My day and a half at The National

[RTK]

One slight trick is buying your ticket over your phone, which I did on Friday as I was standing in the lobby. It may save some time standing in a line. The Covid elephant... I'm fully vaccinated and wore a mask the whole time I was there Friday. Considering many of the attendees are from all over the country has me a bit worried to be honest. I mentioned the crowd size to one vendor and he agreed it was much larger than previous Friday crowds...it actually seemed more chaotic to me and I had enough of it after six hours.

I'm not a set collector, nor a graded card geek. I did pick up a handful of '57 Topps, nothing special, just cards that make you feel like you're 10 years old again. The guys with a list and a plan seem to have the easiest time. Wandering through the tables is like a corn maze, you don't know which way to turn and become easily distracted by cool stuff. My little plan was negro league player autographed balls. I ended up with Double Duty and Buck O'Neil. I tend to gravitate to ephemera, like tickets - I did pick up a 67 Fenway WS ticket and a '41 Ebbets Field Game 4 ticket, as well as a 1939 Indy 500 program and a 1974 NHL All Star Game program. I had my eye on a 1928 WS ticket and scorecard but I'll be damned if I could locate it after I had passed by it earlier....someone may have bought it. One day was enough for me, 'til next time.