Day 14 of 365

In the days of my youth

I'm a sucker for nostalgia. After buying a box of recent-issue baseball cards on a trip to Target last week, I allowed myself to browse eBay and led myself into an impulse buy. For pretty much the same price it would have cost back in their respective years, I purchased boxes of Topps cards from 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1990.

I didn't really need that many (540 cards per box), but I've amused myself quite often as I've slowly opened the packs to see the cardboard-mounted images of long-forgotten players. There have been rookie cards of current managers, cards of coaches and former players I never remembered during their active years and images of the hilarious styles of the late 80s -- uniforms, mustaches, hairdos and, with surprising frequency, large, nerd-worthy glasses.