March Pickups

[jchcollins]

This was the card that first really sparked my interest in "old" star cards as an 11 year-old back in 1988, in the midst of the Mattingly & Canseco soaked hobby that existed at the time. I found it waiting for me at a wonderful place (which is now long gone) called The Red Lantern Hobby Shop at Cotswold Mall in Charlotte, NC. I think with a little begging and after securing a loan of maybe $20 from my mother, I walked out with this card - worse centered than the example I have here, but sharp nonetheless and a speciman that would still have graded a 7 or at least a 6 today.

Flash forward less than a year - the kid down the street comes off the bus one day and says he has a baseball card I absolutely had to see - it turned out to be an totally destroyed (and waterlogged in its toploader to boot...) '65 Mantle #350. You guessed it...within about an hour I had traded my Sandy for the '65 Mantle. At the time I thought I had stumbled on something which surely should have been on display in Cooperstown (remember I was only 11, and at the time Mantle's status in the hobby and as an icon in the USA in general was only somewhat short of a total God...) I don't regret making the trade because it DID get me my first ever original Mantle card, but still - I have had regrets about giving up that nice '66 Koufax off and on - for nearly 30 years now.

Finally made it right with some birthday cash (I'm 38 now ) a couple of weeks ago. What a card! It may have been Sandy's last year, but do remember - his swan song (27-9, 1.73 ERA, 317 K's, his third and final Cy Young award when there was only one given in all of baseball...) is the single finest in baseball history. The stat line on the back showing the record 382 strikeouts in 1965 really stands out, too. In the years since my trade for the battered '65 Mantle, I have gone through other Koufax cards - including a '57 Topps which I still have - but until just a few days ago I had never had another '66. It feels good!