1982 Topps Baseball Cards : But What About the Frogs?

 

In the summer of 1982, I became Jay again.

            Not that I wasn’t always Jay. But for the year my family lived in Wellsburg, West Virginia, I was John. I mean I am John. The name is on my birth certificate, my license and my books. For some reason, my parents always called me Jay. I know. Jay isn’t a traditional nickname of John. Jay is more akin to Jason. I have no clue why my John became Jay. I never asked. It just always was.

Except for that year in West Virginia.

The principal of the grade school that I would be attending in the fall of 1981, one Mr. John Shoto, informed my parents, in our get-to-know-you meeting, that he, the teachers and subsequently my fellow classmates were going to address me a John. My God-given name. I don’t know why my parents didn’t haul me out of there and put me right in public school. But they didn’t.  They believed that Catholic school gave one a stronger intellectual and moral foundation.

Considering the kids I spent twelve years with in various schools.

They were wrong.

But in WVa I'd be John at school. Jay at home.

            Fucking Catholics.

            The kids I’d played tee-ball with the previous summer were confused.

            You people who primarily know me from the internet are probably scratching your heads as well.

            I’ll get to that.

            The John to Jay thing has been a minor inconvenience my whole life. John on official documents. But call me Jay. John on official work papers. But please call me Jay. Over and over again with every person that I meet. One lady I worked with just called me John-Jay…which was super annoying. In fact, just yesterday I had a visiting librarian help out at my job. She got confused when my co-workers called me Jay. Is it John or Jay?

            Here we go again.

            To be honest, I’ve helped contribute to the problem. When I started sending poems and fiction out to small presses, I went under my birth name. John. When I got books published, I went under the name John. When I do readings, I’m billed as John Grochalski. And, yes, I even do my social media under the name John. Mostly because I wanted to attach my social media to the things that I do creatively. John Grochalski just sounds better than Jay Grochalski. It looks better on the cover of books too.

            At least that was my take.

            Maybe Mr. Shoto was on to something.

            Ultimately, my name doesn’t really matter to me.

            You can call me John or Jay just not John-Jay.

            If someone is calling for me by name, it usually isn’t a good thing.

            …and no fucking Jay-bird.

            God, I hated that shit too.

            But back in the summer of 1982, I was looking forward to becoming Jay again. Jay felt right. Jay was me. John could stay in West Virginia forever. I was looking forward to leaving there and coming back home. To Pittsburgh. Albeit to the suburbs this time. Penn Hills. In a span of two years, I went from urban to rural to suburban. And the only thing I can say about this is, people are strange wherever you go.

            At least the Coca-Cola tastes the same.

            At least there were kids in my new neighborhood.

            My neighborhood in West Virginia was a barren wasteland for kids.

            One day I’ll tell my tale.

            The first time I saw 1982 Topps baseball cards was at a flea market in West Virginia shortly before we moved back to Pittsburgh. It had been Fleer city beforehand. 1982 Fleer were and still are God awful. Figures West Virginia would be ripe with them. And I’ve already told that story.

            Even Ed Ott couldn't save 1982 Fleer.

            And Ed Ott can save ANYTHING.

But at the flea market, there was this guy selling older cards, yes, but he also had packs of 1982 cards in both wax and cello. I think that might’ve been the first time in my life that I’d seen baseball cards in something other than wax packs.

Cello packs were clear! You could see who was on the front and back of the pack! For 49-cents you got twenty-eight cards and one stick of gum. I had some pocket change on me. So, I went digging through the man’s cello box. Until I found the pack that I wanted.

The pack that had this man on the front of it.

The 1982 Willie Stargell card defines 1982 Topps for me. It’s the card that I think of whenever I think of the set, or someone mentions it. And that doesn’t happen a lot. I get the idea that a lot of collectors aren’t fans of 1982 Topps. It certainly pales in comparison to the next four or five sets that came after it. And it doesn’t hold the sentimental place in my heart, like 1980 Topps does, because those were the first packs of cards that I ever bought. But 1982 Topps are pretty good in their own right.

For starters, I’m a fan of the hockey-stick swoosh on the front of the cards. Even though hockey itself can go and get bent. I like that the cards leave a lot of space for the photo image. The team name and player name are both nice and bold on the card front. The In-Action cards (the first time Topps did that since 1972) are pretty cool, even if they used the same picture from 1981 for a certain player that I mentioned up above.

1981:

1982 In Action:

Not fooling anyone Topps.

1982 Topps is stacked with Hall of Famers and star cards for players of that era. Mike Schmidt, Pete Rose, Nolan Ryan, Paul Molitor, Andre Dawson, Tim Raines, George Brett, Robin Yount, Dave Parker, Jim Rice, Al Oliver, Steve Garvey, Rod Carew, Carl Yastrzemski, Johnny Bench, Jim Palmer, Gaylord Perry, and Carlton Fisk to name just some. 

Ozzie Smith is in the set on his last card with the Padres. 

Reggie is on his last card with the Yankees. 

And Dave Winfield is on his first.

...unless you count traded sets.

The Willie Stargell card is his last Topps card. Although Fleer and Donruss would include him in their 1983 sets.

And need I even mention some of the rookies?

Although this one is my sentimental favorite.

    

Some more 1982 for your viewing pleasure:

That flea market got me nuts into 1982 Topps baseball cards. If there were packs and I had change I was buying them. I was hoping my new neighborhood would have kids who collected like I did. It had kids, yes. But no collectors. I met two kids instantly, Billy and Ray. They had cards but didn’t collect like me. There were girls in the neighborhood. They seemed too busy swooning over the Annie movie to care about cards. Baseball cards would continue to be a thing between just me and my brother. Or Phineas when he came over.

There was this kid named Steve Fisher.

Steve had cards but also wasn’t into them.

Steve was into other things.

            As I remember him, Steve was always in his dad’s garage workshop. So, that’s where I was when I hung out with Steve. He built things. Steve sawed wood for no reason. If my mom knew about all of the sharp and dangerous tools, I was handling, I probably never would’ve been allowed back. But in 1982, kids had more freedom to galivant about. We could walk to stores alone too.

We didn’t have phones with tracking devices on them so…

And our parents didn’t call us “pal” or “buddy.”

The smell of Lifeboy soap always brings me back to that garage.

Steve had this bucket full of creek water that he kept in the garage. In it were tadpoles. When we lived in West Virginia we had a creek that led into the Ohio River. Buffalo Creek. It was down a slope at the end of our yard. We could wade in it or almost swim. I’d seen tadpoles in that creek in WV. I knew it was only a matter of time before they turned into frogs. I didn’t think that they could do it in a bucket though. I was curious as to why Steve had them.

I’d soon find out.

            There were woods behind Steve’s house. In it, he’d built himself a fortress. A kingdom of sticks, if you will. Steve had other huts and a jail he’d carefully constructed out of thorn bushes (jagger bushes if you’re from Pittsburgh). Billy and Ray and me would play army with Steve in his woods. Catch and capture type stuff. But with no one really getting hurt or caught. 

            Until one time. 

            Steve was in a mood. A bad mood. A very fucking bad mood. He caught Billy. And Steve was a big kid for his age. Strong too. He threw Billy into one of those thorn bushes for some punishment he wasn’t at liberty to define.

            I remember Billy screaming.

            Billy crying.

            Billy begging Steve to let him out.

I was so scared I’d be next I ran home.

Steve calling after me, “Jay? Jay?”

Ugh…that fucking name!

I stole into my room to look at cards to calm down.

Maybe the Stargell card comforted me.

Maybe hanging around with Steve wasn’t such a good idea.

            Thankfully, Billy was all right.

            I had other problems that summer of 1982. The second grade that I’d been in West Virginia cared more about calling me John then they cared about teaching me how to do my times tables. We’d only learned them up to times six. The school I’d be going to, their second graders had learned them up to times twelve. Because of that I had to spend parts of my summer learning my times tables from 7-12.

            What fucking kid wants to do times tables with their summer?

I remember being on the porch with my mom, her trying to bribe or cajole me into learning those times tables so that, as an incoming third-grader, I wouldn’t be left behind. I got a lot of packs of 1982 Topps for that. We had the radio on to pass the time and make this not feel so studious. Seemed like Toto’s Rosanna or Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger were on all of the time. Mom tried to get friends to help me learn. Older friends. A guy like Steve Fisher.

Steve had no use for times tables.

            Steve had other nefarious plans.

            The tadpoles were getting bigger. Then bigger. Until they became young frogs. Turns out, with a little TLC, you could raise tadpoles into frogs in a bucket. One day, Billy and Ray and I were at Steve’s. The garage of course. Steve started fishing around the garage looking for something. He finally found a piece of plywood. One of the ones he’d been randomly sawing earlier in the summer.

Steve took the plywood out onto the driveway and set it down. Then he brought the bucket with the young frogs and set that onto the driveway too. Billy, Ray and I were pretty curious as to what Steve was up to, as he wasn’t really talking to us while he worked. He was in a bad mood. A very fucking bad mood.

Finally, Steve took one of the frogs out of the water.

He stretched its little frog arms.

And nailed them to the plywood.

He stretched its little frog legs.

And nailed them to the plywood too.

Billy got sick. He puked. Ray ran home. I was frozen. My terrified eyes darting from the dying, crucified frog to Steve. Steve looked pleased with his work. The frog looked like Christ on a cross. Steve had even crossed its legs before nailing them. Thankfully the frog died quickly; his frog buddies in the bucket having no clue what fate awaited them. Steve, not satisfied with just the murder he’d committed, went back into garage. He brought out a canister of silver spray paint. While Billy wretched and cried and I stood there frozen, Steve Fisher spray painted the dead, crucified frog silver.

            Fucking Catholics.

            When he went to get the next frog, me and Billy ran.

            Steve called out.

            But Jay?

            But Jay?

            And that was about it for me and Steve.

            But, hey, let’s get back to cards shall we?

In 2019, when I got back into buying cards, I thought it pretty cool that Topps went ahead and made kind of an homage to 1982 with their base set that year.

It’s not a hockey stick swoosh on the card, but I really like the bold and colorful way that helps the cards to stand out. Modern cards need to stand out more. And I'm not talking guady colored inserts here. Sometimes I feel like it’s the photography and nothing else for modern sets. The art of card making gets left behind. And that’s what made a set like 1982 Topps special. So special that I bought me one whole set. 

Or any of the sets back then. They might not be your favorite. But they were all unique in their own way.

            Thankfully not Steve Fisher unique?

            Hey, did I forget to mention the kid who stood outside my front door with a shot gun?

            1982 was such a fun year.

 

Thanks for reading! Happy Collecting.

 

If you’d like to learn more about the 1982 Topps set you can do so HERE.

 

I didn’t get time to mention it last week, but baseball lost a great player in the death of J.R. Richard at age 71. J.R’s (I swear he would’ve been a Hall-of-Famer had he played a full career) brilliant pitching career was cut short in 1980 when he suffered a stroke. Before that, Richard had a string of 18-to-20-win seasons, and stuck out 300+ batter at least twice. But he was never able to recover after the stroke, and ended up retiring by 1982, after missing all of the 1981 season.  As a kid, J.R. Richard seemed like a lost legend to us. I had some of his cards then, and I collect his cards now.

You can read his obituary HERE.

 NEXT FRIDAY: I just can't leave 1987 alone. So we're going back. Back to childhood. Back to the three best sets of my collecting life. Back to the P.C. Back to the career of Michael Jack Schmidt.