[MattyC]

Too many times to count.

As for many, the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle seemed like it only existed in a dream. The first one I ever held or saw in person was one bought as an adult. It gave me chills and thrills that the card continues to give me to this day. I stare at it for long periods, and it does what I imagine Xanax is intended to do.

The Babe Ruth Rookie and Lou Gehrig Rookie do the same for me, but less for any magic lingering from childhood, as I didn't learn of them until many years later; rather, they mesmerize because of their significance to the sport, their age, their subject images, the near 100-year journeys through time that such a card must have taken to wind up in my hand-- depicting the game's best players, the cards must have been handled and beloved by all hands they passed through before mine. I hold the 1933 Goudey Ruths and the 1933 & 1934 Gehrig in nearly the same regard, and enjoy them in hand almost as much.

A child of the 80's, 1984 Mattinglys, Goodens, and Strawberrys will always send me in a trance back to days when smashing homers and scorching line drives in schoolyards or streets or little league fields was all I cared about, alongside baseball and cards-- as opposed to all the annoyances and malaise of adult life.
I enjoy images of these cards and others several times a day. As the old saying goes: they soothe the savage beast.