We're talkin' baseball....

One place I like to frequent is a place called "Page 2" on ESPN.com.

Recently, they did a type of mini series on baseball cards, and featured this article written by Eric Neel

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=baseballcards/060725

The memories of when I was younger immediatley rushed over me.

Don't get me wrong, I occasionally still get a pack of cards here and there, but when I was a kid, a pack of cards was the world.

Could you really beat the smell of opening a new wax pack? These new age cards these days, with their gorilla proof holo-foil, smell like plastic. I loved the smell of wax-gum-cardboard smell you got when tearing open a pack of 1990 Donruss.

Could you really beat the simplistic designs? The red board and cursive names of the Donruss 1990 set

http://shop.mlb.com/sm-1990-donruss-david-justice-rookie-card--pi-1792173.html

and the simple colorful borders and team names of the Topps 1990 set

http://baseballcardshop.net/19toppitpirb.html

are amongst my favorite card designs of all time. I even was ok with the white borders Topps used in the 92 set

http://www.fogdog.com/fog-1992-topps-cliff-floyd-rookie-card--pi-1792282.html

But these new age borderless cards?

http://shop.mlb.com/sm-fleer-mlb-2002-fleer-ultra-unopened-box-baseball-cards--pi-1135321.html

Sue me, but Im not a big fan.


Speaking of Topps '92, could you really beat the addiction of opening pack after pack of cards, not looking for a jersey card or an autograph, but for Atlanta Braves players, or New York Mets to trade to your friend for Atlanta Braves players.

True story, summer of '92, I was 10 years old, and baseball was my life. The Atlanta Braves had just completed their worst to first year the year before, and I can remember my brother and I and my friends spending hours pretending we were the real life players. My 8 year old brother wasnt a big baseball fan, but claimed allegiance to the Pirates, who suffered a crushing defeat in the NLCS to my beloved Braves, and my best friend was a NY Mets fan.

I remember we went on a trip somewhere, and at a gas station, my brother had gotten this "rack pack" of 1992 Topps baseball cards. I dont know what I got, but I knew I should have gotten those cards.

When we got back home, we proceeded to raid the house for any money we had in stash. We didnt get an allowance or anything like that, so we had to dig up every penny we got from holiday presents, finding it on the street, or receiving it for doing odd jobs around the house.

For about a week straight, my brother would ride his little BMX up to the corner seven eleven, two or three times a day, and he would use any additional collective money we could find, to buy as many .49 packs of 1992 Topps as he could. We had to have bought about 40-50 packs of them, and every one we opened was more exciting then the last. We even convinced my 4 year old sister to become a "business partner" which is still controversial to this day in the house, when we ran out of our own money (we let her get the first pick out of each pack, and gave her all the really good players, Minnesota Twins, and Chicago Cubs). It was pretty much standard procedure that it you had a Pirate, you traded to my brother, a Brave, you traded to me, a Cub or a Twin, you traded to my sister, and a Met, you traded to my friend, who was doing the same thing. I actually remember us all getting in trouble over who rightly possessed a 1991 Donruss Andy Van Slyke (we actually got a few packs of these when we cleaned the 7-11 out of 1992 Topps). My mother found out our scheme when the seven eleven clerk identified my brother and ratted on us.

Also, what else could come close to the pain of seeing your parents hit you where it hurts by always going right after the cards. I had my collection completely decimated, not once, but twice. Once over a 1990 Topps Dave Righetti card that I was arguing with my brother over, and once after a disagreement with my Dad, which saw most of the summer of '92 Topps I collected trashed. Beat me, pull my teeth out, even drop me off a bridge, but stay away from the cards!.

My brother and I actually one upped this guy, we not only "laid our cards out on the floor", but we developed several different versions of "card" baseball, ranging from "play cards" we made out of cut up scraps to decks of playing cards to control the action. We drafted and built teams out of our baseball cards. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

FINALLY, around 1990 or 91, my brother and I also decided to enter the trading card industry ourselves. How many kids can say that on your block? We cut up the loose leaf notebook paper intended for school with our moms sewing scissors, and drew hundreds of the likenesses of our favorite players. We each produced many different "brands", and even collaborated on a few, probably our best was a collaboration we made around 1995, which we called Kens Best, named after Ken Griffey Jr. This set came complete with gold and silver versions. One set I made, even had silver foil versions made with aluminum foil. How is that for creative?

Wow, those were the days. Before "Jersey Cards", before $5 packs of 6 cards each, before collecting cards stopped being fun.