Baseball Card Collecting
Written – January 26, 2023
Next Wednesday, February 1st, I will release the first episode of Ripped: A Baseball Card Nostalgia Podcast. Today, though, I wanted to do a short preview episode and discuss why I love baseball, as well as my entry into card collecting.
I went to my first ever MLB game before I turned two years old. It was a family trip to the Dallas area with my parents and older sister. We say the Yankees play the Rangers at Arlington Stadium. Obviously, I do not really remember anything from that game; after all, I was only two. The first MLB game I remember was a game in St. Louis in 1987 between the Cardinals and the Phillies. My most prominent memories from that game are being mesmerized as Ozzie Smith did his patented backflip into position as he took the field to start the game and seeing Jack Clark hit a home run that knocked out lights in the Busch Stadium scoreboard. However, my favorite memory from that night occurred when my mom took my sister and me to a souvenir kiosk, and I, at the age of 8 (almost 9), told a Busch Stadium vendor that they would sell more stuff if they had more Cubs items than all the Cardinals stuff.
Between that Rangers game in 1980 and the Cardinals one in 1987, I fell in love with the game of baseball. This was due to several things. First, my parents both loved the sport. The summer before I went to second grade, we moved to a new town where my dad was the school superintendent. This school was small and did not play football; rather, they played two baseball seasons – fall and spring. It was a baseball-obsessed community with some really great high school teams during those days. I started playing little league in that baseball-obsessed town. Lastly, that small town had WGN as part of the local cable options, and I started watching the Chicago Cubs play every chance I could get. I was so passionate about Ryne Sandberg and Andre Dawson that as an almost 9-year-old, I made a souvenir vendor at Busch Stadium find me a Cubs baseball.
In the nearly four decades since then, my love and passion for the game of baseball have steadily increased as I have grown older. Terrence Mann in Field of Dreams said it best – The one constant through all the years…has been baseball.
My origin story with baseball cards is similar. It, likewise, started at a baseball stadium. This time a minor league stadium – specifically at an Oklahoma City 89ers game at All Sports Stadium in 1985. I was six that summer, about to turn seven, and that was the summer we moved to the small town where my dad was the school superintendent. We were at that game, and my dad bought my sister and me each a pack of 1985 Topps baseball cards. It was my first-ever pack of baseball cards. I was hooked! The sensation of not knowing what was inside as I ripped open the pack was thrilling. I still have all of the cards from that first pack, including a Mark McGwire Team USA card that I possibly should have sold shortly after his 70th home run in 1998 when it was at peak value. About a year and a half later, my sister and I each got a complete 1986 Topps set for Christmas with a baseball-shaped card case. Those black border cards from that year still hold a place in my card-collecting heart. After that, I was definitely on a journey to expand my baseball card collection whenever and however possible.
In that small town, my family lived in a school-owned house right across the street from the school. So, my sister and I walked to school almost every day. Many days after school, my mom would take us a few blocks down the street to Leek’s Gas Station to get a snack. My standard choice was a bag of Puffy Cheetos and a can of coke (this was before I realized how vastly superior Pepsi was as a soda), and a lot of times, if I did not also ask for a candy bar, my mom would let me get a pack of baseball cards. I got so many packs of 1987 Topps by forgoing a delicious Hershey bar.
At Christmas time in 1987, while in 4th grade, my family moved again. My dad had taken a job at a school in the nearby larger town. This move deepened my baseball card collecting. My options for cards increased as the local Walmart had a whole aisle of baseball cards and supplies rather than the simple box of Topps cards at that gas station down the street. Then, when I was in middle school, a group started putting on routine Card Shows in a local hotel meeting room. Through all of this, my baseball card collection continued to grow.
I slowed down my collecting habits some in high school and then even more during college, but I never quit entirely. This pattern continued as I graduated and moved into the workforce. I was not as fervently buying cards as in my early teenage years, but I would buy a pack or blaster box here or there. I would often make these purchases to have some cards to open while watching Opening Day games, the All-Star game, or the Playoffs. Then in 2018-2019, I had a student in two of my AP classes whose Father was a serious collector and had even owned a sports card store at one time. This student and his dad knew I loved the Cubs, so for a teacher appreciation gift that year, he gave me some pretty cool Cubs cards. This thoughtful gift reignited my passion for baseball cards. After that, I started buying cards more frequently. Then the stay-at-home days of the pandemic gave me time to go back through all of my card collection from over the years and reorganize them. I became as serious, or perhaps even more, a baseball card collector as I was in the late 80s and early 90s.
All of that has led to me now starting this podcast. I hope you have enjoyed this preview episode and come back on February 1st as I start to rip through packs of late 80s Topps cards and talk about the players from that era.
Mr. Gragg 