Jose Cardenal and the Shakespearian Tragedy of buying cards from the 1970s.

 

I like the image on this 1976 Jose Cardenal card.

            It’s crisp. It’s sharp. It’s a nice close-up of Jose holding the bat in his Cubs uniform. The design of 1976 Topps has always been one of my favorite designs as well. They left a good amount of room for the player photo, but were still able to get creative with the color border. That double bar design really stands out for me. And even more than Topps’ 1973 brand, I think 1976 gets that little player cartoon right as well.

            Topps finally mastered clearer action shots in 1976.

            And this might be in my Top 10 favorite cards of all-time.

            In fact, I’d put 1976 Topps up there as one of my favorite designs of the 1970s, and quite possibly one of my favorite Topps Baseball designs of all-time.

            There’s a simplicity to it.

            1976 is a classic baseball card.

            1976 is probably why I’m a big fan of these.

            But.

            And there’s always a “but” here on Junk Wax Jay.

            1976 Topps, that Jose Cardenal card in particular, are a part of one of my most embarrassing scenes ever in The Hobby.

            Even more embarrassing than this one.

            Let’s start at the beginning of this sordid tale, shall we?

            You collectors remember being a kid, right? Especially a kid that has a little bit of money that’s burning a hole in his/her/their wallet, and the fire can only be quelled by buying some cards. A pack. Maybe some singles at a local LCS. Whatever gets the money out of your wallet and the cards into your hand. Those days when capitalism smelt like wax, cardboard and gum.

            It’s a great feeling.

            But it can lead you down a dark path.

            When we were kids, it seemed like card shops were popping up everywhere. In malls. In some dude’s basement. In the suburb I lived in, we had a lot of strip malls. Those low-rise sets of buildings all strung together. Usually there’d be a laundry in one. A mom-and-pop pizza joint. Maybe a chain pharmacy. Some independent tax guy with a little cash for a legit store front.

            And then a card shop.

            We had this one card shop in a strip mall right past where Frankstown Road met Duff Road, and the glorious McDonald’s beckoned us for an after card shop treat. It wasn’t really a card shop per se. The guy sold jewelry. Gold chains and the like. He’d obviously added the card stuff to try and latch on to the current zeitgeist. As I remember him, the proprietor of the jewelry/sports card store was a short, seedy man with a pencil-thin moustache. He wore sunglasses indoors and had a toothpick in his mouth. Had too many buttons on his shirt open.

            Or Tony Clifton 

            

           Or maybe that’s how I want to remember him.

            Seedy.

            Sinister.

            Mr. Sinister.

            This “card shop” was a lot closer to our homes than heading out to the mall, so it was easier to convince mom to take us to the shop and sit in the car and read, while we pursued our happiness, indulged our bubble-gum bliss. And the card shop wasn’t much. Mr. Sinister had some product under showcases. The ubiquitous cards of retired heroes that he'd dug up from his own collection, or pilfered from some widow while ripping her off of her family heirlooms. The cards none of us could afford. I remember he didn’t have current product. There were no Topps, Fleer or Donruss packs for us to buy. No cards of current stars.

This was a jewelry store fronting as a card shop, after all.

If this guy had distribution channels it wasn’t with the card companies

More like some guy named Vinnie or Tony who carried around black briefcases full of jewels.

But what Mr. Sinister did have, and what was equally intriguing to us kids back then, was shoebox after shoebox of commons from the 1970s.

I don’t know if younger collectors have a fascination with older cards. I don’t know if there are young collectors out there. Or what constitutes an older card these days.

2001 Topps is twenty years old.

Does this look ancient to you?

When we were kids, and I say we, because my brother and Miller were with me on this fateful, embarrassing day (let’s say it’s 1985), cards from the 1970s were only six to fifteen years old. We were all born in the 1970s. At least two of us had memories from the 70s. The 1970s felt tangible yet distant at the same time.

The cards from that era; they were something we could have.

This guy's legend was still tangible.

Hell, I'd seen him play...and not just in a Naked Gun movie.

It didn’t matter if they were star cards or commons, we wanted those 1970s (and 1960s and 1950s). I remember going to Mr. Sinister on different occasions and going through box after box, pulling out cards from the 1970s that just looked cool, having no real clue who the players were. There were stats on the back. I’d figure that one out later. Then I’d have a small pile of 1978s. Or 1977s. Cards that were maybe a dime a piece at the time.

I learned a lot about baseball from buying those older cards.

And Mr. Sinister? I wouldn’t say he was kind or benevolent. He looked unused to kids being anywhere near his store. Annoyed at times. I don’t know who he thought he was attracting by opening up his shop to sports cards. I’d say, at best, he was tolerant of us. Cigarette hanging out of his mouth, he’d slowly get up to fetch whatever shoebox of baseball lore we wanted to look through next.

He was a faceless lacky.

The conduit to our pleasure in commerce.

Until he didn’t want to do it anymore.

I was Mr. Sinister’s breaking point. Truthfully, I don’t even know what caused it that day. Maybe I had extra money and wanted to peruse more. Asked to look at more boxes than I should’ve. It was the summer. It was hot. Mr. Sinister’s store didn’t have air conditioning and his toupee looked flat and wet. It was hot enough that my mom was inside the shop, instead of waiting in the car.

What happened was simple.

I asked to look at another box of cards.

Mr. Sinister said no.

I was taken aback. Not in a pompous, privileged way. It’s just us kids weren’t used to being told no when it came to buying cards. Not by guys at card shows. Not by the poor clerks in the American Coin who we terrorized on a regular basis. Not by guys like Mr. Sinister. 

No? What was no? No didn’t exist when there was money involved. They didn’t tell you no in line at the Giant Eagle supermarket. No one said no in the kid’s clothing section of Kaufmann’s department store. What in the hell did this guy mean by saying no?

Mr. Sinister said no.

Mr. Sinister said I’m done.

I showed him my fistful of crinkled bills, just in case he forgot what a functioning and fruitful capitalistic system looked like.

Mr. Sinister pointed to the small pile of cards that I had selected.

He said you’ve been in here for almost an hour, and maybe you’ve spent a buck.

You kids are done.

Done? I thought. An hour? I pieced together time. Maybe it wasn’t the heat. Maybe my mom was in the store because she’d been wondering what was taking us so long. Maybe Mr. Sinister looked haggard because he’d been pulling down box after box of cards for three kids armed with little more than pocket change.

Miller and my brother were standing there like they'd been waiting on me.

I looked down at my cards and there was the 1976 Jose Cardenal on top.

But, I said, looking up at Mr. Sinister.

You’ve been here long enough, my mom said.

Et tu Brute!

Done, Mr. Sinister said.

But, I said. My lip began to quiver. Just one more box?

The 1975s?

The 1974s?

I don’t think I got to see the 1979s.

Done.

It hit me that I wasn’t going to get to look at anymore cards that day. That the small pile I had selected was it for me. Jose Cardenal? Who in the fuck was he? I couldn’t not understand the strange turn of events. That turncoat, Mr. Sinister? Didn’t he understand? Money talked. Bullshit walked a marathon. I had money. I was a paying customer. The customer was always right. Right? Now go and fetch me another goddamned box of cards!

Done.

What happened next was out of character for me. I was a fat kid and usually acted accordingly. I was wallpaper. I didn’t try to stand out. But that day I could feel it coming. The anger rising. The bile. The violent hatred I felt toward Mr. Sinister and his cheap, two-bit, half-assed card shop, pawned jewelry, whatever, strip-mall storefront. I wanted to lash out. Wanted to tell that greaseball the suck it. But I couldn’t. I could lash out the only way an eleven-year-old was able to when confronted with belligerent adults.

I began to cry.

And whine.

And stamp my feet and throw a tantrum.

And demand.

I demanded he show me another box of cards.

Mr. Sinister was unmovable. My mom embarrassed. My brother and Miller; their mouths were agape at the Shakespearian tragedy playing out before them. I was hauled into the car. I wasn’t even allowed to buy the cards I had selected. So long Jose Cardenal.

I was left to sit in the front seat and cry, while my mother went back in that bastard’s store, so that my brother and Miller could pay for the cards that they’d selected. I was left alone with my misery and anger and embarassment. I think I vowed then and there to burn that goddamned fake-ass card store to the ground.

I sure as shit was never stepping foot in there again.

            We drove home in complete silence save the whimpering from my self-pity.

            We didn’t even stop at the McDonald’s that so prominently stood at the intersection of Frankstown and Duff.

            That was my fault too.

            There is no creature loves me; And if I die, no soul will pity me.

            And I spent the rest of the afternoon alone in my room.

           If we can escape my shame for a moment, I do want to stress how much I realty love the 1976 baseball card set. I’m enamored with its simplicity. I seem to like it more and more each time I see it. To some collectors 1976 pales, and is probably one of the least exciting sets of a pretty colorful decade. And other than Dennis Eckersley, there isn’t much of a rookie class; though Ron Guidry and Willie Randolph are no slouches. To each their own.

            But the 1976 set has some great stuff.

            It has this guy’s last card.

            And the second cards for these three hall-of-famers.

            Last spring, I ended up finding a 150-card lot of 1976 cards and thought what the hell? So I’ve started slowly piecing together the set. Buying some star cards on the cheap. A few commons here and there. I’m hoping to get to a card show early next year, and maybe there I’ll get some more of them in bulk. Buy that Jose Cardenal for old times’ sake.

            Only this time…no drama.

Thanks for reading! Happy collecting!

If you'd like to learn more about the 1976 Topps baseball card set, you can do so HERE

If you'd like to learn more about the career of my boy, Jose Cardenal, you can do so HERE and HERE

NEXT FRIDAY:  I'm going to celebrate the release of 2021 Topps Update....but talking about 1987 Fleer.

On the Road to Buffalo and Pittsburgh : A Junk Wax Odyssey of Self-Examination

 

Thomas Wolfe said You Can’t go Home Again.

            Or at least he has a posthumously released book called that.

            Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby said, Can’t repeat the past? Why, of course you can!

            And we all know how he ended up.

            Or do we these days?

            I don’t really know who’s right. If either. As a middle-aged man I sometimes find myself confronted with the idea that more time might be behind me than what lies ahead. I don’t like it but aging is a fact of life. Sometimes I think I’d like to repeat the past. Go back to when I was younger. When I was cared for. When I didn’t carry around all of this worry and anxiety that I feel as an adult. Back when it was someone else’s job to keep a roof over my head and feed me, and my only worries were where I could buy a pack of baseball cards.

            Ah, youthful bliss

I do this when I’m not taking a good and honest look at the past.

The mind plays tricks on you.

It makes the time that you can no longer grasp seem idyllic.

Like, when I go home, I still expect my parents to look like they did when I was a kid. My mom exasperated from work. The old man coming in from being on the bus, in need of a can of beer. Okay, maybe not idyllic for them. How about we picture a pleasant Satuday cookout circa 1988. But my folks now...well, they’re older, retired, no longer burdened with feeding or keeping a roof over some kid’s head. They’ve done their work for capitalism and now it’s hearing aids, endless hours, and TVs shows to stream.

They don't have to shell out cash for kids screaming over this.

Like I probably did thirty-five years ago.

The people I grew up with? Well…that’s hard too. I still expect them to look like they’re ready to play nine innings of wiffle ball. Toss the Nerf ball around. Not be burdened with the same shit that weighs me down on a daily basis. I expect the women that I used to know to still maintain that girlish vigor, as well as their looks; not that they’ve lost their looks. Be those alluring humans I was drawn to decades ago. But most are middle-aged housewives or career women; almost all are mothers to children for whom the world will soon be theirs and no longer ours.

            When I look into a mirror a graying man stares back at me.

            He couldn’t play wiffle ball even if he wanted to.

            Still, I search for some lost Fountain of Youth.

            And, like I said, sometimes I wish Jay Gatsby were right.

            '86 Topps Traded really came out 35 years ago?

            Jesus Christ…where has the time gone?

            I was thinking these thoughts while visiting the city of Buffalo recently. I was alone in a rental car, the morning and early afternoon mine to visit various sports card shops throughout the Erie County region. I took it slow. Avoided the chaotic highways. Took the long way. I had the music of my youth blasting on the radio. New Edition. 80s and early 90s soul. And in my head, I could catch the glimpses on myself as a youth, when I used to borrow to car to go to the mall or just drive around smoking purloined cigarettes.

Once upon a time it was cassette tapes.

Then CDs.

Now the music is downloaded via some app and pumped through the car.

            You can’t go home again.

            Buffalo is vaguely familiar to me. My sister-in-law and her family live there. My in-laws moved to the Queen City to be near their grandkids. My wife and I visit a good amount. I even lived in Buffalo for two years. That was about fifteen years ago. Grad school. Two years of collecting more student loan debt, so that I could graduate and finally get a job good enough to pay back my older student loan debt.

            Higher education is a fucking trap if you can’t afford it outright.

            It can be a vicious cycle.

            For almost thirty years I’ve questioned my decision to get a degree.

            But that’s a blog post for another time.

            It’s strange riding around places you used to live. Life is organic and ever-changing. Yet places remain fixed in your memory. You remained fixed. Fifteen years ago, seems like it happened yesterday. For some reason you expect things to stay the same. Until you’re confronted with how much places have changed. Buffalo is like that for me, at least a little bit. A bar where I shrugged off grad school and shitty jobs that is now gone. A restaurant. Passing by an old apartment that is now filled with kids young enough to be your own.

Riding around Pittsburgh is even worse. Pittsburgh is where I grew up. Where I lived twenty-eight of my forty-seven years. I bled on those streets. Fell in love. Had crushes explode my young heart. It’s where I fell down drunk on weekends. Staggered blocks in tears of rage and joy. Emblazoned every nook into my memory. I laughed and loved and fought for my own independent soul in Pittsburgh. My life’s education began there, and I reference the place every single day in my head.

            Yet when I go back, so much has changed.

            It’s like I never lived there.

            I feel like a ghost.

            Can’t repeat the past? Why, of course you…

            At my age I’m still restless. It’s tiring. Often when driving around Buffalo or Pittsburgh, I wonder about those people who can take solace in the place they live. The ones who are comfortable in their familiarity. I don’t think I ever feel that way. Or I haven’t in a really long time. Maybe New York City isn’t conducive to that kind of memory. Although to the born and bred Brooklyner I probably sound crazy. To them, New York City is home.

            Truth be told, I felt restless when I was stationary in Pittsburgh.

I think it’s just me.

I feel disconnected and temporary.

Like my life is a place-holder for something else.

I don’t feel this way all the time. There are long periods of contentment. Periods where writing is going well. Where the job doesn’t intrude too much. Times where I can let comfort permeate. Stop and smell the roses. Just be. Where I feel like I’ve made some decent choices.

But contentment can be fleeting. Man, you gotta work at happiness. Especially when you start to push the human needle toward fifty. Futility is a patient beast. Yet I search for that solace. In Buffalo. In Pittsburgh. In the almost two decades I’ve put into New York City. In places that I’ve traveled more than once. A drink in a familiar bar. Walking an old block. Rewatching a favorite show. Stopping by the building where I favorite writer wrote his key work, and just standing there staring in awe. Conversations about the old times with old friends, where there’s no mention of current hardships.

This is a blog about sports cards, right?

Opening up packs of baseball cards can give me solace.

Or the act is akin to finding that Fountain of Youth…sometimes.

Especially when I open up the baseball cards of my youth.

And that’s what this trip to Buffalo and Pittsburgh turned into.

There are some people who slag off the so-called Junk Wax Era (IMO it’s 1987-1993) of baseball cards and collecting. They bemoan the lack of value. The ubiquitous presence of the cards. The cheap cardboard. The cheesy shots. The lack of bells and whistles.

I feel the exact opposite.

I feel lucky to have come of age in an era of mass-production.

I’m happy that the cards of my youth are still so plentiful and affordable.

That in the right circumstance I can still buy this card for a buck.

I don’t know how I would’ve approached a return to collecting if those cards were expensive now. I might’ve skipped returning to The Hobby altogether. Sought out a therapist for my anxiety instead. For the first so many months of collecting, all I did was open up Junk Wax. I return to Junk Wax often. I feel lucky that I can tool around in a rental car feeling lonely and nostalgic, and still find some mom-and-pop baseball card shop in the suburbs of Buffalo.

Like this one.

And buy these for ten-bucks a pop.

Can’t repeat the past? Why, of course you can!

Pulling up to a card shop and hobbling my wide, relatively out-of-shape frame out of an economy-sized rental car might not be the same as being let loose in the mall by my mom, racing my friends down sun-soaked hallway to the be the first kid in the American Coin. Or piling a group of us into a car to go to a card show at the Monroeville ExpoMart or the A.J. Palumbo Center. But it still feels pretty nice. I still get that old anticipatory feeling in your gut. That Christmas morning feeling.

I’ve never been a happier capitalist then when I’ve been in a baseball card shop.

Okay…maybe record stores do it for me too.

And bookstores.

The Bases Loaded baseball card shop did it for me…kind of. Truth be told, the shop had just recently moved locations. Like very recently. Like so recently the omnipotent gods of information at Google hadn’t even updated the address on their search engine. I’d actually mapped myself to the old Bases Loaded location. Imagine my shock at the desolation. I stood in an empty parking lot like some lost Quixote. Or Clark Griswold at Wally World.

Until I realized that they’d posted their new location on the door.

Cell phones can be a godsend sometimes.

That said, because of the recent move, Bases Loaded wasn’t fully up and running. Which was a shame. I’d read great things about the store online. Perused picture of purchases made by satisfied customers. Collectors I know in the region swear by them. I was anticipating a good mixture of old and new card product. Quarter bins. Dollar bins. Common card bins to help a guy like me try and fill his various sets.

I even took photos of my 1980 Topps checklist in anticipation.

Talk about a set that fills me with nostalgia.

But the Bases Loaded I pulled up to; it was a store in transition. Most of the stock was still in boxes. The showcases bare, save some hobby boxes for new product. I don’t fault the owner for trying to make a buck without a proper set-up. But he lost out on some sales by not waiting until he was fully stocked. There were actual KIDS in his store that day. Those kids wanted to leaf through singles. They left empty-handed.

Still…

Kids in a card shop.

Like it should be.

The kid inside me walked away with these.

Ten bucks a box.

I’m not passing up Junk Wax when it’s ten-bucks a box.

Even if it’s 1991 Fleer.

And I’ll definitely be back to check out Bases Loaded when they are up and running as they should.

You know what I’ve been really down on lately? Modern cards. I realize that maybe we’re at the end of the insanity that we saw in The Hobby throughout 2020. I see collectors posting pictures of card product that’s sitting back on the shelves at Wal-Mart or Target. And that’s a good thing. What’s not a good thing is that prices have not come down. I worry that they won’t. I worry that this Devil’s deal the major sports leagues have made with Fanatics is just going to make things worse.

Fanatics bums me out.

            I worry they’ll kill The Hobby.

            Though Panini and Topps aren't currently doing it any favors.

            I mean $425 for a hobby box of football cards?

            Come on, man!

            You can’t get that Christmas feeling on $425 dollars a box.

            It was with that impending sense of modern Hobby dread that I went to Dave & Adam’s Card World. I don’t mean to slag off Dave & Adam’s. I like the store. If you’re a fan of the Bills or Sabres it’s a must visit. Think Steel City Collectibles but with a TON more team merchandise. Or just think of the biggest sports merchandise store you’ve been to, and add cards and comic books.

            Dave & Adam’s is a touchstone in the return to collecting for me. I bought my first modern day hobby boxes (a box each of Topps 2019 flagship series 1 and series 2) there. Back when hobby box prices were reasonable. When I didn’t feel guilt for buying cards. I genuinely like Dave & Adams.

            But it’s hard with modern product now. It’s hard not to get discouraged walking by a counter and seeing hobby boxes of Score football going for $300. Or the aforementioned Panini Donruss football. Those Topps flagship hobby boxes now going for $90. And that’s on discount.

            With prices like that…you really can’t go home again.

            You can repeat the past.

            But it’ll cost you.

            Truth be told, I went back to the car and sat there dejected. $300 a box isn’t what I wanted from The Hobby that I loved. When I came back, I wanted to feel connected. Stave off the restlessness a little and focus on something that gave me a meaningful connection to my youth, beyond buying the Junk Wax stuff. A full circle vibe. And it was that initially.

But now?

Here’s a funny conundrum that only a DINK (Double Income No Kids) with the type of time on his hands to consistently self-examine himself could have. I spend a lot of time on the Baseball Card Exchange web site. Not a lot of time. But some. They’re selling 1987 Fleer baseball product for about $120 a hobby box. I sit there and stare and think how outrageous. Junk wax for $100+ a box! For 1987 cards? Don't they grow on trees? 

Yet the other day I almost dropped the same amount on a pre-order of 2021 Topps Update.

 Then I posed a question to myself.

Which one of those purchases would give me more fun?

Give me that Christmas feeling?

The wax box full of joy and memories?

Or the over-priced item from the NEW Junk Wax Era that’s full of unproven rookies and a bunch of bells and whistles that I probably won’t get in packs anyway?

Did Thomas Wolfe or good ol’ F. Scott every have this type of trivial problem?

My answer was no…the Topps Update wouldn’t.

But $100+ for a box of 1987 Fleer...

It made me feel more at a loss.

Restless.

Less rooted in The Hobby.

I’ve rambled on a lot in this blog post. To read it over, I’d have to say my mind just isn’t clear this week. Its conflicted. It’s a tightrope between the past and present. What counts and what doesn't. And I don’t really know what I want to say or how to say it. And to think this was supposed to be a simple, hey, look what I bought! blog post. And for that I’m sorry. I’ll do better next week. Keep it more focused. On point.

With that I’m going to stop here. I’m just going to say the trip to Pittsburgh was good. It was full of family, friends, and people who maybe were too close together for pandemic times. But even I’m getting sick of pandemic times. I wasn’t able to hit any card shops and my flea  market paradise is closed during the week. I did hit up my favorite antique shop called The Hub. 

They have a small selection of cards. Mostly my blessed Junk Wax. My Christmas morning feeling cards.

Anyway….

Hey! Look what I bought!

This baby

And these babies.

The 1986 Donruss lot had some doubles.

But I'm not complaining.

This team set got me within inches of finishing my 1984 Topps Football set.

1984 Topps football is the shit.

And when I got home I opened it all up in a fit of morning joy and a bunch of Grateful Dead.

Could've ended the rack box at pack one and been in bliss.

I got your inserts right here.

Eat your heart out Jonathan India.

This man makes yellow look GOOD.

And lastly...the obligatory this all cost less than 1/2 the cost of a modern hobby box.

Now let's go and over-pay for some 1987 Fleer to helop compensate for aging!

Thanks for reading! Happy Collecting!

NEXT FRIDAY: Tears of rage at the card store...how about we talk a little bit about 1976?

 

 

Hockey Cards : My Harlot

 

Yeah.

I bought hockey cards.

But…you see…it was a different time back then. A looser time. A time of exploration and experience. A time of non-judgement. A more innocent and idyllic time to be a collector. And the cards were everywhere you went, man. Drug stores. Chain department stores. Gas stations. Corner stores. Everyone was doin’ it, man.

Yeah…I know.

If everyone jumped off a bridge would you do it too?

But hockey cards aren’t jumping off a bridge, man.

They’re pieces of cardboard with athletes on the front and stats on the back.

And I was hooked on all of it.

In all honesty, I don’t know why I bought hockey cards when I was a kid. Maybe for a less exaggerated reason than what I wrote above. While I dabbled in basketball, I never gave one single shit about hockey. I mean, I’ve watched hockey. On Tv. Live. Endured is a better word than watched. I’ve played hockey too. There was a weird time when every kid I knew bought a hockey stick and we played street hockey.

...Except Miller.

Miller hated hockey more than anyone I've ever met.

Even more than me.

Maybe the rest of us gave in to hockey's darkness because this guy was getting bigger and bigger in Pittsburgh.

Everyone loves a star.

Yeah…I still didn’t care about him either.

But I still went searching for him in packs.

I don’t know why I dislike hockey. I know why I dislike most vegetables. It’s because they taste like dirt. Hockey doesn’t taste like dirt. But it’s the sports equivalent of tasting like dirt to me. Say what you will about baseball. But at least there’s nuance. Substance. Poetry. Hockey is a bunch of guys skating around on ice for two plus hours, for a score of 1-0. Or worse. A goddamned tie.

The same goes for soccer.

And I don’t know why I bought hockey cards. Why does anyone do anything? Out of boredom? For experience? Because I wanted a pack of football cards, and all that the goddamned Thrift Drug had to offer me that day were hockey cards. I was an impatient child. Any little bit of money that I had burned a hole in my pocket. Saving was for fools.

And necessity being the mother of invention.

The first hockey cards that I ever bought were Topps’ 1988-89 release.

The one with this dude showing off his fresh new gear.

I’ll admit, it’s a good-looking set. Frosty white borders make you feel like you’re on the ice. Even though it’s hockey, the photos of the players look great. Especially the in-action shots. And I think that thumbtack “holding” up the players name is a nice touch. It harkens back to a time when sports cards were manhandled. Put in the spokes of bikes. Thumbtacked to your wall.

The problem for me was, I didn’t care about any of the players that I got in packs. Not Lemieux. Not Gretzky. I had no clue who Paul Coffey was, even though he PLAYED for the Penguins. Or Brett Hull. Or Patrick Roy. Or Mark Messier. I couldn’t even tell you who won that year’s Stanley Cup.

Yet I spent a shit ton of my money on them.

To the point where I was on my way toward building a set.

You know, if you have good parents, they watch out how kids spend their money. Try to encourage them to save. Spend it on things worthwhile. Once, I had fifty bucks burning a hole in my pocket. Christmas or my birthday. Or something. I really wanted this Monkees boxed set. So, I bought it. My mom read me the riot act. Why’d you waste money on that. You could’ve used it for (insert said important thing that I kid should buy but never would).

That kind of shit.

Funny thing is, thirty-one years later I STILL have that Monkees boxed set.

I couldn’t tell you where my binder full of 1988-89 Topps Hockey cards are.

            I didn't even talk about hockey cards with anyone else, or even know anyone other than my brother (and that's his burden to carry I've obviously got my own) who bought hockey cards. Not Phineas. Certainly not Miller. They were a deep, dark secret that I held onto. Like being a fan of the New Kids on the Block, or never having watched the movie Jaws.

            Yet....there went my hard earned coin.

            On fucking hockey cards.

            My foray into hockey cards (and it was hit and miss at best), did, however, coincide with the rise of the Penguins in the city of Pittsburgh. Long a frustrating and losing team in the city, the franchise was beginning to build a winner by the late 80s into the early 90s. A lot of it had to do with Lemieux. A lot of it had to do with supporting players.

            There was the arrival of this guy.

            Now 1990-91 Score hockey cards, I would have to say, were probably my next real forays into hockey card collecting. While I didn’t care about Lemieux or Jagr, like every kid and teen back then I thought that having cards of them (and other hockey stars) would one day make me rich and save me from the work-a-day drudgery that I saw my parents and friend’s parents deal with every day.

            They didn’t.

            With the exception of brief stints on the dole, I’ve been gainfully employed since I slung my first newspaper at a porch back some thirty-five years ago.

            Or I bought them because I wanted to see what I was missing.

            What everyone was excited about with this team.

            I remember actually opening wax boxes of 1990-91 Score hockey. 

            Around that time, I also got a job working at the Pittsburgh Pirates Clubhouse Store in the Monroeville Mall. The same legendary mall of Romero films and my blessed American Coin. The Coin was gone by then. And I was probably more interested in sports-related clothing than cards (though I was still buying cards). Everyone was going crazy over that shit. Starter brand was all the rage.

            There is this one memory.

            The morning after the Penguins won their first cup. We were all on-call at the Clubhouse. If they won, we all came into work. Early. Like real early. What awaited us was box after box of Penguins Stanley Cup champion t-shirts. And hats. Our job was to get those shirts out and sorted into size as quickly as possible, on hangers, and put onto the waiting six or seven racks for when customers started coming in.

            And come the customers did.

            The only other time I’d ever seen the store that packed was on Black Friday.

            The Pittsburgh Penguins had finally arrived.

            But all they ever gave me was a burn.

            You see, all of those t-shirts we got in came wrinkled. It was okay for the initial batch to go on racks wrinkled, because rabid-hockey fans didn’t care. But subsequent shirts had to be presentable. I spent the entirety of that day in the stockroom of the store, steam-ironing shirt. If you’ve ever steam-ironed something and accidently burned yourself, multiple times, then you understand where I’m coming from.

            BURNED.

            All because of this pack of assholes.

            Maybe it was that day where I resolved to hate hockey and not care about the Pittsburgh Penguins, and never buy another pack of hockey cards again.

            Who knows?

            While the Steelers own the city, Pittsburgh is a hockey town too now. I did time in Buffalo, so I know my hockey towns. Hockey towns can be hard when you think the sport is dull and stupid, its fans confused an in need of corrective therapy. And the Penguins team has been competitive off and on for the last thirty years, and have actually managed to win the Stanley Cup four more times since that 1990-1991 season. Not that I watched a single period of the action.

            And good old Mario Lemieux owns the team now.

            I once gave his kid a library card.

           I met Jagr too. This guy I worked with at the Clubhouse was a puck-boy for the Pens when Jagr was a relatively new player. He had the job of showing Jaromir around. So he took him to the goddamned mall. To his job when he was off. I was working that night, so he could brag in front of his co-workers. Jagr didn’t speak much English. It was like meeting a stranger on the street.

            But he bought a two-hundred-dollar, leather White Sox jacket.

            Don’t ask me why.

            As for hockey cards…they still exist. The Upper Deck company is the major manufacturer or hockey cards. That sounds about right. And from what I’ve heard they do a really good job on them. Again, not that I’d know. That said, I do hope that the NHL and Upper Deck continue their relationship, and that pro-hockey cards aren’t just another domino that eventually falls into the Fanatics monopoly abyss.

            Stay strong Upper Deck!

            Even though you helped damage The Hobby back in the 1990s!

 

Thanks for reading! Happy collecting!

If you’d like to learn more about hockey cards or the Pittsburgh Penguins…go somewhere else. I’ve written more about hockey and hockey cards than I ever care to again.

 

Next Friday: I’m going to show off what I picked up while in Buffalo and Pittsburgh.