Steve Wulf recently wrote a wonderful piece about TOPPS and baseball cards in ESPN Magazine.

He captured the essence of what the cards mean to one-time collectors like myself.

Long before fantasy baseball, cards were fantasy baseball. Radio was the only regular medium for the game in the ’50s, so the “cardboard gods” provided the visuals. Bill Szczepanek, who maintains the Golden Age of Baseball Cards website, says: “The fronts of cards allowed us to see who these guys really were, and the backs gave us their bios and statistics. I grew up a Cubs fan, so one of my favorites is the 1956 Ernie Banks. Those were the horizontal cards with two photos, a close-up with an action shot in the background. I can still see Ernie crossing the plate. Just beautiful.”

That 1956 Topps set is almost universally considered the best ever, but there’s a real battle for second: Topps ’53, Donruss ’84, Topps ’87, Upper Deck ’89 … To each his own, and it often depends on the height of passion. (Which is why this writer and former Phillies fan is still partial to the 1964 set, a fairly plain year for Topps.) And it’s not just collectors who have their favorites. Brian Cronin, who writes about cards and works at Squiggy’s Dugout in New Rochelle, N.Y., says, “Andre Dawson liked his 1993 Topps Finest card so much that he offered people $5 if they would send it to him.”

I love the look of the old cards. So in tribute to a bygone era, and to reconnect with my childhood obsession with baseball cards, I’m going to post random baseball cards on weekends.

Can’t think of a better first entry.