A curator's collection: A Boy's Life in Baseball Cards

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

A Boy's Life in Baseball Cards

First, Last and Always, there was Topps.

If you grew up like I did, deep in the childish heart of US, worshiping at the temple of baseball, take it from me: never go to Sunday school!

Once upon a time, before professional football became a fantasy gambler’s paradise and pro basketball was a rumor everywhere but in the homes of the perennial champs, the Celtics (Yay!) and the perennial losers, the Lakers (Boo!), when mumblety-peg was stuck in the mud and marbles had fallen off the map, collecting baseball cards was the true, transcendent All-American boys hobby.

Not just any baseball cards mind you, but Topps cards, the true coin of the realm.

A nickel bought a pack of ten cards and that pink sweet smelling slab of gum.

To enjoy the gum, you had to buy packs early in the season when they were fresh or deep in the heat of the summer when the gum had a chance to soften on the store shelves. Otherwise, it would snap and crack and you had to wait for the jagged edges to melt in your mouth before enjoying the moment of pleasure that came with the soft chew.

But gum was just the lure. The true catch was the cards.

Oh, there were always misguided souls who used clothespins to fasten cards to their bicycle spokes to make a click clack sound when they pedaled to announce their arrival. But for the true baseball card collector, that was wasted treasure, unless you used one of the gazillions of checklists Topps foisted on us as if we didn’t already know which cards we had and which we needed.

Risk takers would flip them (“heads I win; tails you lose”) or scale them against the wall (“You’re close; I’m closer”) in dare devil games of “keepsies” in an attempt to build the grandest collection of cards without parting with the precious nickel that it took to buy a pack. The cardinal rule of these games was to never, ever flip or scale anything other than useless doubles like Hobie Landrith, Paul Foytack and the ubiquitous Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish who so thoroughly permeated the cardboard world that all the kids not only knew his whole name, but knew that his baseball pals called him Buster.

And, of course, one could always trade for what was needed, (“Got him, need him, don’t want him…”) in the hope that some unfortunate not fully indoctrinated fellow could be deceived into believing that a complete set of the 1966 New York Mets was more valuable than your own missing Frank Robinson. (“Frank Robinson for Rod Kanehl?” Well, (heavy sigh …) if it will help you out, then alright.”)

The backs of the cards were a treasure trove of information with statistics and that cartoon drawing with real inside info that this player liked fishing and that player was a mailman in the off-season. Armed with that knowledge, we practically knew those guys!

I confess there were times I added to my collection by hooking four quarters (a whole dollar!) from Mom’s pocketbook. (Don’t worry ‘bout Mom. She paid me back). When my pockets were heavy with loot, whether a dollar or a dime, I always sprinted straight to Sless’ Pharmacy, because he always had the very best packs.

Once inside, it was right down to the candy aisle. There, I rummaged through each pack with a practiced eye, cultivated touch and honed feel. I fondled each pack, stroking the paper housing the cards, turning them over in my hands trying to divine where the guys to be avoided lurked and the crown jewels hidden. I plied this craft until receiving that scintillating buzz that told me that HERE were my heroes, Willie Mays, Stan the Man, Ernie "Let's Play Two" Banks, Yaz, Yogi, Sandy and Bob (and who was Roberto?) Clemente, the O's Robinson boys and, of course, the Mick, who fueled glittering young dreams from sea to shining sea!

I sauntered to the counter with my haul, where ol’ man Sless, that wizened owl, stood waiting, twirling one end of his handlebar mustache, staring implacably over his bifocals before he swung the axe, asking whether I had my parent’s permission to buy a whole dollar’s worth of baseball cards.

“Of course I have their permission, Mr. Sless” I told him, “and ‘sides, I ain’t got no parents”.

Somehow, he sniffed out the deception and called my mother who assured him that, “Of course he doesn’t have permission!” We usually bargained my haul down to two packs, “and bring the change home”, and then it was back to the playgrounds in search of the greatest cards of ‘em all.

That’s pretty much how I misspent my youth, a nickel and a dime, but never a dollar, at a time, accumulating the greatest collection of baseball cards the world of my little neighborhood had ever known.

But the path through through the half-remembered past is strewn with treachery and here's why.

You see, at the apex of my card-collecting career, I had lots of cards. Many cards. Plenty of cards. Shoe boxes filled with cards. Boxes chock filled with cards. Cards everywhere. The mind boggles at the thought.

On the other hand, and not to gild the lily; but it was kind of a small house. My room was smaller than the house, and my closet smaller than the room so, by everywhere, I mean my closet. That’s where I kept my treasure. MY CLOSET!

My closet was piled from the floor to the ceiling and back down again with gazillions of cards, lying in hiding, waiting for me, bothering no one.

The only thing in the whole wide world that I could really and truly call my own; MY CARDS!

Then, one fateful Sunday morning when the sun fell like rain, Mom announced I was to be trundled off to the one place where I knew baseball did not exist: Sunday school.

I screamed, I pleaded, I cried until mom, who was kind of a wily gal, let me in on a secret: Sunday school was where God lived.

Huh? Mickey Mantle lived in my Sunday school? Take me now, Lord!

With a light step, a grateful heart and a souful bounding leap, off to Sunday school I did go.

The Mick, however, was a no-show. It was years before I learned the truth; that Mick was far more likely to be sleeping off Saturday night than genuflecting on Sunday morning. (Jim Bouton is a big mouth).

On this day, though, I was about to realize a more sinister truth.

I arrived home from Sunday school, my soul sorely tried. I had not seen the Mick, and I cannot say I saw very much of any other God either.

I waked to my room and reached for the closet to throw my jacket on top of the complete Topps ’63 set. That’s when Childhood bid me, “Adios, pardner.”

As I opened the closet door and peered into the darkened closet, I saw a bunch of clothes hangers hidden under a bunch of things I had no interest in like shirts, pants and jackets. But no baseball cards.

I can see Mom in my mind’s eye now. The micro instant I tripped out the door, skipping into my room, flinging my closet door open, rubbing her palms with giddy anticipation and gaily laughing as she tossed box after box of my boyhood into the trash.

MOM! I love ya, but “J’accuse!”

It wasn’t only losing the star cards that hurt so bad, it was losing the commons that hurt too. Minnie Minoso and Vic Power. Luis Aparicio and Nelly Fox. Early Wynn and Anold Early. Woodie Held and Woody Fryman. Frank Malzone and Frank Lary. Larry Sherry and Norm Sherry. Dick Stuart, Stu Miller and ElRoy Face. Tom Cheney and Don Larsen. Gary Geiger and Pete Runnels,. Wally Post and Gus Bell. And The Next Ted Williams, Marty Keough! (Really. What did I know and when did I know it?) Marty Keough! Would they lose their pull power on my imagination as they faded into memory? What if I never gave any of them another thought?

I learned some hard truths that day. I learned that baseball gods do not live in Sunday school - and that other gods may not spend as much time there as they do at the old ball park.

I learned that on the day I was born, my mother (My Own Sainted Mother!) was inducted into The Society of the Matriarchy, a mysterious cult dedicated to the proposition that all things are created equal and constitutionally endowed with the inalienable right to be free of unlawful searches and seizures, except for my closet!

I learned that when you hook quarters out of Mom’s pocketbook, there’s gonna be a payback and that payback is umm …tough stuff. (Shhh. Mom may read this someday and we don’t swear in front of Mom.

I learned not to run that “J’Accuse” business on Mom because, if I did, she turned the whole affair over to Dear Old Dad who would stride toward me with great purpose, show me a piece of paper called a Deed and invite me to try to find my name on it. That is what’s known in the legal community as Declaratory Judgment. In the Wild West, they called it Instant Justice. In my parent’s house, it was called The Last Word.

But things change as some things do and so, some 13,795 days later or thereabouts, when my own sons came of a certain age, baseball card collecting had become less a hobby and more of a flim-flam operation, flooded with new companies run by charlatans hawking “limited edition” “specially autographed” and, in that singular insult to intelligence, “game worn jersey patches” sold as “collector’s items”. Four cards to a pack for $10 a pop and no gum.

None of these cards ever held my boys’ attention for more than the fifteen minutes it took to drive home. Maybe it’s because nobody, not even little kids likes to be hustled. Or, maybe it because the card companies stopped letting them know which of their favorite players liked fishing and which were mailmen.

Aah, but why linger in the recent diminished past when we can languish in the golly-gee thrill of the long gone and hard to find past. After all, collecting baseball cards was really a while lot of fun.

As for Mom, she once told me she was sorry for throwing out my cards. Even though I don't think she was really all that sorry, as the decades have passed, I learned to let it be because after all, she's Mom.

PS Inquiring minds want to know if this story is true. If you once collected baseball cards and no longer have them, you know whether it's true or not. As for the rest of you, I swear that 100% of the tale related herein are 47% true.

Honus Wagner - the Holy Grail

The enduring legends

SOUTHPAWS FROM THE PRACTICE BEFORE THE DAWN OF LIGHT, WHEN BASEBALL FIELDS WERE LAID OUT WITH THE BATTER FACING EAST TO AVOID LOOKING INTO THE AFTERNOON SUN. A LEFT-HANDED PITCHER FACING WEST WOULD THEREFORE HAVE HIS PITCHING ARM (OR PAW) FACING TOWARD THE SOUTH, HENCE THE TERM.

Only one of these guys was really funny and it wasn't the one who didn't say all the funny things that the other one said he said.

On the other hand, the guy who never said all the things he said won 3 MVP's, 10 World Series and in 1950, caught 151 of 154 games, had 656 plate appearances, hit 28 homers, drove in 124, hit .312, had an OPS of .915 and struck out 12 times and inspired one of the greatest cartoons in television history; hey, hey, hey, hee, hee hee! Oh, and he finished third in the MVP balloting to banjo hitters Phil Rizutto and Billy Goodman.

MY BUCCOS

The Great One

POPS

Doctor Strangeglove

The Deacon and The Baron

Vernon Law and Roy Face

BUCCO BLASTERS!

Look at me, I can be Centerfield!

A nation tuned it's lonely eyes to this fella.

The Kid

"Let's play two!" - Mr. Cub

And the same goes for Mr. White Sox

In 1965 Willie Mays won the National League's Most Valuable Player Award. The winner in the American League was Zoilo Versalles. There is no rational explanation for this. In fact, I found it as bewildering as when I learned that the man's name was Zoilo and not Zorro.

This man is a ringer

What's Wrong with this picture?

That's better.

The toughest of the tough.

The worst thing that ever happened to Roger Maris was hitting that 61st Home Run.

Because some other guy was simply higher in the pantheon.

Not to be traded, sold or flipped

In 1966, in an unprecedented move, these Hall of Famers entered into a joint hold out and fleeced the Los Angeles Dodgers to the tune of a princely $235,000 - combined.

Fathers and sons

Any game you can play, I can play better

Nolan Ryan was traded for Jim Fregosi. Really.

The best I ever saw

#2 Derek Jeter. Jeter.

On deck, #7 Mickey Mantle. Mantle.

In the stands, #43, George W. Bush. Bush.

Cheaters

Traitor

Captains of the All-Ears and Hair Teams

Tommy John invented his own surgery

This 1965 rookie card, featuring Tony Perez, Dave Ricketts and Kevin Collins (?) can be purchased today on Ebay for $44,345.00. I'll take two.

While this 1965 Pete Rose rookie card can be had for $199.00. Beats me.

The Olde Town Team

Before there was bread and for many years afterwards,

there was Yaz.

Every fourth day in the early and mid-1960's, Bill Monboquette gave the Sox a chance on the mound. Then, to avenge the drillings he took while fronting those hopeless nines, he became a dentist.

Little Pete Runnels won two batting titles, once beating out teammate Ted Williams. Really.

After bouncing around for years, the last place Mets committed the colossal blunder of allowing King Felix Mantilla to slip away to the 8th place Red Sox. In 1964, Felix hit 30 home runs, nearly surpassing his career total to that point of 35. There is no rational explanation for this; it just is.

In 1961, Don Schwall won 15 games and was the Rookie of the Year for the then woe begone Old Towne Team. The following year, he lost 15 and, along with his batterymate, Jim Pagliaroni,

was shipped out of town for this guy.

Yes, it's Stonefingers Stuart again.

Entering the last weekend of the 1963 season, Stu was locked in a tie with the Twins' Harmon Killebrew for the home run lead with 40. Over the final four games, playing head to head, Harmon hit 5 more HRs while Stuart added only 2. Stu's response?

"I'da hit 5 too if I hit against our pitchers".

Jim Bouton was a big mouth.

In 1971, Joe Torre had 230 hits, batted .363 and won the National League MVP award all while being so slow he was timed running to first with a sun dial. Helluva hitter, helluva of a manager, helluva credit to the game.

Just wanted to see if you were still paying attention.

Careers that unraveled like cheap polyester suits.

The backs of baseball cards were a fount of information. Not only did they contain the player's statistics, but some cards contained vital personal information about the player. For instance, without baseball cards, you and I would never have known that Carroll Sembera was nicknamed, "The Pencil" because of his slim build.