Topps Archives. Topps did a (somewhat) better job with the card stock this year, taking it up from last year's thin-and-bright flimsy mess to something more akin to Ginter Lite. It's a really weird idea to put Stan Musial on a 1990 Topps design, but not as weird as the decision to dig this set up from the grave it was rightly buried in to begin with. It could be that Topps doesn't have as many classic baseball card designs as we thought, but I think it's more likely that they've just beaten all of the good ones to death already.

1986 was sort of an ugly year if you were to survey the masses, but it will always have a special place in my collecting heart because it was the year I first started buying packs. It's confusing to me that these are considered reprints. It's confusing to me that the copyright year on the back is 2012 instead of 2013. Mostly, it's confusing to me that the only thing "reprint" about the card is supposedly the card back, which actually resembles his Record Breakers card from the '86 set instead of the base design.

I believe I now have two Mike Garman 1975 Topps minis. They are going to fight to the death.

Well, this season has surely taken a turn for the worse. Only Jose Jimenez can see what the future holds.