2020 : My Year in Card Collecting

 

I like year-end lists.

I like the finality of them. The end point of a year that people give themselves when compiling these lists to share. Best books of. Best records of. Best films of. My year in. You get the gist. The year-end/Best of lists that people compile allow me to sit back and agree and/or disagree on my own, without somehow insulting one’s tastes.  A lot of these lists allow me find things that I forgot or completely overlooked during the course of my own year. A book I might’ve forgotten. An album that I knew nothing about. Lists for movies, especially this year, are big for me. Everything film-wise that came out in 2020 was essentially lost on me thanks to this goddamned plague. Christ, how I miss going to the movies.

I thought about those lists in terms of card collecting, i.e. making a best of list or a my year in list. 2020, for as shitty as it was, was actually my first full year back into card collecting since 1992. What would a best-of/year-in essay mean for me, per se? I’m obviously better versed in how modern collecting works in 2020 than I was when I came back in 2019. I have the various podcasts that I listen to to thank for that (shout outs to Sports Card Nation and About the Cards for informing a guy).

But I still feel like too much of a newbie to sit here and detail what I thought the best card products of the year were. Also, I’m trying to keep this blog more on the personal/remembrance of things past, a Proustian blog on baseball/sport card collecting, if you will, rather than post on here praising or slagging card products when they come out. There are enough people, way better equipped people, out there doing reviewing products. I’ll stick to the home spun tales.

So what then? The most obvious choice for me was to make a year-in collecting essay for the Junk Wax Jay blog. Take a little time and space to casually talk about what I’ve been collecting in 2020, and what I hope to continue collecting in 2021. Sets I’ve put together. Sets sitting there waiting. Players I’m PCing. That interesting stuff.

With no further explanation…I give you…my year in card collecting 2020 edition:

Sets:

When I initially got back into collecting my goal was to collect sets (mainly Topps) from what I consider my main wheelhouse era of collecting. These were the years 1983-1992, even though technically I can go back to 1980. I was also going to collect anything new that caught my eye. Collecting the older sets meant collecting a lot of so-called Junk Wax Era cards. The cards that were still sitting in wax boxes by the cases. The so-called worthless stuff. So that’s where I went.

When you’re collating and building junk wax sets by hand, basically you’re throwing reasonable economics out the window. Building junk wax sets via wax box is way more expensive than buying those sets outright…and a lot less fun. I wanted to have fun not pay ten bucks for a set, put it in a binder, and then shelve it. Also building sets via junk wax boxes allowed me to rebuild/build a personal collection of players that I loved watching back in my collecting prime.

In 2020 (with a lot of purchasing help from 2019) I managed to complete Topps base sets from 1986-1992, as well as a 1987 Donruss base set. I’m most proud of building the 1987 Topps and Donruss sets, as they are two of my favorites produced during my collecting heyday. Honestly, for me, you can’t go wrong with 1987 sets. I was hoping to hand collate a 1987 Fleer set as well, but prices for wax boxes have nearly tripled as 2020 moved along its murderous pace. A wax box of Fleer (From a Sealed Case) was about fifty bucks as the beginning of the year…it now goes for about one-hundred and fifty. Another time perhaps.

Building sets (I’m looking at YOU 1982-1985) by hand using wax boxes was going to get quite a bit more expensive if I went any earlier than 1986. We’re talking five hundred dollars a box, for a set that is worth maybe fifty. Damned card grading…I kid…I kid. I had to figure out another way of putting those sets together. To be honest, I cheated a little and purchased  1982 and 1983 Topps sets outright. And I concur that it wasn’t any fun. But I sure love looking at the two, and 1983 is hands down my favorite year for my era of Topps after 1987.  If you don’t count my precious 1980 Topps, of course.

If I wanted to keep up with my collecting goals, earlier sets became a what-to-do scenario. Like I said, wax boxes were out of the question. Card shows were gone. I’m remain completely in the dark about buying card lots, and I don’t trust eBay. But this summer I got lucky.

A local card shop that I go to bought incomplete sets of 1984 and 1985 Topps. Both sets were in binders and came with their respective traded sets. By incomplete sets, I mean all of the usual suspects were missing. Mattingly rookie. Clemens rookie. Puckett. Gooden. Strawberry rookie. McGwire USA card. You name it. But the sets were only nine dollars each. Overall, each set was only about fifty cards shy of completion. Using SportLots and ComC, I began the process of rebuilding the sets. As of this writing, I’m currently two cards shy of completing my 1985 Topps set, and about forty cards away from completing 1984.

That said, having a lot of extra time this year, and thankfully, still being paid for the work I do…I went a little overboard trying to put together Junk Wax Era sets. In my closet listed under incomplete currently reside the following: 1988 Donruss (yeah, I did it), 1988 Fleer, 1988 Score 1989 Fleer, 1990 Bowman, 1991 Bowman, 1991 Donruss, and 1992 Donruss.

Why in the hell did I put together 1991 Donruss? Because it was cheap and it helped with the depression, the sound of sirens going up and down my street. Opening cheap packs and building cheap sets became a cathartic act. But, ss 2020 moved along, I began to feel a little Junk Wax set building overload. So, I’m keeping those sets at the ready to complete at a later date and at my leisure.

 New Sets:

            I’ve always been a flagship man. Of course, for the bulk of my collecting years, flagship was the only set a company produced. By the time Topps, Fleer, Donruss etc. were rolling out their Stadium Clubs, Ultras and Leafs, I was getting ready to roll away from the hobby. When I came back in 2019 it was specifically to buy hobby boxes and put together the flagship set…and, all right, the Heritage set. And that’s what I did…in 2019. But what’s the old adage? How do you make God laugh? Make a plan…I think I used that one before.

            2020 proved to be a different beast. Where I dabbled in current sets in 2019, in 2020 I got myself a bib and took a seat at the card buying buffet. I didn’t go hog wild, and by other’s standards I’d still be considered tame, but I bought way more current product in 2020 than I thought I would. Aside from compiling the flagship set for Topps, I also put together the Topps Archives set and am one card away from completing Topps Big League (one of my favorites for design alone, wish it was double in size) and about seventy away from finishing Stadium Club. Not to mention the random stacks of Gypsy Queen, Bowman, Donruss, etc, that I have in boxes.

But while I am a sucker for nostalgia, I abandoned putting together Topps Heritage set. Don’t get me wrong I love Topps Heritage. But I just found trying to put together a set, including the short prints, to be a frustrating and expensive proposition. It’s not a Sisyphean tasks, but it might as well be for a guy like me. I commend those collectors with the time and energy to devote to building a complete Topps Heritage set. Going forward I will admire Topps Heritage from afar, and only pick up the players I want for my PC.

Ugh…and that brings me to my personal PC.

 PC (personal collection):

I really worked a lot on my PC this year, both old and new players. In 2019 I didn’t know a thing about purchasing web sites like SportLots or ComC, so most of the cards that went into my personal player collections from came from Junk Wax doubles, and doubles that I got from current products. But with the use of SportLots and ComC I was able to buy individual cards and start putting together I PC that I’m enjoying. And as this blog IS about an anxious man coming back into collecting, buying online more has helped me not have a complete anxiety attack every single time that I make a purchase. Almost.

I pretty much PC the older players by keeping a general collection of Hall of Famers and players that I liked growing up. The Hall of Very Good, as the podcast of the same name likes to call them. I started building up card collections for Johnny Bench, Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonilla, Will Clark, Doc Gooden, Ken Griffey Jr, Tony Gwynn, Bo Jackson, Reggie Jackson, Don Mattingly, Fred McGriff, Al Oliver, Dave Parker, J.R. Richard, Pete Rose, Daryl Strawberry, Wille Stargell, Fernando Valenzuela and Andy Van Slyke. I’d say I PC Hank Aaron and Roberto Clemente too…but we’ll see how that goes.

Some recent PC purchases:

I’m most proud and excited about the Stargell’s that I bought. Pops’ legend always loomed large over the Pirates when I was a kid. When I started collecting again, I knew I wanted his cards in my collection. It was great to build my Willie Stargell’s back up, even getting cards that I never had the chance to have as a kid. That 1963 rookie still alludes me, however.

As for current players…that’s proven tougher. Getting back into collecting in 2019, meant that I was also getting back into a sport that I loved but had turned my back on since 2014 (if you want a rehash of that you can find it here). When I quit watching baseball there was no Aaron Judge or Cody Bellinger. Mookie Betts was a rookie and Mike Trout and Bryce Harper were just beginning their careers. I had to watch the sport to figure out who I wanted to collect.

To be honest, right now I tend to just hold on to all of the star cards for current players like I did as when I was a kid. Because Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was all the rage when I got back into collecting, I have a decent amount of his cards. Pete Alonso and Yordan Alvarez for the same reason. But do I P.C. them? I don’t know.

I keep the Pirates guys that I hope will turn out, though that is pretty dim right now. And just this week my Josh Bell PC was rendered obsolete by another dumb (but typical) Pirates trade. But I’m counting on you Ke’Bryan to save us all! I’d have to say that I really enjoy watching Tim Anderson play ball, so I’ve been buying cards of his here and there. Eloy Jimenez as well. Juan Soto is in there. And while collecting any Atlanta Brave other than Dale Murphy is anathema to my very being, I do have some Acuna Jr’s in the PC. But the current player PC is a work-in-progress overall.

 I did dabble a little in these:

And this happened to me on Christmas morning. I never hit anything and this came from a blaster box my wife bought me. It’ll be my pack-opening high water mark.

Goals for 2021:

More than anything it’s to make it to the other side of this pandemic, get vaccinated, and get back to living a life. I’d like to see something other than my neighborhood. I’d like to see a live ball game and go to a card show. I want to eat a huge bowl of ramens in Japan.

But we’re talking about collecting goals here, right? Obviously, I’d like to finish the sets I’m working on, specifically the 1984 and 1985 Topps set. Older sets keep calling to me. I did a post about 1980 Topps cards a few weeks back, as they were the first pack of cards I ever opened. A major goal of mine is hand-collating and completing the 1980 and the 1981 Topps set, even if they get me out of my comfort zone and force me to learn how to buy card lots. There’s always room for growth.

My Pittsburgh Pirates collection is going to be a major focus of mine. Building Pirates team sets from the 1970s and 1980s specifically. And as for the PC of older players, I’ve already got past Buccos like Bonds, Bonilla, Clemente, Oliver, Stargell and Van Slyke…but there’s room for Manny Sanguillen, Steve Blass and Bill Mazeroski in there as well.

On last thing about my year in collecting in an essay that has already gone on too long…it was really great to connect with a lot of other collectors, especially on Twitter. In real life I tend to be an introvert of the worst kind…case in point, my social calendar during a pandemic wasn’t much different than it was in 2019. But following different collectors and seeing how they went about the hobby, their opinions, frustrations (there’ve been a lot), joys, and triumphs have really added a lot to make knowledge and appreciation of this strange and wondrous thing that we put or time, energy and heart into.

Thank you to all in The Hobby whom I’ve connected with, the ones posting, the ones doing the podcasts, the ones doing the blogs, or the ones lurking around like me just trying to find your way back. May we all meet at the next major card show!

 

Thanks for reading. Happy collecting. And have a Happy New Year.

 

Next Friday:  How I sold out my dog for a pack of 1983 Topps Baseball Cards.

 

--JG

 

 

 

Aint nothin' gonna break my stride....except that old guilt: Rod Carew and Bobby Smith were living legends

 

Henry Miller once said, I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive.

But Henry Miller said this as struggling writer living in Paris, composing Tropic of Cancer at a madman’s pace, all the while mooching off of people for shelter, food and drink…and, of course, occasionally going to bed with Anais Nin. He wasn’t some dumb kid stuck in the suburbs trying to buy baseball cards without a job, and hardly an allowance to speak of. That kid was me. Perennially broke. Any inkling of an idea of a naked Anais Nin was years upon years away. Back then, I couldn’t have given one damn for Henry Miller and his bloody art and pauper-is splendor. Money…that was what I wanted.

My parents didn’t have much money in the mid-80s, which meant I hardly had any money. Were we broke? Of course not. We had food enough that I had a weight problem at a young age. We had shelter. I had clothes on my back. I went to catholic school. But there were hard times. For years there was little money for anything else than the basics and birthdays and Christmas. I remember one instance where we had to use money from my piggy bank for a loaf of bread to tide us over until payday. We had cars that were powered on WD-40 and sheer will. Not really the stuff of Dickens, I know. But purchases were made using caution and common sense.

            But I did have a piggy bank. By hook or crook, I had accumulated some money, and managed not to blow it immediately on baseball cards or candy. The foundation of my wealth mostly came from change from bigger bills or from birthdays or holidays; pocket change that I could put away to prove to my folks my fiduciary responsibility. I wasn’t going to end up penniless in Paris, like Henry Miller. Henry Miller never wanted Rod Carew cards from the 1970s. But I did. I’d stay as flush as a kid could.

Why Rod Carew? It had to be because of Miller. Not Henry Miller but my Miller. Miller Anatasio was a big Rod Carew fan. This was before his Barry Bonds fixation. Oh, it had to be late 1984 when this adventure happened. The Matthew Wilder song Break my Stride was still going strong. Miller knew Rod Carew. Or knew of him way better than I did. He knew Rod Carew enough to copy his batting stance when we played wiffle ball. 

Miller talked about him with awe. He made Carew sound like a legend. To diehard Twins and Angels fans he already was.

I only knew Rod Carew from his baseball cards. 

I didn’t really know much about him as a player. I knew he was good. The stats on those red, white and blue Topps 1984 card backs told me as much. I didn’t see much in the way of West Coast baseball on TV, save a playoff game, or an episode of This Week in Baseball. Being in Pittsburgh, I saw little to no American League ball at all. Interleague play was a pipe dream that today I wish stayed as such. I’d never seen Carew the legend in live action.

            In our neighborhood our legend was Bobby Smith. Not a grand name for a legend, but Bobby was older than Miller by about four years, and me by five. Fifteen. A magical number I couldn’t wait to reach. He dated good looking girls. Bobby Smith smoked cigarettes and had a dip in his bottom lip from time to time. He had a deep voice that put our falsetto shouting, pre-pubescent voices to shame. Bobby sported a thin moustache. That was legend to ten and eleven-year-olds.

Miller talked about Bobby with Rod Carew-like reverence. Bobby this. Bobby that. Bobby was going to come play ball with us…but of course he never did. Just like Rod Carew, I didn’t know much about Bobby Smith other than two things. He was Carolyn Smith’s older brother, and she was my dedicated, unrequited crush. I also knew that Bobby Smith had baseball cards that he no longer cared about; cards that he was willing to sell. Stuff from the 70s.

            Miller and I made an immediate plan to benefit from the Bobby Smith’s puberty-induced fire sale, even though he was in the same financial straits as I was. Miller didn’t come from money either. His parents were older than most parents for kids his age. They did spot work. Bartending. Waitressing gigs. Miller’s wealth, like mine, was based on pocket change and happenstance; his card collection built from wax packs bought with money found under couch cushions. Current cards from the 1980s and little else. But we were going to score this time.

I remember being dumb. I remember coming downstairs with an over-sized Dixie cup full of coins that I’d purloined from my piggy bank. This drew immediate attention from my parents. One didn’t walk around my home with an over-sized wax cup full of change. When I told them what I was using the money for, to get those cards from Bobby Jones, Rod Carew’s mom and dad, I received an immediate no. I wasn’t using that money to buy cards. Books, fine. Save for something nicer, okay. Not old baseball cards. I certainly wasn’t using my money to buy old baseball cards from some fifteen-year-old they hardly knew.

I got sent back to my room with strict orders to put the money back in the bank. But that’s not what I did. I took as many quarters as I could from that Dixie cup. I shoved them in my pants pockets. I shoved them in my jacket. I came back downstairs, careful not to jingle-jangle, and moped my way out the door like I was the upset and defeated, naive child my parents expected me to be. Then I raced to meet Miller, as quickly as my hefty, coin-laded body could. It was off to Bobby’s house.

            Though Miller and I hung around the neighborhood with Carolyn and Alice Smith, I’d never been to their home. The Smith’s had money. They didn’t live in a rented duplex, like my family did. The Smiths had a golden bricked and blond wood paneled, ranch-style home with a big, wide window in front. They had huge cars in their driveway before SUVs were the rage, and all Americans had big, huge cars in their driveways. There was talk they were getting a pool.

The Smiths owned things. Like businesses. The Smiths owned a deli in the strip mall up the street. They owned the famous Frankstown Lounge, where Miller’s dad occasionally bartended, and my old man sometimes had a beer with a friend or two. They had a big screen TV in their living room. A kitchen with something called an island. The Smiths took vacations in the summer. They were rich by our standards. And there me and Miller were with pocket change, doing our best to add to their wealth.

            I have to admit that I wasn’t at the Smith’s lavish digs just for baseball cards. I was there to see if Carolyn was home. What was it about her? She had wide, coal eyes and a crooked smile. Carolyn was tomboyish. She played tackle football with us that fall. I had a crush on her and I wasn’t shy about it. Miller knew. The ten-year-old overweight me was a year or two away from the self-consciousness and self-loathing that would darken my junior high and high school years.      

    Ah, but Carolyn wasn’t around that evening for me to see her in her own element. Skunked by basketball practice up at St. Barts. But her younger sister Alice was home. Alice was nine to my ten. She already had a mean streak. Or a bipolar streak. Mean to me one day, kind the next. I didn’t like her as a result. I was very black and white in how I treated people as a kid. I can still be that way now. Though drawn to Carolyn I did my best to stay away from Alice Smith.

            Bobby Smith’s room was unlike any I’d seen. There was nary a stuffed animal or anything deifying Batman or Superman or Wille Stargell on his walls. He had posters. Posters of bands. Van Halen. Posters of women. Daisy Duke. Christie Brinkley. Paulina Poritzkova’s cover of the 1984 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. Bobby Smith had an electric and an acoustic guitar propped up against his wall. His room was cool.

I remember him being casually kind to Miller and me. A little bored and disinterested. It was almost like Bobby had forgotten why he had two children in his room. Then the light when off and he pulled down two shoeboxes from his shelf. Cards! Older cards! 1970s stuff and it would be mine. I wouldn’t trade them all away again like I did the 1974 cards that I’d ripped off from Rick Stanton. Eat your heart out Phineas. Dimitri Danielopoulos, you could keep your brother’s collection of cards. I was going to build my own.

Miller started grabbing at Bobby’s Rod Carew cards. 

The 1976. 

The 1977. 

The 1978. 

All snagged before I’d stopped drooling over the shoeboxes and envisioning my triumph. 

Miller snagged the 1979 Carew too. 

All in Twins uniforms. I’d never seen Rod Carew in a Twins uniform. What was free agency to me, except a way of life in baseball by 1984. An accepted yet tragic reality in a city like Pittsburgh.

The Rod Carew cards were a little beat-up. What did condition matter? Bobby only wanted a buck a piece for them. Miller paid up with four crumpled bills. Then it was my turn. Oh, but what to get? There were Pete Rose cards…in his Red’s unform! Willie Stargell…with a beard? I might’ve had $4 in change on me. I dumped it all on Bobby’s bed. He arched his eyes and laughed. But he’d take the change and I’d take my cards. That was how capitalism worked. Then I’d go home, feeling like the luckiest kid in the world, like I really put one over on my parents.

But that’s not what happened. Guilt is what happened. The thought that maybe I was doing something wrong spending my own money on something I actually wanted. That early evening in the Smith home became a grounding theme that I carried through my teen years, and still have as an adult. Any pleasurable purchase comes with an echo of melancholy.

I feel like I have to explain myself to someone why I bought a card, a record, or went on a vacation somewhere. My wife looks at me like I’m nuts when I try and justify a simple purchase that neither of us should really be sweating. I don’t blame my parents for the way that I turned out regarding money. And I’ve never tried to correct the way I feel. The guilt is just there. It follows me in stores. It follows me when I make purchases online. I’m the guiltiest man lurking around ComC or SportLots.

I told Bobby Smith that I couldn’t decide what cards I wanted. Maybe we could do this later? Bobby shook his head. Sure, kid, sure. But he wasn’t going to let some ten-year-old with change come back into his cool-ass room and look through his beat-up cards again. My time was right there and then. But the ship had already passed for me and those old cards. I collected my change and Miller and I left. I enviously looked through his Carew cards on the way back to his house.

And then I went home empty-handed.

            Thanks for reading. Happy collecting.

 

            If you want to learn more about Rod Carew you can do so HERE and HERE

 

        And while I'll never be Henry Miller, I have managed to get a few novels and books of poetry published, which you can find HERE. Or if you're cash strapped, DM me on when of the social medias and I'll be happy to send you something.

 

    Next Friday:  Is Christmas....for whatever Christmas is this year. So no Junk Wax Jay. But I will be back on Wednesday, December 30th with my Year in Collecting post.

Have a Happy Holiday. Stay healthy and safe.

 

--JG

 

           

Dispatches from the PC : Here's Another Hit...Barry Bonds

 

He was a sign of hope.

He was a sign of better days ahead. Of great things to come for the hapless Pittsburgh Pirates. A shinning beacon of success. A bit of sunlight poking out of the gray pale of clouds that had been cast over Three Rivers Stadium. The next star. The bold, bright future. He was a light at the end of the tunnel. And us Pirates fans; we needed light

The 1985 season had been the worst in 30 years for the Pittsburgh Pirates. It doesn’t get much worse than a 57-105 record. The team was losing money and hemorrhaging fans. 1985 saw attendance dip down all the way to 735, 900, continuing the freefall that began in 1984. Pirates attendance was the worst in the National League. Not only were things bleak on the field, the Pittsburgh (cocaine) Drug Trails were taking place in 1985, with at least six current and former Pirates players involved.

In ’85, management brought in players like “jogging” George Hendrick and Steve Kemp. Sixto Lezcano and Johnny LeMaster. Mediocre to average players past their prime, brought in to try and steer the sinking ship. They brought back Tim Foli but the 1979 magic was gone. By June, Foli hitting .189 in 19 games, was released.

All those has-beens did was get hurt, or in the case of Hendrick, sulk and bat .230. The only bright spots in 1985 were second baseman Johnny Ray and catcher Tony Pena, an all-star with a .249 batting average. The only young player worth watching was twenty-one-year-old shortstop Sam Khalifa. We’d sunk so low as fans; Sammy’s .231 average was considered a bright spot.

He was going to become the second coming of Clemente…. we hoped.

The last vestiges of the 1979 World Series team were being shipped off or on their last legs as Pirates. A disgruntled John “Candy Man” Candeleria was traded to the California Angels. Bill “Mad Dog” Madlock to the Dodgers. The once-hopeful but now tragic figure of Rod Scurry was sent off to the Yankees to join noted coke sniffer and ex-Pirate Dale Berra. Buccos fans had to suffer seeing Kent Tekulve leave, and end up in a goddamned Phillies uniform. Only Rick Rhoden and Don Robinson remained from the Fam-A-Lee. There was talk of ownership selling the Pirates to a group in Denver. Denver of all places! What did Denver need with a baseball team…especially ours?

He was going to be one of the greatest to ever play in the Steel City.

            By 1986 there were signs of light and progress over at Three Rivers Stadium. We had a new General Manager in Syd Thrift. He’d hired the team a new manager in Jim Leyland. So long Chuck Tanner. The Pirates had managed to turn some of those late-season 1985 trades into getting exciting, young players like R.J. Reynolds and Sid Bream. We still had Johnny Ray and Tony Pena to put our faith in. But by May of 1986, it was obvious that the re-shaped Pirates were still on pace for another 100-game losing season (They would lose 98). Baseball times were dark in Pittsburgh. For goodness sake Willie Stargell, Pops, was down in Atlanta, coaching for the Braves, and dressed like this. 

            WTF, right?

            He was hope and change before Obama ever coined the phrase.

            And on May 30, 1986, twenty-one-year-old, first round draft pick Barry Lamar Bonds made his major league debut for the Pittsburgh Pirates, going 0-5 in a 6-4, 11-inning loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Not an auspicious start for the future home run champ. But over time Barry Bonds would prove to be a dynamic player, a catalyst to help lead the Pirate to three consecutive NL East championships. Along the way he’d prove to be a thorn in the side of coaches, managers, teammates and the local media. A surely superstar in the making. Barry Bonds might’ve been an asshole, but for seven seasons he was our asshole. And he played great baseball.

In in his rookie season, Barry Bonds showed all of the promise that us fans had placed on him. He led NL rookies in HR, RBI, SB and walks. Yet he came in 6^th in Rookie of the Year voting. That honor went to St. Louis relief pitcher Todd Worrell. Barry’s first taste of the ol’ Pittsburgh curse. But we knew who the real Rookie of the Year was. Us fans knew. Us kids knew. Barry Bonds was going to be something special. To baseball and to the Pirates. He was going to be a star. And we wanted all of his cards.

            The first Bonds cards we were able to get came in those year-end sets in 1986. 

Topps Traded. Fleer Update. Even Donruss felt compelled to put out a “Rookies” set in 1986. And what a class that was. Aside from Barry Bonds, you had players like Jose Canseco and Wally Joyner having their first cards in base and update sets. Will “the thrill” Clark. Future two-sport legend, Bo Jackson. My favorite Pirates player, Bobby Bonilla, showed up in those sets too. Albeit still in a White Sox uniform.

1986 was the first time in my life that I ever collected every update issue. Same went for my friends. Phineas had them all. Miller had them too. My brother and I had to have separate sets lest there be bloodshed on Penn Oak Manor Drive. Kids at school had them. The rich ones bought two or three of the sets to break up. At card shows we tried to buy singles of some of those rookie cards, but they were too expensive back then. And when I got back into collecting in 2019, I had to at least have the 1986 Topps Traded set in my collection.

            For me the real rookie cards of Barry Bonds and those other stars came in the 1987 issued sets. 1987 was by far my favorite year for card collecting. In my humble opinion, all of the sets looked fantastic and really stood out from other years. You had Topps with their classic wooden borders harkening back to 1962. Yet it was a legendary set in its own right.

1987 Topps was the first wax box of cards that I ever opened with my own money. Getting up at 5 A.M. to sling newspapers and get chased by dogs had finally given me something. That’s not to say that Fleer and Donruss were any slouch. Fleer with those bright blue borders that faded into white, and had just a touch of 3-D imagery. Donruss going the black route with those gold bands of baseballs on the side.

I could never remember a year when all of the sets were at the top of their game. And maybe because I was the ripe old age of thirteen in 1987, and had a farther reach beyond just my neighborhood (on bike, on foot) all of the baseball card sets felt available to me in ways that they weren’t before. Collecting wasn’t just a passing fancy by 1987. I was deep in the trenches and so seemed to be everyone else around me.

My old man took my brother and I (with Phineas and Miller tagging along as well) to more card shows. The old man most likely acquiescing because baseball card shows in the mid to late 1980s, brought out all of the old timers to make money signing cards and other memorabilia. It was hard not to feel like a kid again standing in front of Brooks Robinson or Willie Mays. And going to more shows meant more access to cards from the different companies. I had more 1987 Topps, Fleer and Donruss than I’d ever had of any year before.

            It was not just the cards in 1987. The Pirates got better that year. It was the turn of the century, 100 years of Pittsburgh Pirates baseball, and the young talent was showing up. Sure, we lost Tony Pena, and eventually Johnny Ray, to trades. But we gained Andy Van Slyke and Mike LaValliere. Some guy named Doug Drabek, who only went on to win the 1990 Cy Young Award, came to Pittsburgh via a trade with the Yankees. Bobby Bonilla was just beginning to stretch his All-Star legs in right field and at third base.

The 1987 Pittsburgh Pirates were forming the nucleus of a team that would capture the NL championship for 3 consecutive years. In the mix of it all was Barry Bonds. In his first full season, at the tender age of 22 years old, Barry hit 25 home runs and batted .261. The beginning of a tainted but still hall of fame worthy career.

            If we were enthralled by 1987, the 1988 season at Three Rivers Stadium was even better. The Pirates went 85-75. The team was over .500 for the first time in 4 seasons of previously miserable baseball. Barry Bonds upped his home run total to 24, and upped his average to .283. The only step back that I saw that year was in the baseball cards. After the exuberant designs of 1987, the 1988 sets felt dull and bland to me. Devoid of any real creativity. And the cards were everywhere. I could find baseball card at the drug store, at the grocery store, in chain department stores long before Target and Wal-Mart sold them. The Junk Wax era had fully arrived.

            Only the debut of Score in 1988 brought any juice to the hobby for me.

The Pirates stepped back in1989. It seemed everyone got hurt. We lost first baseman Sid Bream for almost the whole season. Andy Van Slyke and his fantastic glove missed some time in the outfield and at the plate. Barry Bonds took a step back as well. He slumped to19 home runs, and a .244 average. Only my guy, Bobby Bonilla was a bright spot that season. Bobby Bo had 24 home runs and batted .281. He even managed to play in 163 games in a 162-game season. Bobby was an all-star that year. And the cards? Not 1987, though I still love the Topps and Donruss sets to this day. 

And good old Upper Deck had thrown it’s hat into the ring with it’s classic debut set.

            But 1990 was coming. And with it winning came back to Pittsburgh for the first time since 1979. But things got off to a shaky start. It was Barry Bonds vs. the local press in Pittsburgh. The press liked their sports stars affable and quotable, always smiling, and maybe a few skin shades lighter than Barry Bonds. It was Bonds vs. Jim Leyland in Spring Training with an argument whose video made national news. But it all settled down by the time the season started. We were in for a ride.

That record! 95-67!  Twenty-five-year-old Barry Bonds would hit 33 home runs and bat .301. 1990 would be the first all-star appearance of fourteen for Barry Bonds. His first MVP of seven. Barry won a gold glove in 1990. The first of eight gold gloves. He stole fifty-two bases in 1990, the first player to become a member of the 30-30 club. The legend and the future had finally arrived. And it wasn’t juiced back then.

Barry Bonds was a myth to us kids. We emulated him when we played wiffle ball. He was my brother and Miller’s favorite player. Miller had Bonds’ stiff-armed batting stance down pat. He could shake his bat like Barry. He even tried to run like him. Posters hung in our bedrooms with reverence. If there was a God, he was playing left field for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Barry Bonds felt tangible to us too. All players did back then. Miller swore up and down that he saw Barry in a Penn Hills McDonald’s, just sitting there over a coffee and an Egg McMuffin. Miller said Bonds smiled and nodded at him. Barry Bonds in our suburb? It was unbelievable but we wanted to believe it. Barry Bonds smiling and nodding? That wasn’t the Bonds we knew at games. The player whose star shone so bright he wouldn’t come near us ball waving kids to sign a single autograph, before or after a game. But if Miller had seen him. It had to be true.

            I had my own run in with Barry Bonds in either 1990 or 1991, the year slips my memory. Ever the small market team, the Pirates were about promotion, reaching out to the fans. There was an autograph show at Three Rivers Stadium. No tickets, etc. You just showed up and got into lines. Yours truly initially waited for Bobby Bonilla (a story for another time), while Phineas went off to wait forever in his blessed Andy Van Slyke line.

I still had time after getting Bonilla’s autograph to get into another line. Though it was ominously long, I got into the line for Barry Bonds. I waited a good hour and half, as we inched our way toward our cardboard hero. When I reached Barry, he said nothing to me. No McDonald’s smile or nod like he’d supposedly given Miller. I handed Barry a clean, National League issued baseball. He hid the ball underneath the table, and then handed it back to me without a word. The ball wasn’t even signed on the sweet spot. I was disappointed but couldn’t complain. Barry Bonds knew his value as well us collectors did. The ball went into a cube on my dresser. Sadly, I no longer have it. Lost to the years of countless moves to several cities.

The 1992 season was Barry Bonds last in Pittsburgh. Having lost Bobby Bonilla to free agency and the dreaded New York Mets, I took bittersweet joy in casting my lot with Bonds during his Pittsburgh swan song. Barry became my main Pirate to collect.

Some double-vision on that Topps and Fleer, huh?

And Barry didn’t disappoint. 1992 would see Barry Bonds hit 34 home runs while batting. 311. He’d make the all-star team, and win his second MVP award. The Pirates would go 96-66 for their third NL championship, only to lose their third NLCS in the bottom of the ninth inning on a play at the plate involving former Pirate, Sid Bream, on an ill-timed and mis-played ball by none other than Gold Glove winner, Barry Bonds. I’d never cried over a baseball game in my life…until that moment.

It still hurts to this day.

I cried because I knew. The end was coming. It was the end of an era for the Pirates, and one for baseball cards. 1992 was the first year my Topps cards didn’t come with a stick of gum. The first year in a long time that the cards were printed on a different card stock. 1992 was the first time I didn’t feel excited about a release, despite all of the innovations or improvements that the various brands were making. I didn’t even bother buying any of the other brands but Topps. The end was nigh for both Barry Bonds in Pittsburgh, and me in card collecting.

            On December 8^th, 1992, Barry Bonds left the Pirates to sign with his hometown San Francisco Giants. Barry had a Pirates card in 1993, but it felt like a slap in the face. 

His departure from Pittsburgh coincided with my departure from collecting. I was nineteen and ending my freshman year of college. Buying CDs, Jack Kerouac novels, skipping classes to bum around coffee shops in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh while playing poet, meant more to me than shelling out money to buy packs of cards, or singles at card shows. I wanted the women in college to take me seriously.

In 1993 I only bought the Topps Pittsburgh Pirates team set. 

It was a hollow purchase full of ghosts. The Pirates teams that I’d loved from 1987-1992 were officially breaking up. Bonilla was gone in 1992. Bonds and Doug Drabek were off to the West Coast and Huston. Andy Van Slyke was thirty-two and his outfield heroics were catching up with him. He only played in 83 games that year, and would never be the same player. The Pirates record dipped to 75-87 in 1993; the beginning of twenty losing seasons from 1993-2012. Tough times had come back to Pittsburgh baseball.

             When I got back into collecting in 2019, it was always with an eye on both building sets from my era and building a PC of players I enjoyed. One of the first on that list was Barry Bonds. Post-Pittsburgh I’d had a tenuous relationship with the career of Barry Bonds. On the surface level I was mad at him for leaving. I shouldn’t have been.

Watching players leave was old hat in Pittsburgh. The last legacy star we had was Willie Stargell. And he’ll probably remain as such. Since then, I’ve watched players from Bonilla, Bonds and Doug Drabek up to Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole leave via trade. And it’s only a matter of time before young stars like Josh Bell are gone in the same manner. The Pirates don’t even wait until a player is a free agent anymore for them to leave Pittsburgh.

But back in 1993, since Barry Bonds wasn’t playing for the Pirates anymore, he went from being our asshole…to just an asshole. I didn’t pay much attention to him other than his stats in the box scores, or to boo him when the Giants came to Pittsburgh. Like everyone else I had my suspicions when Bonds hit 73 home runs in 2001. How could you not? The steroid innuendo was overwhelming by then. And by the time he was poised to break Hank Aaron’s home run record, I downright hated Barry Bonds and actively rooted against him.

Why PC the guy? Time heals all wounds? Or a firm belief that, even if some of those records are tainted with performance enhancing drugs (not illegal at the time by the way), Barry Bonds was one of the best baseball players that I’d even seen play the game. Though we only had him in Pittsburgh for seven seasons, they were seven amazing seasons. Seasons I’ll remember forever as a fan. Plus, as a collector, I wanted those Barry Bonds cards again. And, for me, I couldn’t have that feeling that I wanted getting back into collecting, that twelve-year-old feeling as I call it, without making room for Barry Bonds in my PC and actively collecting his cards.

I even have some of his Giants cards.

You know, I used to believe that the only way Bonds should get into to the Baseball Hall of Fame was if he bought a ticket. Now I feel that the Hall of Fame is lacking without Barry Bonds in it. My feelings are mutual in regards to Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro, and Manny Ramirez. Don’t even get me started on Pete Rose. You can’t call yourself a Hall of Fame if you don’t have the best of the best residing in it. For those of you who say, but steroids, I say “greenies” and I say “cocaine.” Players have been trying to get an edge for years. And if you look at Robinson Cano…they still are.

Count me as one guy who’s rooting for Barry Bonds to finally get the nod in 2021.

Thanks for reading. Happy collecting.

 If you want to learn more about Barry Bonds you can do so HERE

 If you want to learn more about the career of Barry Bonds you can do so HERE

If you're a Pirates fan and want to torture yourself, YouTube has the entire bottom of the 9th Inning of the 1992 NLCS available right HERE

YouTube also has the entire game...but....like i said it still hurts. 

Next Friday:  Me and Miller dig up all of our change to go and buy some Rod Carew cards at a local "card shop" and boy are my parents angry.

 --JG

 

 

           

1972 Topps Baseball : George Foster, A.J. Fanello & Me

 

A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away…

In my adult, time-worn memories it feels as if A.J. and his sister, Dana, were always standing there in front of their grandparent’s house, on our dead-end street, just waiting for my family’s car to pull up on the day we moved onto Penn Oak Manor Drive. But of course, that wasn’t the case. We’d already moved into that shinning duplex on a hill a week or so before. Maybe even a month before. Time was relative to a child freshly ensconced in his family’s second rented home, in as many years, since moving back to the Pittsburgh suburbs.

This would be late Spring of 1983. Return of the Jedi territory. The end of one saga as mine continued on in strange and sometimes wearisome ways. Nine years on the planet earth and I was already on my fifth home and fourth school. I felt like an outsider most times. I think A.J. was holding an X-Wing Fighter in his hands the day we met.

            Oh, how I hated making new friends by the spring of 1983. I’d done the deed one too many times in my young life. New kid in the neighborhood. New kid at school. New kid in a new state. New kid back home in Pittsburgh once again meeting new kids. Hey do you like this? Cool, I like it too! Hey do you like that? Cool, I like that too! Cheery and willingly available were masks well worn by me before the age of ten. I found being the new kid so often to be both humbling and loathsome. I found the task subservient.

By nine I didn’t want to make new friends in a new neighborhood. A. J’s X-Wing Fighter be damned. At best, I was happy that the kids in school weren’t changing again that year. Changing homes this time didn’t mean having to change schools. Yet there I was; a new kid on a new street again. It was time to put on a smile, be affable, be likeable, go and say hi.

            A.J. and I bonded instantly over Star Wars, not baseball cards. Baseball cards which had been my usual currency in both the city of Pittsburgh and in West Virginia. A.J. wasn’t into cards at all, save a random non-sports or Star Wars card here and there. And I wasn’t too keen on collecting this:

It would take a few more years before I truly understood Carrie Fisher in that golden bikini. And Many more before I understood the complexity of sexism and casual misogyny.

A.J. also wasn’t into sports at all. He was into music and sci-fi. Summers that had usually been reserved for requisite wiffle ball games among the kids on the street, had morphed into hours and hours of me and A.J. on my porch with Star Wars action figures. Just the two of us. My brother every so often. In fact, I didn’t even seem like there were any other kids around in the neighborhood. Just me, A.J., my brother and his sister. Our small clique. It was kind of calming for a while, after the kid-riddled, drama of my last neighborhood.

The way we played with Star Wars action figures was different than how other kids I knew went about it. Gone were just moving our meager collection of figures around, recreating what movie plot points we could remember. No, A.J. and I would create new adventures and intricate plots into our play. Plot points that we’d have to remember and set up for the next day.

We even wove other action figures into the stories. The Dukes of Hazard and Super Hero figures I had laying around became easy villains. A.J. had Star Trek figures, so we’d us them too, as a rival star fleet. When we were done building our own exhausting saga, A.J. would invite me over to his grandparent’s house to watch Star Trek. A point of contention between me and my parents.

            To say that people in the neighborhood were wary about A.J. and his family, would be an understatement. They’d moved back in with A.J.’s grandparents a few years before my family showed up on the block. The move sent people into a tizzy. A.J.’s dad, Frank Fanello, was infamous in the neighborhood that he’d grown up in. Frank had been a violent and wrathful kid. Frank had been a draft dodger, even though he was forever clad in military fatigues and sported the kind of small, green pillbox hat that would make Fidel Castro envious. Rumor had it that Frank had killed his girlfriend’s dog back in the day. The poor pooch the victim of a jealous rage. Poisoning or outright slaughter; the gossip mill could never get it right.  

The neighborhood was often serenaded with the sound of Frank playing guitar alone in his room or in the family’s basement. Creepy, wailing noises that reverberated across the street, disrupting family dinners on warm, spring evenings. A.J.’s family were vegetarian before it was hip and somewhat banal to make that declaration. Frank had read a book called Sugar Blues, and that was it for his family. Gone went sugar. Gone went flour. The Fanello family’s vegetarianism never quite mirrored Frank’s archaic Charles Manson-esque rap sheet, but it kept the nosy neighbors busy. I was learning that there was little to do in the suburbs but talk.

The gossip made my mom wary to let me go over to A.J.’s and watch Star Trek. But she ultimately allowed it. Nothing seemed odd to me in his home, except that A.J.’s grandparent’s furniture had plastic on it, and they spoke only Italian. Maybe the chocolate chip cookies didn’t seem right, lacking sugar as they did. Carob chip cookies they were called. And the peanut butter that we ate in dry, wheat pitas didn’t have any taste. Otherwise A.J.’s home was just like any other duplex on a dead-end street full of duplexes.

And I didn’t see much of the infamous Frank Fanello. I had brief sightings of a skinny man with a pock-marked face dressed in military gear. A calm yet stern voice calling downstairs for A.J.’s mom. A hushed, anxious tone from the basement. Occasionally you’d hear guitar. But none of it mattered to me. I had A.J. and he had me. We had Star Wars and our plots, and Star Trek on the television. A.J. was a good friend to a lonely kid in a new neighborhood. Even if he didn’t like to play any ball, or got bored when I pulled out the baseball cards.

            But everything changed for A.J. and I late that summer. It turned out that we weren’t the only kids in the neighborhood, as my brother and I found out one mid-August evening. I don’t know where A.J. was, but the Fanello family home was dark and ominous on that particular day. It had been a long time since I’d played any ball, so my brother and I took our wiffle balls and bats out to the cul-de-sac for a one--on-one game that usually ended in a fight. Brothers being brothers.

While we were playing, a group of kids walking by down at the end of our street must’ve seen us. Before we knew it there was a dark-haired boy with ivory colored skin, and two brunette girls, sisters, in our field of play. The boy was named Miller Anatasio. The girls Carolyn Smith and her younger sister, Alice. And for a few hours we had ourselves a good old street wiffle ball game. And, in Carolyn, my first real crush.

It had been a long while since I’d had that kind of fun with other kids. I loved Star Wars. I loved Star Trek. But I had to admit to myself that it felt good to be doing something different. Miller made plans to come up the street and see us the next day. More wiffle ball! Oh, and he collected cards too. Baseball and football.

People have vast and varied friendships. Or so I’ve been told. You can be one person with one set of friends, and a different person entirely with another. Some of those friends can weave seamlessly between your cliques. Mailable and trustworthy. Some mix like oil and water.

A.J. and Miller were as oil and water as two boys could get. Miller wasn't as into the imaginative play that went on between A.J. and I. At age ten, Miller was already an old soul. His parents were older than our parents. Miller wasn’t into things like Halloween. He spent his Sunday afternoons watching NFL football with his dad, and could rattle off the most intricate of statistics. He was out of place in our ongoing action figure series, and in the universe that A.J. and I had created for them.

And, as I said, A.J. had no time for the various sports that us kids played. Wiffle ball? Nerf football? An A.J. needed not these things. That’s not to say A.J. didn’t try. He tried for me. He tried in order to keep up with Miller. A.J. tried to navigate his place in this new sports world, even when all of these other kids, from other neighborhoods, started showing up on our dead-end street to challenge us at wiffle ball and football games.

And the sad thing about it all was that these kids all knew about A.J.’s family. They went to school with him. They knew about his and Dana’s vegetarian meals. The kids all knew about his dad; Frank Fanello’s legend extended well beyond our own dead-end street. Frank was a nutbag. Frank was a weirdo. And for that the kids didn’t like A.J. Fanello either. Frank’s kid had to be a weirdo too. This led to arguments. Frustration. The dark side of friendship.

            Ultimately, A.J. and I would fight. I was torn and he was torn. There was a world developing between us. We grew out of action figure playing and had nothing else. We wouldn’t see each other for days, weeks, months.

His old man really WAS crazy. During lulls in our relationship, Frank Fanello would do things to make it harder and harder to instigate a truce. His go-to was to come outside and play electric guitar while us kids played ball on the concrete cul-de-sac. Frank would open up his garage, plug in his amp, and stand at the end of his driveway wailing away like he was playing at Woodstock. He probably was in his own, sullied mind.

And Frank wouldn’t let us get our balls. If a wiffle ball or Nerf ball went into the Fanello driveway, Frank would stop playing guitar and take it. If one of us kids was faster, we’d try and snag the ball before he could. Then you’d have this crazy scene of a man in military fatigues, shouting and chasing around twelve-year-old and thirteen-year-old boys for a scuffed wiffle ball. What’s worse? At times, Frank would make A.J. come out and play with us. Not with us, really, but against us.

Frank would have A.J. and himself play us neighborhood kids. Two on two, or two on ten; it didn’t matter to Frank Fanello. He was a tyrant to his son during these games. Yelling at A.J. when he struck out. Yelling at A.J. when he missed a catch. Calling him a baby when A.J. ultimately quit playing and ran inside.

Then Frank would play us one-vs all. He’d tell stories to us kids. He told us he knew guys in Vietnam who used to throw kids out of planes. All of this was to try and challenge or intimidate us. But Frank’s cajoling only served to alienate A.J. from everyone. Also, my old man., who actually served in Vietnam, told us to tell Frank that he was one of those guys. That shut his ass up.

            At this point, if you’re still reading, you must be asking yourself what does any of this have to do with a 1972 George Foster baseball card?  Like I said, A.J. tried. Through all of the emotional adversity and the pressures from the behavior of his old man, A.J. tried. He tried for years, balancing me and the other kids, his crazy old man, and a deteriorating home life that was becoming public spectacle for the neighborhood. A certain Memorial Day weekend comes to mind as an example of what A.J. put up with and had to carry. Frank Fanello chasing his wife around their yard with a steak knife, grabbing her by the arm, placing the knife in her hands and then kneeling before her, with his head tilted back, begging her, begging her, to slit his throat…all while A.J. and Dana crying and begging them to stop.

A natural collector of action figures and all things Star Wars and Trek, A.J. wanted to get into baseball cards too, as a means to try and fit in. We took him with us on one of our Monroeville Mall trips to the American Coin. A.J. even sprinted down the hallway, as was our custom, as if he had loads and loads to be excited for once in the hobby shop. Conformity can be a cold comfort.

A.J. studied our behavior, not unlike Mr. Spock. He began looking through the bins of collated star cards just like the rest of us kids did. He wasn’t even tempted by the non-sports cards sitting there in wax boxes. A.J. decided right there on the spot that George Foster was his man. I don’t know why. Maybe it was the name. Maybe it was George Foster’s cool sideburn look with raised eyebrows and a wry smile. The 50 Home run season. A.J. bought some George Foster cards that day…one of which was his 1972 Topps.

1972 Topps baseball had an aura about them to us kids. Unlike most other cards they had a trippy, psychedelic late 60’s/early 70’s vibe. And that was all coming back in the 1980s. Even the Monkees were relevant again. 

On 1972 cards the team names shouted out at us in bright, bold almost 3-D colors. The 1972 set had the penultimate cards for Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente. 

Willie looking old and worn-out. 

Roberto looking ghostly on his card, seemingly alone, eyes downward, focused on the baseball he was bouncing in his hand. It was almost like he knew that plane was going to go down. 

1972 Topps was a work of art. A.J. appreciated art. The George Foster cards became a point of pride for him.

But A.J. assimilation was all a fantasy. It would never work. A few weeks later we were back on the cul-de-sac, playing Nerf Football. A.J. and Dimitri Danielopoulos vs Miller and me. D didn’t want to be on A.J.’s team. They were in school together. Dimitri knew the rumors about A.J.’s family. He’d been stuck on third base that Memorial day weekend of Frank Fanello and the knife.

Somewhere in the middle of the game D and A.J. got into a fight. A screwed-up signal. A.J. dropping a pass. Him being awkward and unathletic but still out there trying. A.J. always put the wrong hand above the other when he batted. Some fists were thrown. D hitting A.J. and A.J. covering for dear life.

Frank Fanello came out onto the porch and just watched his son take a beating. It took until A.J.’s mom came running out for the beating to stop. Were Miller and I going to stop it? Why didn’t I? I’ve always wondered if I subliminally hated A.J.’s so-called weakness in that moment. A.J.’s mom grabbed D to keep him from hitting., but had forgotten to restrain her own son. Beaten and swollen and crying, A.J. saw an opening and began pounding on D.

Finally, I had to run to my house and get my mom. She broke up both sides. The tangled mess of a sobbing A.J., his mom, and now a sobbing Dimitri as well.  A.J. and his mom crossed the street home, both heads down. Frank waiting on the porch in the shadows, waiting to call his kid a wimp. It was A.J.’s final ostracism from the rest of us.

The next day there was a stack of cards left on my porch. They were protected in a Ziplock freezer bag. They were all of the cards that A.J. had collected over that short period of time. Some Pirates. Some cards I can’t remember. All those blessed George Fosters. In the middle of the stack was the 1972 Topps Foster, George smiling at me, his bat over his shoulder, as I confusedly looked at the card.

A part of me wanted to keep the Foster Card. Keep them all. In the end I ended up giving the stack back. I placed the Ziplock bag on the beginning of A.J.’s driveway. A few hours later I looked out my living room window and watched in horror as A.J. ripped up the cards and scattered their pieces all over the pavement. Ever last one of them. Even that 1972 George Foster.

Thanks for reading. Happy collecting.

 

If you want to learn more about 1972 Topps you can do so HERE and HERE

 

If you want to learn more about the career of George Foster you can do so HERE and HERE

 

Next Friday:  I’m going to dig into the P.C. that I’ve been rebuilding by taking a look at some of the past players I collect and the various reasons why. I’m going to go alphabetically. First up to bat next week: controversial home run champ, Barry Bonds.

 

--JG