As my screen name implies, it was 1962 for me. I saw that bright green wrapper on a trip to the Glaser drug store (next to the A&P where the following year I searched through Jello boxes looking for Cardinals while my Mom did the weekly grocery shopping) and a lifelong passion was born. Just a few 5-cent packs of 6th series that year before they suddenly disappeared. 1963 saw a few more purchases but in 1964 all my friends collected cards and we had lots of front porch trading sessions. Cardinals were highly coveted. Mantle for Javier - sure. We continued buying packs for the next few years using cash from soda bottle returns pulled in a wagon to the A&P. The Glaser store charged five cents a pack but the nearby Ben Franklin Five and Dime gave you six packs for a quarter. In 1967 the sixth series was nowhere to be found so we just kept buying seventh series packs hoping the sixth would show up. Another Brooks Robinson? Oh well, into the Orioles stack. By 1968 many of us started umpiring, which paid really well. Now we could afford boxes of packs. A box of 24 packs cost $1.00 plus three cents tax. My friend John got an entire series out of one of those '68 boxes and I was so jealous. The fact that the Cardinals were successful during those early collecting years really added to the fun. I'll never forget the feeling of seeing that 1965 Cards Celebrate World Series card. As Tom Stanton wrote in The Road to Cooperstown, baseball's appeal is about holding on to a piece of your childhood. That's why I still collect today . . . with my grandkids.
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