For me it was 1988. I was seven years old and my mother had just signed me up for my first season of parks & rec little league. For my birthday she got me a Dave Righetti glove and a pack of 1988 Donruss from the corner Exxon station near our house. I pulled a Mattingly card, can't remember which one, but I think it was the all star card. We lived two states away from the closest MLB team and I didn't know anything about anything, but my grandmother told me that he was the best player on the Yankees. So of course I started collecting him and he became my favorite player. I bought a lot of $0.35 packs from that Exxon over the next couple years. I just got rid of my entire childhood collection earlier this year, except for the 100 or so Mattingly cards, still in the same little box that I always kept them in.
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Recovering Relapsed set collector.
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