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.
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 2nd 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 14th (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
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
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