The 1983

Rodeo Mart 10, 2022

A few days ago Fuji was kind enough to mention my last post here on his weekly blog recap series This Week in Blogging. There was just one slight typo in his post:

No worries, though. Happens all the time. If I had a nickel for every typo I found in my NHL all-time series during and after publishing each post... here's how many nickels I'd have.

I'm home from work today due to a blizzard slamming the northeast so let's run with this. Let's talk about 1983.

The first thing that comes to my mind when someone mentions this year is the Cold War. It's one of my favorite topics in American history; I just found it frightening and fascinating how two superpowers could come so close to destroying each other - and the world - with nuclear weapons. Probably because I was far too young to experience the events at the time. Tensions between the US and USSR had been high since the early 1960s but things really came to a head in '83.

President Ronald Reagan announced a new missile defense program called SDI, or "Star Wars" which would theoretically target Russian nukes from space.

The Day After debuted in November 1983. It was a chilling depiction of nuclear catastrophe which aired on broadcast TV just days after the Able Archer incident.

Able Archer was the code name of a training exercise - a WarGame if you will - that many in the Kremlin believed was the real deal. (No, this was not related to Reagan's quip that "We begin bombing in five minutes.") Fun times!

On a lighter note, 1983 trading cards are scarcely represented in my collection.

I have 12 cards from the 1983 Topps football set: nine Packers, Renaldo Nehemiah, Andra Franklin, and Doug Williams - the original TB12.

I have 16 cards from the 1983 Fleer set, including six Red Sox and some singles I picked up for my All-Time Teams binder. I also grabbed some from the online dime box that were meant for a fellow blogger - but he filled those needs before I had them in hand.

1983 (and 1984) Donruss singles felt like a rare treat to me as a young collector in the late '80s - something that surfaced about as frequently as an insert card a decade later.

As for the '83 Topps set.. I have just 22 cards in my collection, one of the three lowest totals of '80s Topps sets. This makes some sense to me based on the year I was born and the year I started collecting. Here's my card count:

1980 Topps - 19 cards
1981 Topps - 24 cards
1982 Topps - 21 cards
1983 Topps - 22 cards
1984 Topps - 48 cards
1985 Topps - 26 cards
1986 Topps - 69 cards
(the rest are complete.)

What doesn't make sense to me is that 1983 Topps is probably one of my three favorite issues of the decade. I like it a lot more than 1986 Topps, but that was the first flagship set I saw as a kid. Also I don't have any rookie cards of Ryne Sandberg, Wade Boggs, or Tony Gwynn - mostly because I've always figured they're so plentiful that I never saw the need to prioritize them :/

Do you have any favorite sports cards or memories from 1983? Do you have any memories of Cold War tensions at that time? I'd be very interested to hear some of your stories!

Night Owl... you up?

So last week I tried to ignore the new girl at work. And then something happened that made me laugh so hard I did an immediate face turn. My manager G got a phone call just as New Girl walked into the room. Only G knew who was calling her when she shouted "What the fuck do you want?" New Girl tucked tail and left just as meekly as she entered. My laughter at the situation let G know that there may have been a misunderstanding to address. "Does she think I yelled at her?" G said as soon as she got off the phone (with one of our very funny and sarcastic inspectors.) "She might." I replied.

"I'd better call her. The poor girl's gonna quit on us!"

Face turn initiated. You see, I still have no idea how to handle this little office crush I have but I know that I do not want her to quit. So I got G to smooth things over (which wasn't necessary; New Girl knew she was not being yelled at - even as a joke) and then when she came back a little later I addressed the room "Okay, no one yell at her this time."

The next day- Friday - I had to mail a letter. This time I decided to actually take it up front so as not to bring it in the car with me. When I printed said letter I noticed that there were forms sitting in the tray. G told me they were New Girl's (the printer in her room doesn't work; she only comes to see us for printing and pizza.) I told myself that if I got the letter in the envelope before she came to get them that I would bring them to her. I'm headed that way anyway, I'd do that for anyone. No big deal.

Sure enough I had the letter ready to mail so I grabbed the printouts and went up front. I placed the printouts on her desk "These yours?" and as I dropped the letter in the mail slot she acknowledged my gesture.

"You are so lovely. Thank you!"

I was absolutely frozen. Usually I would say "No worries" but the girl shorted out my brain.

What did I say in response? Nothing. Literally. I was so caught off-guard that I said “Nothing”. I meant to say “It’snothing” which wasn’t even that great, but somehow the word “It’s” never made it out of my mouth. Probably because it was blocked by what I wished I could say: “No, you’re lovely.”

Btw, New Girl is a lousy speller. She left a post-it for me to call a gentleman named Schmidt and she spelled his name 'Schmitt'. As anyone who follows baseball knows, that's not how you spell 'Schmidt'.