Posted By:
Al C.risafulliI think I've posted this story before.
I used to feel pretty strongly about not destroying pieces of memorabilia to be put into cards.
One day, my 10-year-old son and I went out and bought some modern baseball cards and opened the packs together. He's not particularly interested in baseball. As we opened the packs, one of these cards was included that had a chunk of Bobby Thomson's bat on it. My son immediately became very interested - Who is Bobby Thomson? What did he do?
We wound up having a whole conversation about the 1951 season, which led to a later conversation about the 1946-64 Yankees. These are pieces of history that he'd never asked about, and one tiny chunk of wood led to him learning about the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Yankees, and guys like Casey Stengel, Billy Martin, and even John McGraw.
So here you have a little kid who pulls a piece of wood out of a pack of baseball cards, and now can trace John McGraw to Casey Stengel to Billy Martin. He'd never asked me about baseball history before - he'd never shown an interest.
Seems worth it to me. So now I have a little more appreciation for this stuff. Granted, it was only Bobby Thomson and not Josh Gibson, but you get the point.
-Al