This is a fascinating read. Thank you all for sharing. Sometimes when the threads get numerous pages long, I do some skimming, but not this time. I really enjoyed reading everyone’s stories.
I mostly lurk on the other side as I no longer really collect cards, minus a Mantle run I am always plugging away on, as I only collect autographs of baseball HOFers. But I still thought it would be cool to share my story.
My Dad did the grocery shopping in our house, every Saturday. He would bring me home a pack of cards; usually baseball, and usually Topps. There were a few random Donruss and Fleer baseball thrown in, and some Topps football and hockey thrown in, but mainly Topps baseball. This went on from 1981 – 1985. I was always hoping for Reggie Jackson cards, and then later on, Pete Rose.
My Dad would watch Yankees games and I would always tell him to call me when Reggie came to bat. I remember vividly, in 1982 at the age of 5, I told my Dad to call me when Reggie comes up, and he said “Reggie doesn’t play for the Yankees anymore”. “What? Why? How did this happen?” A few years later I really got to like Pete Rose. Pete Rose broke the hit record on my parent’s anniversary, which I always thought was cool. Anyways, I had these cards thrown about my room, in all sorts of random places.
In early 1986, we took a family trip to my uncle’s cabin in the poconos. He owned his own advertising firm, and I thought of his as “rich”. He drove a town car, had a vacation home, etc. Anyways, he showed my family his new hobby – collecting old baseball cards. He had his cards in pages and binders, and the older ones in plastic cases. TONS of Pete Rose cards. I was in awe and was hooked. I immediately wanted to get home and start putting my cards into sheets and binders like his. I started buying a ton of 1986 Topps baseball packs.
One Sunday, I woke up and my Dad said “There’s a baseball card show in Utica (about 20 minutes away). Want to go?” Ummm….yeah! I couldn’t believe it. My Dad bought me a 1986 Topps Yankees team set that day; to which I still have.
As the baseball card boom started, I couldn’t get enough. I was buying cards of anything I could find. My Dad would take me to shows and we would look around together. He always bought me pre-1980s cards; cards he had but had been lost. Those are some of the best memories I have.
That same uncle invited us to go to the Baseball HOF Induction ceremony the summer of 1987. It was amazing. My Dad and I wound up going every year, just the two of us, from 1987 -1998….until college, girls, jobs, etc. Got in the way.
Around 1992 or so I went to junior high and my new buddies were going to minor league games and getting autographs. My Dad had taken me to area minor league games as well; the Utica BlueSox and the Syracuse Chiefs…but I never thought about getting autographs on cards before! This became my new fix; getting as many autographs as I could at minor league parks. This went on from 1992 until 1995 or so…until I was just about to start my senior year in high school. Collecting autographs was true of HOFers as well, as paid signings started to pop up in Cooperstown (I chuckle writing that, as they started popping up in 1990 or so. Now, you cant go anywhere in Cooperstown HOF induction weekend without someone attempting to sign something for a dollar). I got a good jump on my hof collection with older players who signed rather cheaply; Buck Leonard, Warren Spahn, Billy Herman, etc.
Cards and autographs went to the back burner until after college and first job, apartment, etc.
Then in 2007, as I started to get a bit of disposable income, I dove back into autographs, but only of baseball HOFers. I became an elitist apparently. My Dad and I went to HOF weekend in Cooperstown in 2007 and 2008, and then he became ill in early 2009 and passed away in December 2009. I took me until 2014 to be able to get back to Cooperstown’s HOF Induction weekend, but I have gone the past three years…just me, and I like to think my Dad is with me there.
I still have all of my pre-1980 baseball cards that I bought with my Dad, and any Don Mattingly cards I collected in the 80s and 90s, but now I concentrate on autographs of baseball HOFers….primarily on baseballs.
Whew….long story. Do you regret asking?
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