In 1986 I purchased the 1985 season, my first new season purchase since the 1979 season.
I was able to get a few missing teams from 1976 and 1977 and the complete 1980-1984 seasons as well.
I started a project to try and get pre 1968 teams and in a few focused periods, was able to get most of 1963-1967. I ended up finally getting all the 1963-67 teams within a few years of joining ebay in 1998. I was even able to upgrade (adding XPs or improving quality) of many sets I had since the 70s.
I tried the SOM computer games two different times but just don't enjoy it.
I guess I am just an old time cards and dice guy. I never liked much of the progress, in most cases.
When advanced came out in 1972 (1971 season) using the previous unused back blank side, I thought that was as cool as it can get. Local teams (Giants, A's) both won divisions in 1971 and Vida Blue was a sensational MVP. I can still remember sitting on the couch in our family room opening the card set and gawking at the new cool cards.
When I left the hobby for 5 years, but came back and bought the 1985 set in 1986, I was shocked to see all the weird crazy symbols plastered all over the advanced side. I thought then, (and do today) that stuffing the super advanced version onto the advanced version was the worst execution of an "improvement" I ever saw. It literally stopped me from ever playing advanced again. Adding other features, eliminating the team nicknames, adding colors and shading to me were all bad as well. The evolution of the card patterns which were changed around 1990-91 I also find to be less than positive. Having a 9 "out" roll in your "good" column for every player does not make sense. Changing the home runs on batters cards to 6 and 10 rolls (for the most part) was boring and repetitive. Having almost all pitcher's card HR chances on 5 and 9 rolls was also boring and repetitive. And then the whole steroid PED era coincided which was also was a turn off.
Despite all the things I truly disliked, I stayed loyal and bought the new sets (previous season and newest recreated season) every year. Although I rarely played them or even looked at them. Then one day I woke up said "get rid of all this garbage".
But hopefully I will cherish and enjoy the old school cards (and dice) for years to come.
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