Share a great hobby story

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

With all the negativity currently dominating the boards (and understandably so) I thought it might be a good time to share a feel-good hobby story. It would be great if it highlights someone in the hobby positively like a dealer, or fellow collector, but any happy story will do.

I'll start with how I got into the hobby.

In 1981 my older brother was having his tonsils out and I was at H & L Greens looking to buy him something for his hospital stay. I wound up seeing baseball cards (somehow for the first time) and bought him 2 1981 Topps Rack Packs.

We were the last generation that played with our cards and we were both hooked. We played Flip, Knock Down the Leaner and other games. We also invented baseball games based on the statistics on the back of the cards.

For whatever reason our first packs seemed very Royals heavy and I remember several of their players making our All-Pro (that's what we called it) team. This was denoted by writing "AP" in black crayon on the back.

Our cards went through a lot of the regular child hood purges but somehow we managed to hold onto 1 card up until only a few years ago. When I moved in with my future wife I somehow lost track of the George Brett "AP" card. I don't know how, but I did. It had heavily rounded corners, tons of surface wear and, of course, the crayon "AP" designation on the back. Still if someone somehow stumbled across that card I'd pay more than the PSA 10 price for the same card to have it back. don't try and make one, I know that card like the back of my hand!

Why is a story about losing a card positive? because when I tell it I can still recapture the feeling of opening those first two packs with my brother; the feeling of learning how to fling cards around from my dad; the games we created, and the players we developed a love for based on those games. That little piece of cardboard is so powerful that THINKING about it can bring me back almost 40 years.

Your turn!

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

OK, maybe "great" is too strong a criterion. How about a merely good story?

[Leon]

Our power went out last night, I went to bed and when I got up it was back on. That is a good story.

Many years ago I had a D304 sent to me in a plain white envelope inside a bubble mailer. Somehow it came out of the bubble mailer and fell on the street outside of my work. Someone brought it in, it was in the envelope with no writing on it and a car tire track was on it from being run over. The card was undamaged.

[mikemb]

I was never a fan of Brooks Robinson, the 3rd baseman for the Baltimore Orioles in the 1960s and 1970s.

Don't get me wrong, he was a fabulous player who is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. But he played for the Orioles, who were a rival of my team, the New York Yankees.

My opinion changed in 1972.

There was a baseball card show at Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey, about a 45 minute drive from my house. The show was in late fall of 1972. Since I was only 15 years old, my dad drove me there and my mom also came along.

I was working 4 hours every Sunday morning at the local stationery/newspaper store bringing in the Sunday papers and assembling them. At $2.00 an hour, I had saved some big bucks to spend on cards.

Anyway, Brooks Robinson was signing items that day so I brought my 1968 Topps card of him to get autographed. Back then, autographs were free and there were not long lines to get your items signed. I looked around for a while and then got in line for his autograph since the line was short, only about 10 people. My mom tagged along with me.

When my turn came, he stuck out his hand to shake mine and asked me what my name was. We chatted a while and then I introduced my mom. She was excited to shake his hand. After some more chatting, my mom asked him if his ring was one of his World Series rings. He said yes, it was his ring from the 1970 World Series. He then took off the ring and gave it to my mom to try on. Mom took the ring and tried to try it on but it was huge! She finally got it on her finger and we both admired it. Mom gave him back the ring and we both thanked him.

What a class act! Brooks took time to talk with us, not just sign my card and move on. I watched the rest of his career in a different light. I even got the chance to see him play a few times at Yankee Stadium.

Here is my card from that day over 45 years ago.

[Chris Counts]

My favorite hobby story is my first. Back in the days when moms could let their kids run wild through the neighborhood, mine handed me a few coins one afternoon in the spring of 1970 when I was 9, and sent me on a walk to the nearest grocery store to get her some broccoli. It was a Lucky supermarket, and just inside the door there was a counter with candy. As I walked past it, my eyes were drawn to a box of baseball cards. I have no recollection of even caring the slightest for the game at the time. My friends and I were actually more interested in bugs and astronauts than sports. But as I passed that box, I found myself drawn to it. Before I really knew what I had done, I spent all my coins on baseball cards. I'll never forget pealing open the first pack of 1970 Topps cards. I can't recall the players in the pack, but it contained a poster of Ollie Brown.

As I walked home with my cards and poster, my dad drove by in the family station wagon on his way home from work. He rolled up beside me, smiled, and asked what I was doing. I told him I was sent to the grocery store for broccoli, but spent the money on baseball cards. He didn't seem upset in the least, and drove me back to the grocery store, where he bought the broccoli — and some more baseball cards. My next pack had a Willie Davis poster in it. It took me a little while before I figured out he wasn't Willie Mays, but I didn't care. I also didn't care about bugs or astronauts anymore. Before long, I was knocking on doors in my neighborhood and asking, "Hi, do you have any old baseball cards lying around?" After picking up a 1968 Mantle at a garage sale for a penny, the chase was on — and i guess it still is.

[Mike D.]

Not sure I'd call it a "great" or "good" story, because it came out of a pretty sad event...a fire at the 200+ year old farmhouse where I grew up, in the early morning hours of Super Bowl Sunday about a year and a half ago.

Scary stuff, but thank goodness everyone got out OK, although the house had to be torn down. My parents moved into their new house a week shy of a year after the fire.

The day after the fire, my brother, my father, and I went back to the house to see what could be saved.

At one point I'm walking through the dining room, which was one of the rooms that was not as badly damaged, except for areas of the ceiling that were damaged (likely by water) and had collapsed.

Flash back roughly 30 years...we have a story in our family about the day my brother dropped a Wade Boggs baseball card in our room (directly above the dining room) and the card had slipped right through a tiny crack between the floorboards. Thousand to one shot.

Flash back to the dining room on the day after the fire. I say to my brother "Hey, you remember that Wade Boggs baseball card you dropped through the floor?"

He replies "Do I? It was a 1987 Fleer Baseball's Best Wade Boggs. He was my favorite player and I was excited to get it. I held it up to show you and it fell."

Me: "Yeah, and dad didn't react well to our request to pull up the floorboards".

Him: "It was a Sunday, and I was so upset mom let me stay home from church."

Me: "Yeah, anyway, it's over there..."

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Not happy, but still somehow great. Feels like my Brett story, except you actually have the card!

[mrmopar]

I posted on this thread and came back to see if there were any other good stories since. I had to find it down on page 3, after all the complaining about scandals, trimming, etc. This is the problem with these forms now, all of them. It's all about controversy and drama. That is what the majority seem to want now. Interesting (at least to me) threads like this wither and die quickly, while investigatory threads about altered cards run for dozens and dozens of pages.

I don't have high hopes this will spark the thread, but giving it a shot.

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

I hear you Curt, but I think throwing light on the dark corners of the hobby IS crucial. Yes the threads have gotten bogged down in lots of irrelevant nonsense, but I'd rather not have my head in the sand pretending it's all OK.

That being said I did also want to use this thread to remind us about how much there is still to love in this hobby, whether it's guys like Al from LOTG, or Brian Dwyer and the gang over at REA, to some local dealer giving away free cards to kids, or someone on the board sending you the last card you needed for a set with no strings attached. We've all, I hope, been touched by moments of generosity, camaraderie and good faith repaid in the hobby and it does my heart good to hear those stories from time to time, especially at times like this.

Thanks for focusing on the positive!

[ALBB]

Frank pepe Pizza... that's one of the best around !

[brian1961]

Originally Posted by mrmopar

I posted on this thread and came back to see if there were any other good stories since. I had to find it down on page 3, after all the complaining about scandals, trimming, etc. This is the problem with these forms now, all of them. It's all about controversy and drama. That is what the majority seem to want now. Interesting (at least to me) threads like this wither and die quickly, while investigatory threads about altered cards run for dozens and dozens of pages.

I don't have high hopes this will spark the thread, but giving it a shot.

Curt, we need guys like you more than ever right now, to balance the hobby boat, so to speak. So, please keep punchin' your threads out for the good, 'CAUSE THERE STILL IS A LOT OF GOOD. --- Brian Powell

[byrone]

Share a great hobby story?

I don't have a great hobby story

I have so many

And that's a good thing.

[Jobu]

Here is one I posted in the thread about the earliest HOFer that people had met. My first National, and I think worth the read:

http://www.net54baseball.com/showpos...7&postcount=72

[mikemb]

Originally Posted by Jobu

Here is one I posted in the thread about the earliest HOFer that people had met. My first National, and I think worth the read:

http://www.net54baseball.com/showpos...7&postcount=72

Thanks! That story made me laugh! Mike

[Leon]

I agree. There is far more good in the hobby than bad. Negative press always gets more coverage than positive press. I have tons of stories but they are best told with beers in hands. (double fisting beers)

I like reading all of them above. Thanks for sharing.

Originally Posted by brian1961

Curt, we need guys like you more than ever right now, to balance the hobby boat, so to speak. So, please keep punchin' your threads out for the good, 'CAUSE THERE STILL IS A LOT OF GOOD. --- Brian Powell

[Exhibitman]

Oh, as far as my father's recollection about Cousin Ray fighting HOFer Barney Ross:



He did!

[Throttlesteer]

When I was in college, I worked for my favorite, local sports card and memorabilia store. Most of my collection was modern (junk wax era), with the exception of a couple cards my neighbor had given me (a 1969 Mantle and Drysdale). My boss was very knowledgeable about vintage cards and used to show me all of the different HOFers in the lots he bought. Once day, I was checking out one of his most recent purchases and saw this bright orange caramel Cy Young card. It immediately caught my eye and I knew I had to have it. Being a college student, I could hardly feed myself. My boss knew I liked the card and wanted me to have it. So, he put it aside and let me make small payments towards it until I could pay it off (I believe it was $250 or so). That E101 Young ended up starting me down the path of building the E101 set and going all-in on pre-war.

I ended up having to sell my E101s for family reasons, but still really appreciate what that Young meant. It's come up for auction a couple of times (I believe a board member currently has it), but I was never able to get it back. It's an SGC 3 and significantly off-center. But, I still love it.

[Jobu]

I was discussing old photos and how I am always a bit sad that there are so many unidentified photos out there because I think of how happy many of them would make people today if they could be returned to living relatives. I know if someone wrote to me with a photo of someone in my family from 100+ years ago I would be pretty thrilled.

That reminded me of the Lancelotti family (post 20) and this thread, so I thought I would bump it to see if anyone else has any other good hobby stories to share.

[todeen]

I remember running around the old wood baseball stadium in the early 1990s at the Billings Mustangs baseball games. The stadium was so beautiful to a 6/7/8 year old. My parents let my sister and me run wherever we wanted. What made it so cool was that the food vendors were all underneath the wooden grandstands. The team store was on right field side and the snow cones and hand spun cotton candy were on the left field side. When something exciting happened the noise was deafening underneath the wood as 1,000 people came to their feet and shouted. Before the games you could go crowd the season ticket holders and get autographs right above the team dugout. In 1994 a pitcher threw a perfect game. I went to the next game with the newspaper article to get signed, and also a team program. Although the pitcher never made it big, Aaron Boone was on that team and I still have those autographs. Today's stadiums are just so boring compared to that old rickety stadium that gave me so much freedom. And I can still remember the Marlboro Man peering over the outfield wall. I don't advocate smoking, but a cowboy in Montana is very symbolic.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

LOL I first read it as the Marlboro man peeing over the outfield wall.

Still anyone who has a similar childhood experience can't help but be taken back by your description, thanks!

[brianp-beme]

A good deed that didn't have to be done needs noting. Recently I sold some various cards to Net54 member Androolius from my BST listings. I accidentally sent him an extra card. He notified me immediately about my mix-up and sent it right on back without waiting for a response.

A small thing, but it is always possible that it would have been weeks or months before I noticed the card was missing.

Just a small reminder that most of us are not half bad...in fact most of us are way more than half good.

Brian

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Kudos Androolius. Lots of great guys on the boards!

[Exhibitman]

My collecting changed immeasurably around 1990 owing to a card show. At one, a fellow had 1948 Leaf cards of Barney Ross and Benny Leonard. I sort of knew that boxing cards existed but seeing these, I was instantly smitten. I bought the pair for a few bucks and took them home to show my father. He looked at the Ross card and said the words that changed my collection forever: “I think my cousin Ray fought him.”

You could have knocked me over with a puff of air.

“Dad,” I said, “if you have a cousin who was a boxer that means I have cousin who was a boxer.”

He then told me about Ray Miller for the first time and I realized that I was related to a world-class athlete, which I would have thought impossible given my athletic performances. At least it gave me a ready answer for when my father asked why I was so pugnacious: it runs in the family.

I later found a cousin in CHI who was a bit of a family boxing historian because her father Bennie Berris was a boxer and close friends with Ray too. We all share a common (at my generation) great-great-grandfather.