1982 Fleer : The Wax Box Force Awakens

 You always remember your first time…or something like that.

Yes, as I wrote last week,1980 Topps Baseball Cards will go down in my personal history, my lore if you will, as the very first pack of baseball cards that I ever opened. But, folks, as the great Yoda once said, there is another Skywalker. Or other Skywalkers. Really, there’s a whole bunch of Skywalkers that I could deem the first when it comes to baseball cards and their place in my history (I promise not to let J.J. Abrams get his hands on them). That is, except for the baseball card that paid off all of my student loans and made me rich. That card has yet to exist in my meager, rebuilt collection. But I’m not talking about single cards or even random packs of cards here, or my futile fantasies of joining the 1%, sitting in my Xanadu and laughing myself silly as it all burns.  In case you don’t know, and judging by my rambling you probably don’t; I’m talking about wax boxes here. The whole shebang. 36 packs of treasures to be found.

And I’m talking about 1982 fleer here folks. The thick white borders. The band of color framing darkened and blurry, and generally uninteresting looking cards. 

Those powder blue and yellow backs.

That strange looking Jack Morris card that looks like it was taken by someone running past him during warm-ups.

 My least favorite Willie Stargell card that has him either holding up a finger claiming we’re number one, or else had his photo snapped whilst in the middle of pontificating and making some important, vital point (I have a Willie Stargell signing autographs story so my vote is for the former). 

Yes, 1982 Fleer. The very first wax box of baseball cards that I ever opened. And we did it all because of one man. I think you all know who I’m talking about here in 1982. His name goes without saying That’s right…the one…the only…Joe Pettini.

Joe Pettini?

What? A random middle infielder for the San Francisco Giants with 70 career hits in 344 at bats, with a lifetime batting average of .203 not ringing any bells? He has a home run, you know. He even coached.

It was the early spring of 1982, and my family was going on living a year in Wellsburg, WV. As I said last week it wasn’t a really great time for me and my family. But it wasn’t all bad in Wellsburg. The town had a Dairy Queen and indoor plumbing. There was a McDonald’s a mere twenty miles from our home. It was the first time that I saw adults in overalls before the early 90s. I learned some stuff about the Second Amendment. I can always say I’ve lived in something called a panhandle. Steubenville, Ohio was a rickety bridge away. Wellsburg, WV was the first time I played organized baseball. Tee ball to be exact. I made some friends playing ball. One of them was Jimmy White.

Jimmy White and I were teammates on the Braves, a team whose color scheme was a very un-Braves like white and orange. Jimmy played 2^nd base, and the coaches humored me by letting this lefty play catcher. No harm in letting a left-hander play catcher when the ball rested on a tee.

Peace to Ed Ott.

…not a lefty…but the reason I wanted to catch.

Jimmy was the only kid I knew who was into baseball cards, like I was, as well as playing the actual sport. But for Jimmy it was more than just sport or hobby collecting. He was connected to the game of Major League Baseball by blood. Jimmy had a second cousin who was a platoon middle infielder for the San Francisco Giants. Enter Joe Pettini into the mix. In that spring of 1982, Jimmy invited me over to his grandmother’s house to open baseball cards, and hunt for Joe’s card while we were at it.

This was also my first time in Jimmy’s Grandmother’s house. I’d been to Jimmy’s house on several occasions, and even had a sleep over where we watched the horror farce, Saturday the 14^th (For all of you Richard Benjamin and remaining Jeffrey Tambor fans look it up and give it a go). So, I wasn’t one of those kids who had to go home from slumber party in the middle of the night. But I wouldn’t say I was a comfortable kid. It took me a while to get adjusted around strange people and strange surroundings. It still does. Hence my preference for being alone.

Jimmy’s grandmother’s house was…grandmotherly? I remember a lot of checkerboard patterns and lace. It wasn’t like my grandma’s house back in Pittsburgh, that was for sure. There was nary a calendar covered in old lottery numbers, or a can of beer to be found. His grandma’s house was nice. But what were we doing in some geriatric’s home opening baseball cards? Right…Joe Pettini.

Jimmy’s Grandmother lead us into kitchen that had a small table set against a wall, with a warm, orange light hanging over it. There was a box resting in the center of the table. An entire box of baseball cards. Not just the two or three packs that I thought we were going to open in Jimmy’s bedroom, where most of our card adventures happened. This experience was going to be something different. Something completely new.

And I didn’t know baseball cards were something you could buy in box form. In 1982 I’d had yet to take my first foray into any kind of hobby shop. Baseball cards were something you found in supermarkets or mom and pop or chain pharmacies. Baseball cards loitered in five and dimes and corner stores. Usually with the candy. I never bought a whole box of Milky Way candy bars when I was in a store. Although I would if I could. Why would I be able to buy a whole box of baseball cards? Capitalism confused and confounded me. Perhaps if I were raised by members of the 1% I would’ve understood this 36-pack bounty much more than my almost eight-year-old mind could.

Grandmother opened the box revealing the packs. She pulled out two stacks for Jimmy to open, and then set two stacks before me. Mine? Grandmother…all mine? Was this capitalism at work or socialism? Was I to open and keep the cards? I looked over at Jimmy. He had no question as to what economic system we were opening these 1982 Fleer cards under. Best to be autonomous in his view, I supposed. Jimmy had already gotten to ripping packs, while I sat there and stared. I’d never seen so many baseball cards in one sitting. His grandmother finally smiled at me like, what are you doing kid? The world is your oyster. I shook myself out of the haze that I was in, and started ripping packs too.

But I wasn’t completely clear-headed in my pursuit. Why were we there ripping open an entire 36-pack wax box of 1982 baseball cards again? (Joe Pettini, stupid) Why we were surrounded by the wondrous Christmas bounty of baseball cards at all? (Joe Pettini) And Fleer cards at that. I hadn’t yet seen the 1982 style of Fleer Cards. I opened the packs slowly, taking the time to look over the fronts and the backs, like I was examining precious jewels.

Who were we looking for again? Some dumb cousin? Joe somebody or other? I couldn’t remember him or his name. I started pulling out the players that I recognized. Fernando. Steve Garvey. Reggie. They went in one stack. Anything Pittsburgh Pirates went into another stack. I had no clue, as a seven-year-old in 1982, about anyone called Cal Ripken Jr. 

I knew nothing about the intrinsic value and holy specter that loomed over that rookie card. If I pulled a Cal Ripken Jr., the world would never know. And he probably ended up in the third stack that I had going, full of all of the randos that had no special place in my heart.

            Eventually I felt a kindly hand on my shoulder. Pulled out of my revelry, I looked up to see Jimmy’s grandmother, back in the kitchen, smiling at me in that kindly condescending way that people had for the village idiot.

“Did you find Joe’s card, dear? she said.

“I…” I held up my Pittsburgh Pirates stack just like I’d followed the assignment to the letter. I wad a proud type of ignorant. “Joe? Joe?”

Grandmother looked at the stacks I had. Star players in one stack. Pirates in another in my grubby hand. That loose confederacy of randos and cards that I didn’t care about in a third pile. Jimmy’s grandmother kindly stopped me from going to rip the next pack. She reminded me we were looking for Joe’s card. Joe Pettini. I nodded zombie-like, yeah, sure, Joe, and went back to my new life’s goal of opening as much 1982 Fleer as I could. When she saw that she wasn’t dealing with someone sane or reasonable, but a ravenous, slobbering kid who’d briefly been given the keys to the baseball castle, she smiled again, left me with my Pirates and stars and packs, took the third pile of random cards I’d set aside, and began looking for blessed Joe’s card herself, over on the kitchen sink counter.

By the end of the afternoon I don’t even remember who found Joe Pettini’s card. If we even found his card at all. Or if grandmother or Jimmy had that glowing moment of holding the ephemera of their relative up to that orange kitchen light, basking in his mediocre glow. I kid. Remember there are no common cards. As a forty-six-year-old man I’d kill to have once played parts of four seasons for the Giants, and batted .203. All I remember strongly of that afternoon is that Jimmy’s grandmother let me keep the Pirates cards. And to me that was satisfactory enough.

            But because of that afternoon I will always remember Joe Pettini. Whenever I see someone ripping cards from the early 1980s on YouTube, etc, and they brush by a Pettini card in search of a big rookie, I get a rush of excitement. I point at the screen and say, look it’s Joe, he pulled Joe! Like the ripper was pulling a Rickey Henderson or Cal Ripken Jr. I remember that day back in the early spring of 1982 in Wellsburg, Wv, as one of the fun moments in a tumultuous year. A small thrill for a kid in desperate need of one. It would be another five years before I got that thrill of opening a wax box of cards once again. Thanks, Jimmy. Thanks, Gram. Thanks, Joe.

 

Thanks for reading. Happy collecting...and I hope your holiday was happy and that you kept yourself and others safe

If you want to read more about Joe Pettini you can do so

HERE

or check out his stats HERE

Joe is also a member of the Ohio Valley Conference Hall of Fame

And there's an amusing article on his 1981 Topps Card that you can find HERE

Consider ME a brand-new but wisened Joe Pettini collector! feel free to DM me and send me any Joe Pettini cards that you have!

 

Next Friday:  I'm going to write about why a 1972 George Foster card became a point of contention and ended a dear friendship of mine.

 

--JG

 

1980: The Beginning of an Era for Me....But the End of One for Topps

What’s that old joke? How do you make God laugh? Make a plan.

            I can’t remember where I heard it. From a movie, I think. But it’s fitting this week, because while I had planned to skip on the memories and write a post about two of the local card stores that I frequent (as much as one can frequent anything this year), my plans fell through for one simple reason: Covid-19. Let’s just say there were precautionary issues with both places. Since I’m not in the business of getting a virus and possibly dying, I abstained from entering either establishment. That said, your loss is also my loss. You don’t get an essay on two card stores, and I didn’t get to purchase the much need supplies (and yes, fine, some 1988 score rack packs for 50 cents apiece) that I much needed.

            Instead you get to sit back and read as I reminisce on 1980 Topps baseball cards. The end of an era for the Topps Corporation, but the beginning of one for me.

            Was it my grandma or my dad who bought me my very first pack of baseball cards in 1980? The memory is fuzzy. For lineage purposes I want to say it was my old man. He’d given me the sport of baseball. He’d taken me to my first live Pirates game in the spring of 1980. Why not be the one who bestowed baseball cards on me as well?

But other than coins, my dad wasn’t a card collector. He had no slightly used cards from the collection of his youth to pass along to little old me, once I caught the collecting bug. And he was never much interested in baseball cards those years that I was in the heat of collecting. But the bank he worked in on Butler Street was across an alley from the five and dime where that inaugural pack of cards was bought. It could’ve been him. My mom, brother and me picking him up after work, as we were a one-car family, and a barely running car at that. The old man needed a pack of smokes. Hey, why not grab a 25-cent pack of baseball cards for the kid?

            More logically it was probably my grandma. She watched us from time to time as kids. We lived a block away from each other, at the time, in the Lawrenceville section of Pittsburgh. My grandma frequented that five and dime for her daily lottery and smokes. It seems reasonable that I would’ve gone in there with her. More reasonable that I spied that royal blue pack of cards amidst the candy and gum, the big baseball front in center with the words BASEBALL written across it in bold black. An Adam West Batman power BOOM! of yellow in the right-hand corner advertising 15 cards inside! The smaller writing in white on the left informing this budding reader that there was also to be one stick of gum tucked somewhere in the package.

            Like this here:

Baseball cards? What were baseball cards? It seemed prophetic that I would pick something called baseball cards over the usual candies my grandma would get for me on these trips. As I remember it, it was a late sunny afternoon. My memories of living in the city of Pittsburgh are always bathed in a warmth. The way a summer afternoon of cloudless blue skies looks as it begins to bend toward the evening. Kids playing in the field at Arsenal Middle School. Samantha racing up to the fence when she saw me, excited, even though we shared the same concrete, communal backyard of yellow-bricked Denny Street row houses. My grandma calling her my girlfriend to our mutual embarrassment. She’s a girl and she’s your friend, grandma had to clarify. Me a six-year-old kid in a microcosm of city that smelled like car exhaust, the greasy spoon of fries and burgers being cooked up at the Eat’n’Park, and the faint wafts of brewing beer from the Pittsburgh Brewing Company where my grandpap and uncle both worked.

But baseball cards. My mind’s eye remembers my small hands shuffling through the cards as we walked. That bright, alluring package most likely discarded along the sidewalk, it being a few years before Pittsburgh pride would be picking up in a big marketing push. I remember little of that initial pack other than I wanted more. And that I got my second most favorite player in the whole world.

            This guy:

To look at him Ed Ott was your average, stocky, mostly-platoon catcher with a little but not a lot of pop in his bat. A member of the 1979 world series Pittsburgh Pirates team, on his last year in Pittsburgh in 1980, with only one year of pro ball left in him out in Anaheim. A career .259 hitter remembered by only the most diehard of fans. But I loved him. After Willie Stargell he was my favorite Pirate. He made this left-hander want to be a catcher in 1980 the way that Johnny Ray would make this left-hander want to be a second baseman only a year or so later. I played both positions and was good at neither, eventually succumbing to the usual lefty spots at first base or out in right field. For years I cursed my left-handedness in the way that I cursed Pirate games when Steve Nicosia played instead of Ed Ott.

            But there he was in my very first pack of baseball cards ever. 1980 Topps. The white borders, the small pennant at the top left listing the player’s position. The big pennant on the bottom right listing the team name. The big, colorful photos of the players with that faux signature on the card. 1980 didn’t need no All-Star cards. They slapped that honor right on the regular players’ card. I actually preferred when Topps did that. The blue and black backs that really did it for me.

            A rookie card of this guy!!

            Although I’d be hapy to have one of his:

To me, the 1980 set of Topps baseball cards is a classic. One of my favorite sets of all-time. I tend to gravitate to that set more than any others. There’s a golden aura around that set for me. When I got back into collecting in the summer of 2019, the old-time players that I decided to start collecting again, if they had a 1980 Topps card, they were among my first purchases

Some collectors don’t like 1980 Topps. Some see it as another set during a drab, lull period for Topps, that went from 1979 to around 1983. With the Rickey Henderson card one can make the small argument that 1980 was the moment the rookie card become the thing to collect (although more likely it was in 1983 or 1984 with the arrival of Don Mattingly cards). That may all be so. And the great thing about collecting is the diverse and varied opinions of collectors. What attracts you and what doesn’t. As I said I love 1980 Topps. I plan on building the whole 726-card set very soon, or whenever I figure out how Ebay works. Maybe it’s for sentimental reasons that I love the set. 1980 Topps being my first pack and all. My first experience with baseball cards. You never forget your first time, right? Maybe it’s the time and place that does it for me too.

1980 would be my last year living in the city of Pittsburgh. A year later my family would be living in Wellsburg, West Virginia, a place that was less than an hour away but seemed the world away from everything I knew. I was unhappy. I felt alone even among other kids. My nickname is Jay, but the principal at the Catholic school made everyone call me John. The people in Wellsburg seemed nice…but we were city slickers to them. Some inbred shot my dog, but thankfully only in the leg.

I began the kid version of binge-eating to cover the lonesomeness and anxiety. In Wellsburg, I got fat. I developed what would become a lifelong issue and obsession with my weight. My family would move back to the Pittsburgh area in 1982. But it was to the suburbs instead. No more walks along Butler Street in the summer sun. No more sights. No more smell of brewing beer or burgers. No Samantha racing toward me from the green fields at Arsenal Middle School. No packs of cards from the five and dime.

So, if 1980 Topps feels like a beginning for me, I guess it also feels like an ending in ways. 1980 was an ending for the Topps corporation though, at least in terms of being the only kid on the block. Here’s the short of the situation: The Fleer corporation had been trying to make inroads into the world of card collecting as far back as the early 1960s, even producing a small set in 1963 until Topps sued and had it blocked. After various other attempts throughout the 60s, the Fleer corporation finally sued the Topps corporation and the Major League Baseball Players Association to try and end this monopoly.

In 1980 a judge ruled in Fleer’s favor, ending Topps’ one company reign and forcing the MLBPA to issue license to other card manufacturers, thus giving the world the shaky starts of both the Fleer and Donruss brands in 1981. 

More lawsuits followed over gum and stickers, the ruling was actually overturned, but that didn’t matter. Topps’ control had officially ended. By 1989 the collecting world would have five major sports card brands out there competing. In 2010 Topps once again became the sole manufacturer of officially licensed baseball cards. And, man, do I miss the competition.

But back then…all a kid wanted was his cards. I didn’t care who was making them!

 

Thanks for reading. Happy collecting.

 

*The Quote that I mentioned at the beginning on this essay IS from a movie. First though I believe it came from a joke by Woody Allen. “I believe in the old Yiddish proverb, We Plan, God Laughs. Where I remember it from is from Noah Baumbach’s excellent 1995 movie, Kicking and Screaming. The quote is said by a bartender by the name of Chet (played by Eric Stoltz) who uses the quote as advice to another character.

If you want to learn more about the Fleer/Topps Lawsuit  Here are couple of links:

 THIS

Or THIS

Matt Sammon's EXCELLENT podcast Wax Ecstatic goes into detail on the Topps vs Fleer litigation in

episode 93's discussion on 1980 Topps Baseball Cards. If you don't have iTunes or Spotify, you can find the episode right HERE

 

Next Friday:  I’m going to TRY and hit up those card stores and have an essay on them. But cases are spiking here, and some people just don’t want to be a part of the solution…so we’ll see. Otherwise it’ll be another trip down memory lane.

 

--JG

Where have you gone 1986? A ode to Topps, Fleer and Donruss...but not Sportflics.

 

Dimitri Danielopoulos stood there on my front porch, like a shroud, clad in his gray hoodie, his mess of curly hair matted down by the hood, the droplets of an early winter rain making darker spots on his clothing, holding a small stack of 1986 Topps cards, carefully wrapped in tight sandwich plastic, in his hands.

            How had he gotten them? 1986 baseball cards were brand new. They were spoken about but not seen. The Topps ones had yet to hit the shelves at the Thrift Drug; the Thrift Drug that continued to keep Football cards on their shelves like museum relics of the previous fall. What did we want with Football cards at that point? The Steelers had gone 7-9 that season, a lowly third place in the old AFC Central Division. It was time to move on. It was time for all of us to move on…to baseball. Not that the coming 1986 season for the Pittsburgh Pirates gave us anything to be hopeful about, even with the promise of a new manager in Jim Leyland, and the lurking specter of a young and almost ready for prime-time Barry Bonds. The Pirates were still going to suck in 1986. But the cards wouldn’t. They never failed us.

            Dimitri (D) was somewhat of an interloper with us kids. Someone we were still feeling out. In the years before he’d been an enemy of sorts. The one rich kid on Pennoak Drive and Pennoak Manor (my little dead end cul de sac offshoot street), who lived in a big home at the end of the block, instead of inside the duplex homes that the rest of us called home. D was the bad boy who’d chosen to hang out with the ruffians on Dauntless Street, rather than us, his street-mates. The kid with the TP and silly string on Devil’s night. A short speedster who helped Dauntless beat us at wiffle ball and Nerf football; the kid always forever in my memory making a high jump rounding our makeshift third base, the wiffle ball just missing him and sailing into the Fanello’s yard, to score the winning run.

Then D suddenly dropped his so-called hoodlum friends, and started hanging more with us. Who knew why? Some said it was his mom who made him straighten out. Some said D did it on his own. Regardless, he started showing up to play ball with our crew, or showing up at our home unannounced with cards or just to hang out. He became our fast weapon rounding the bases. The little guy no one defended on third and long, ripe for a Hail Mary, if the ball didn’t get caught in the trees. But parents were still skeptical of him. D was bad news. That had been their initial impression. Stay away from him. And we did and we didn’t for as long as we could. But kids in my neighborhood were slaves to two things: sports and sports cards.

D was awash in baseball cards. He had a collection of cards dating from the mid-60s to late 70s that rendered us other kids speechless. Clemente, Mays, Aaron. He had them all from that golden era. D had Mickey Mantle cards for Christ’s sake. What thirteen-year-old kid had Mickey Mantle cards in 1986? D did. And he always seemed to get the new cards first. He’d done so in 1985, so it was no surprise that he was standing at my door accomplishing that same feat in 1986. Not only did D’s family have money, he had an older brother who’d given D all of his baseball cards, the Mays, the Mickeys, et al, thus making him the Richie Rich of our card world.

And D had a hot seventeen-year-old sister, Annas. Long, black hair; olive-colored Mediterranean skin; infectious smile When Annas wasn’t spending her summer’s sunbathing in the yard, awakening the beast in us boys, she seemed to always be willing to drive her pampered little brother out to the card shops that littered the further suburbs. In an effort to prove his salt in the neighborhood, D invited some of us along. But there was no way in hell that my parents were letting eleven (almost twelve) year old me get in a car with a thirteen-year-old, a still untrustworthy one at that, and his sixteen-year-old sister, to go galivanting out to a card shop in a strip mall. Where I saw a bounty of new cards, my parents saw car accidents and my untimely death.

So I waited. On the chain drug stores to drag their lazy asses in putting the new cards on the shelves, or for D to show up at my door like he’d done that particular rainy, winter day. As I remember it, we went straight up to my room; me, D and my brother trailing. I remember D unwrapping the cards from the plastic, handing them to me, the edge in his voice warning to be careful, even though whatever he was bringing my way were probably triples, doubles at best, of what he already had stashed at home.

1986 Topps! Finally! And in my grubby hands! Going through the cards I was stuck by the black and white borders. A black border! Like 1971 Topps…only not really. But 1971 Topps was mythical, and when trading we always seemed to want someone’s cards from that year. Ah, but 1986 Topps. The bold, sharp, colorful team names across the top of the cards. The little circle in the left corner that told the player’s position. Names written in bold black ink on the bottom. That red, black and gray cardstock back to the card. A sharp card. No gimmicks. 1986 Topps were the best-looking cards I’d ever seen, I thought to myself. But didn’t I say that every year? In the recent past, hadn’t there been a rosy-faced, cherubic ten soon-to-be eleven-year-old gushing over 1985 Topps in that same way?

I especially wanted this card:

Say what you will about Vince Coleman now. The attitude. The downfall in New York. The infamous firecracker. But at the start of the 1986 season he was the coolest ballplayer to me, the heir apparent to the base stealing of Rickey Henderson. Sure, he’d had a card in the 1985 Traded Set. But I was always a base set man.

D knew what he was doing in bringing those 1986 Topps cards to my home. He knew how deficient and needy I was. An easy mark when met with something new and shiny. I was like that crow in the Secret of NIMH, hunting for the sparkly

D knew he could walk out of my room having bilked me out of a few cards that he wanted (It surprised me that I even HAD cards that he wanted), for a small stack of commons and minor stars that I’d have ten times over by June, simply because they were hot off the press. And he was right. I’d trade away value for the new, and D would leave my home contented and grinning. I’d have bragging rights at school for a week or so. Then the new cards would be on the shelves everywhere, and I’d be doing nothing but cursing him under my breath while counting my losses.

1986 seemed to be the year where cards exploded at home and at school. Everyone seemed to be collecting. It wasn’t just us geeks who traded cards and baseball stickers at recess. Now kids who didn’t look like they collected at all had cards. The jocks had cards. Not content with monopolizing sports and gym, and the budding affections of twelve-year-old girls, these guys has to muscle in on our territory with their stacks of cards and binders. We all carried card binders. Budding capitalists with small portfolios of our best cards to show off our worth. Even Rick Glavin, who was a burn-out bully before we really knew who burn-outs were (he had longish hair, listened to metal), brought in a stack of cards to trade via fist on face coercion. We traded wherever and whenever. It seemed like almost daily one of us kids were getting our cards taken away by an annoyed and exasperated teacher, during a secret trade in English or Math class.

While I preferred Topps, I didn’t even think it was the best set of that year, once I got an eyeful (via D of course) of what Donruss and Fleer were doing. Topps had no Jose Canseco rookie card in their base 792 card set. Ah, the blessed ever-loving Donruss Jose Canseco card! The cardboard gold that turned us all into rank capitalists that year…if you could pull one or afford one raw at a flea market or card show. And if you could you were the man.

1986 Donruss was…okay. It had that slanted, blue border design with those millions of lines. I’d give it a very close third place. But for my money it would’ve been Fleer that had the best-looking card that year. Fleer with its thick, navy blue borders, fat team logos and big swath of color encasing the player’s name in position. Even the yellow, black and white backs were sharp. They were Pittsburgh Pirate colored! They had a Jose Canseco rookie card in their set too, if you didn’t mind him sharing it with Eric Plunk.

That was if you could even get Fleer or Donruss cards in my neighborhood. In 1986 the usual card buying route of Thrift Drug (Topps), Revco (Fleer) and Statlander Pharmacy (Donruss) had done us dirty in what they’d ordered for the 1986 season. Thrift still carried Topps, but Revco and Statlander had betrayed and abandoned us with the other two brands. They carried Topps as well now. Was this a conspiracy? What had once been a free-flowing capitalist market for cards had suddenly turned into a monopoly by one brand. Okay, one normal brand.

They all also carried Sportflics. Goddamned Sportflics. 

I hated Sportflics with a passion unparalleled. I hated Sportflics as I hated all Montagues. Sportflics with its head shots of the players morphing into wannabe in-motion shots, when you tilted the card. The trick hardly worked. Plus, you couldn’t really see a Sportflics image so well outside in the light of day, where so many of us kids were forced to do our business by parents who claimed being outdoors was somehow beneficial to us. Sportflics with its weird, cushiony backs to the cards. Sportflics that sat there on the shelves at Revco and Stalander where my Fleer and Donruss wax boxes should’ve been.  You know who liked Sportflics? Those news kids who’d just gotten into the hobby that year. They liked Sportflics.

For me, it was to hell with Sportflics. And a plague upon its house! And to hell with Revco and Statlander for selling out their individuality, and becoming another run-of-the-mill shill for The Real One. And I say this as a Topps man. To hell with them for keeping me from getting that Canseco rookie card. Either of them.

But good ol’ Dimitri Danielopoulos had the Cansecos. He had doubles…of both the Fleer and the Donruss rookie card. That greedy little monster with his hot sister and her license to drive! It took me until Christmas and a gift of the now-classic 1986 Topps Traded set to get my first Canseco rookie card. 

But by then it was to hell with Jose Canseco. There was a new sheriff in town vying for my affection.

 

As well as these guys

I didn’t fail at getting the Fleer or Donruss Canseco without trying. Sometimes the world leaves a desperate and focused child no choice. It was later in the summer, back when there was an actual August cool that could turn one’s attention from the laziness of days free to the eventual workman-like vibe of the coming fall. School would be starting (a week earlier for us Catholic kids), and we’d already replaced the wiffle balls with the Nerf footballs. The shelves at the Thirft drug had evolved from baseball to the 1986 Topps football cards sitting on its shelf. The times they were a’changing.

I was hanging out at D’s house, looking through cards, as usual. Annas was there somewhere, inside, because it was too cool to sunbathe. D brought up going to this card store he went to deeper in the suburbs. TNT Collectibles it was called. Hell, I still remember the store’s front sign that used Roberto Clemente’s profile photo from his 1955 Topps card. He asked me if I wanted to go. He had to know what my answer would be. It would be the same as always. No. Or I wasn’t allowed. But D was slicker than I was. He said we’d be gone maybe an hour or so. And wasn’t I given permission to be at his house all day? What was one hour out of the whole day? After all of that denial that had stunted me, I couldn’t argue with that logic.

It was the coolest ride of my life, heading out to TNT. We weren’t going anywhere I hadn’t been before. But the path seemed different under my newly defiant eyes. Route 22 seemed wider, more open and welcoming. D sat up front with Annas and I sat in the back. She played Top 40 radio, unlike the radio in my car set to WWWS and the oldies from the 1950s and 60s. We sang along to Steve Winwood. Higher Love was a huge hit that summer and seemed to always be playing. Annas stuck her arm out the driver’s side window, and let it wave in the breeze. The breeze that sent her perfume wafting back to me. When we pulled into the lot at TNT, she opened up a pack of cigarettes, lit herself a smoke, and told us boys to have fun.

TNT was the first time that I’d ever been in a collectibles shop that was solely framed around sports cards and sports card memorabilia. It was a small store front; three display cases and shelving behind that held countless boxes of cards. There were game used bats resting on slats, and old Pirates and Steelers pennants tacked to the walls. They had game used jerseys in frames. One that was worn by Terry Bradshaw. One that was worn by Dave Parker. The price tags on the items was beyond any money I’d ever see for a long time.

D went looking through the bins of start cards while I continued to be starstruck. I had to shake myself out of it. This was heaven. This was Mecca. I could die in TNT and be eternally at peaceful rest. In the distance on the shelves sat those long-sought after packs of 1986 Fleer and Donruss. The Canseco would be my destiny. I need only ask the suspicious looking gentleman smoking a cigarette and watching afternoon game shows on a small color TV. Then it all would be mine. Victory! Glory! Triumph! Not having to settle for a pack of goddamned Sportflics! TNT collectibles would be my shining moment. My Xanadu, my…Noooooooooooooooooo…

….in all of my excitement…I forgot to run home and bring any money with me.

            Skunked again as they say.

Lastly...on Wednesday Night I was invited and appeared on the sports card podcast, About the Cards, to discuss the essay about returning to collecting that I'd written for Kristofer Collins' Pittsburgh Book Review. You here see the podcast HERE. It was a wonferful experience and I was thankful for the opportunity. Hosts Tim Shepler, Stephan Loeffler and Ben Wilson do About the Cards every Wednesday at 8PM PST (10 Central). All three hosts are a class act, and they made this guy feel very welcome beforehand and during the show. If I can describe About the Cards it's like sitting back with your well-informed buddies and discussing sports and the hobby of sports card collecting. Thank you gentlemen once again.

 

Thanks for reading. Happy collecting.

 

Next Friday:  I’m going to take a small break from the childhood stories (have to preserve them), to take a look at the few places I go to locally to buy cards, in the wake of there not being many card stores left. And maybe I’ll show you what I bought.

 

--JG