Where It All Started...

There are plenty of things going on in my life right now that don't necessitate the creation of yet another blog, one that is no more unique or special than the hundreds of thousands of other blogs in the world. I've been hired help for blogs, served as a freelance writer, staff writer, and yes, even as an editor. My passion has been baseball as far back as I could remember. Whether it's minor league ball, the big leagues, or even a local little league game.

Things that go along with that obsession go far beyond writing, reading, etc. I've coached Little League, Babe Ruth, Junior Leagues, high school and legion ball. As I'm writing this, it's 2:56 a.m. on a Monday morning--exactly two weeks before I return to my normal job as a social studies and weight training teacher at a small reservation school in central Wyoming. The common thread since I first fell in love with the National Pastime more than thirty years ago? Baseball cards. What?! Yes, the little pieces of cardboard that have an image of our game's players on the front, and statistics on the back. What's different now than when I witnessed my first big league game in the Kingdome back in 1981? My seven-year old son, that's what.

As I write this initial entry--my tale to my little boy, I'm on the second movie of an in-house double feature that started with Moneyball  and is concluding with my all-time favorite: Bull Durham. My family is baseball obsessed to say the least. My son and I root for the New York Yankees, while my wife of 11 1/2 years along with my six-year old daughter, are one-hundred percent invested in Red Sox Nation. My oldest daughter? The one who will begin college this fall at Montclair State in New Jersey? She began as a Yankees fan, but quickly changed her allegiance to the New York Mets. That's a story for another day...

As a child growing up in north-central Oregon, the closest thing we had to big league baseball were the Mariners up in Seattle, and the Portland Beavers--the Triple-A affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies and later, the Minnesota Twins. My first pack of baseball cards? A wax pack from the 1986 Topps collection. I remember that first pack like it was yesterday. Fifteen cards, a stick of bubble gum, an entry form to attend the 1987 spring training for the team of my choice...all for a whopping forty cents. Thirty-one years later, the '86 set is looked upon as one of the ugliest, unpopular sets of the decade produced by Topps. It doesn't matter, as I put the entire set together by hand. Pack by painstaking pack. Well worth the reward, as it hooked me for life, and fueled my increasing love for the game from that point, through today.

I'm creating this blog as an online diary. An official entry as I take this newfound journey with my son. Now that baseball here in our little town is almost complete, I decided to quit using chewing tobacco after 27 years of constant use (another side affect of my baseball life). I need another hobby, something productive to occupy my time. After four years of being involved in Little League, my son has officially caught the bug of being obsessed with baseball. He's always dogging me to go hit (we live directly across the street from our local baseball complex), have a catch, to take him on in MLB The Show, watching or listening to games, whatever. If it's baseball, he wants to share in it with me.

When I began collecting, never in my wildest dreams did I ever consider purchasing an entire set of baseball cards. To me, that was cheating. I remember during the winters of my childhood, laying in front of the fireplace, looking through the Sears, JC Penney, and Jafco Christmas catalogs, at the full, complete sets for that specific year being offered. By 1987, I had expanded my desire to conquer the world of baseball cards, learning of Fleer, Donruss, and later, Sportflics sets. My Mom (God bless that woman) was all about feeding my addiction. Any time she would go to the local grocery stores (Albertson, Safeway, etc.), rest assured that by the time she was done putting the week's food away, a pack or two of cards was sitting on the counter for me. I also earned $2 per week in allowance for picking up dog poop, taking out the garbage, mowing the lawn, and doing some occasional housework like vacuuming or loading up the dishwasher for dear old Mom.

I would take my hard-earned money, and meet up with my buddies each morning before school. We'd walk up to DeHart's corner market, buy a Hostess fruit pie, a nickel box of Lemonheads, Boston Baked Beans, and a couple of packs of cards. When times were good, multiple brands of cards were available--the aforementioned Topps, Fleer, and Donruss. Fleer and Donruss cards would sell for only .35 per pack, so if funds were low, we'd snag an extra pack of those until allowance day came, and we could buy some packs of Topps again. We'd go to school, eat our pies, save our candy for lunch, and go through our new treasures, trading cards to help us each fill our sets.

As my buddies and I continued to grow up, cards were never far from our minds, but other things often took our card money (girls, beer, chew), but we'd still buy packs when we were thinking about it. Our little town even produced a card shop, where the owner, Larry Krutsinger, who was a local volunteer umpire, would show mercy on us, and give us a really good deal on cards of our favorite players (Mine was Don Mattingly, my friend Josh, Mark Grace, my other buddy Sean, Ozzie Smith). Sean and I would spend summer days playing ball with our other neighborhood friends, but our favorite stop was a junk store called Jolly's. The guy who ran that shop, was a crass, grumpy guy who looked like he hadn't bathed in a few weeks. The place was dark and dingy, but we knew he had boxes upon boxes of old baseball cards. Sean and I would collect all of the loose change we could find, and head up to Kelly Avenue to Jolly's. Mr Jolly as we called him, was so preoccupied with trying to sell his other junk, he'd allow Sean and I to go through those boxes for hours, looking for gems at discount rates. He kept an out of date copy of Beckett Baseball behind the counter, and we'd come to the side counter with all of the cards we could afford for that day, and he'd hand us the Beckett, a piece of paper, and a calculator.

Between the card shop and Larry, and the junk shop and Jolly's, Sean and I built our collection that most of our other buddies quickly became jealous of. Sean and I would spend hours upon hours, laying out our catch, talking baseball, trading cards, and preserving them for when we were all grown up. Sean moved away a year after we entered junior high school, but I found another friend who was into cards, my friend and Cubs fan, Josh. This is where my eyes were opened wide to parental involvement in the "hobby"of baseball card collecting.

You see, Josh lived on the opposite side of town. No quick walk or bike ride. I actually needed rides to Josh's house, but I got there and he to my house on the east side of town. I was floored the first time I entered Josh's house. It is a ranch style, with a living room through the garage entrance, a dining room and kitchen, then another living room and hallway to the bedrooms. Josh had a younger brother, Andrew, who was two years younger than we were in school. Josh and I would play Bases Loaded, RBI Baseball and the like on the Nintendo for hours. However, in that second living room, were boxes and boxes and more boxes of complete sets of baseball cards. You name the year and set in the 1980s and earlier, and odds were good it was stacked in that living room, or Josh and Andrew's bedrooms. His family would take trips to Portland, stop at multiple card shops, and come home with many more sets of baseball cards.

I remember asking Josh's dad why he bought complete sets rather than hand collecting. He responded by saying if taken care of properly, full sets could be worth big money in twenty or thirty years when we boys were grown up. I'd go home and ask my Dad if he'd buy me a complete set, and he'd just laugh and say "Buy you complete sets of toys?" "You're on your own son." I felt like I was behind the power curve and at a disadvantage to Josh because his Dad would get the complete sets, and I'd be stuck piecing my yearly collection together pack by pack. I still felt like it was cheating, and not really an enjoyable way to collect cards. My own father had a couple of treats for me later in my life...

I've been blessed enough to have suitable storage for my cards all of these years later. I've lived in many different states, all over the country, but I have always taken the time to ensure my childhood gems were taken care of.

I have many more stories to tell, and to explain where I am at in the hobby and my new journey with my son. My children are my absolute world. My family and baseball. It's a pretty simple life for a school teacher, and I hope you'll enjoy taking this journey with me each week as I document what I hope is something you might enjoy reading. Perhaps my entries will take you back to a special time and place in your life. Perhaps it was you and your friends, or you and your father that once enjoyed collecting. Maybe, just maybe, you'll get the bug once again and you can carry the tradition on with your own children...thanks for reading, and God Bless!