A couple new additions today. Not MVP candidates by any means, but in decent shape, at least. Probably what a lot of our wives think about us, actually. It’s hard to come up with a lot to say about Russ Nixon and Earl Francis, but the Nixon card just makes me remember when I went back in time to collect all these sets, way back when. My first Topps year as a seven year old, was 1974. Those cards were awesome! No gaudy border...that would come next year. Lots of action shots, with guys sliding into catchers or shortstops. There were even cards where I didn’t know which guy in the photo was the subject of the card! And very few “heads.” Just a great set. So eventually, I got older, and couldn’t deal with the 1981 Dave Lopes Fleer “hand” variation, or the Fernando Valenzuela rookie craze. I sort of got over that in 1979 with Bump Wills. So I went back in time, and found some great sets, like the 1967 set, and the cool colors and horizontalness of 1960. But I just hated cards like that Nixon card. Can you really tell it’s a baseball player, or am I just collecting pictures of random men? Too weird. That’s what no competition gets you...head shots, no caps. Or basketball cards with jerseys on backwards...why, for goodness sake? Can’t we have Earl Francis brushing back Russ Nixon on a card, instead of pitching off of the carpet in my den, with a Quonset hut in the background? No kid was fooled by that stuff in the seventies, I can assure you. If that showed up in 1974, I would have stuck to Hostess and Kellogg’s cards. Anyway, I present Russ Nixon and Earl Francis. I guess I’m not much of a salesman...
