A Wax Box man in a PC world : Being unsatisfied buying baseball cards...how American is that?

 

I’m in the card purchasing doldrums.

            This blog post will prove otherwise.

            But bear with me.

            I should say I’m in the wax box/hobby box card purchasing doldrums. I’ve said it a few times on this blog this year, but I’m really trying to cut down my hobby box/wax box purchasing. And so far, I have. I’ve really only bought Topps base this year. I gave up (again) on Heritage and nothing else (okay, maybe Chrome Platinum Anniversary, although I haven't bought any) has really moved me to buy a box of cards. And I haven’t bought anything older either. I keep looking at those unfinished Junk Wax Era sets (that aren’t even worth the cost of a box of cards), and I say to myself, why bring more of this into a Brooklyn apartment?

            Fun?

            The adult collector in me feels like fun isn’t a good enough excuse.

            But I want to buy a box of cards. There’s something about sitting down with a whole box of cards that reaches to the core of a collector. It invokes memories that are good. I want to sit down on some lazy Saturday or Sunday morning with a large ice coffee, some Dead on the stereo, and a whole big wax box in front of me. When I really think of this scene it’s usually a wax box of 1987 Topps. But I’ve already built that set. I already have all of the star/Pirates cards that I wanted from that set in my PC and team box. What would be the point of opening up a wax box of 1987 Topps.

            Fun?

            There’s that word again.

            To be honest, as I’ve been back collecting these three years, I realize there isn’t much new product that I actually want to open in Hobby Box form. I’m not a Gypsy Queen fan. I don’t like Chrome. I do like Stadium Club but it takes box after box to build a set...if building sets is even my thing anymore. I’m a huge Topps Archives fan, but that doesn’t even come out until October. I’d love to open up some football product. But that’s still too high-priced for me, even though we’re past the days of people waiting in line outside of Target to pummel each other for a blaster box.

            2022 Score Football is still pre-sale at $199 a box.

            WTFF?

            It’s not that there’s even much baseball product out there to open. Is it just me or is everything delayed? It’s almost September and where is Stadium Club? Where is Chrome?

            Ah…dilemmas.

            I’ve been working more on my PC this year. Working more on getting cards from the home team. Sets. Little cheap PCs of Pirates from the past that I was a fan of; players whose value is only to me personally. I’m actually in the process of converting one of those three-column card boxes into a Pittsburgh Pirates only card box. At least once this year, I even did one of those, buy individual cards instead of a box of cards and see how the value equates. I recently did it again using ComC, even though I’ve been jonesing to rip packs.

            Here’s the result:

            First up Luis Arraez.

            There’s a lot of great young players in Major League baseball, provided they can stay healthy or not get banned for 80-games. Arraez is a guy whose cards really don’t cost that much at all. You can get his base rookie for under $3 and everything else is maybe a touch above common-card price. That’s a shame. Luis Arraez is currently hitting .322 (who hits .322 in 2022? Okay, other than Goldschmidt) and is one of those pure hitter types. Think Rod Carew/Tony Gwynn type of potential. The kid is only twenty-five and he has four Major League seasons under his belt. I don’t watch the Twins much, but when I do I enjoy watching Arraez hit. You just don’t see hitting like that these days.

            Bill Mazeroski and Al Oliver.

            I never saw Maz play and I barely saw Al Oliver play the game of baseball. Mazeroski is a legend to us Pirates fans. He’s the hero of the 1960 World Series. Great Pirates are few and far between these days, so you got to go back if you want to collect the greats. Mazeroski cards are affordable and fun to have in my Pirates PC. The addition of Maz’s 1965 and 1970 bring my current Maz PC up to four cards. I’m building him slowly.

            As for Al “Scoop” Oliver. He’s the Pirate that got away. He’s a borderline Hall of Famer who seemed to spend the rest of his career playing for under-the-radar teams (mostly Texas and Montreal with stops in San Francisco, Philly, and Toronto…I’m sure I’m missing somewhere else).  I always bought Scoop’s cards when I was a kid, because he was an affordable, good player, and affordable good players were important to a kid who got most of his baseball card money by digging under couch cushions. Scoop is still pretty inexpensive. Adding his 1970 and 1971 cards almost completes my Topps run for him. I still need the 1972. It’s a high number. I can wait.

            J.R. Richard.

            This is going to sound morbid, but when I was a kid, I learned the word “stroke” and what a stroke meant from what happened to J.R. Richard. There was a sad aura around him just as I was getting into collecting. Not unfulfilled expectations but the idea that we, as fans and collectors, were cheated out of a great career because of what happened to J.R. I collected his cards as a kid. When I got back into collecting, I knew I wanted some J.R. Richard cards in my collection. Getting the 1978 and 1982 cards actually completes the Topps J.R. Richard run for me.

            Non-Sports Cards.

            I keep getting pulled in this direction. When I go snooping on BBC Exchange or elsewhere, I’m starting to find myself looking at the non-sports stuff. For the most part, my very small and modest non-sports card collection consists of artists and other who were important to me as a kid. I have pop star cards for the members of the R&B group New Edition, a couple of Beatles cards, a card for The Monkees, two Brady Bunch cards, and even a card for the Beat writer Jack Kerouac.

            But then there’s Mister Rogers.

            There is no way I can ever put into words or articulate what Mister Rogers has meant to me. Not just his show but his life itself. He grew up a picked-on fat kid, I grew-up a picked-on fat kid. He was a Pittsburgher. I was a Pittsburgher. He was a caring, loving, individual, and I fail at all of those things on a regular basis...but I aspire to them. I watched his show religiously. To too old of an age from what I’ve been told. Just this week I was going through some bad work stuff, and I looked up Mister Rogers on YouTube. I came across an episode about pets. I watched it in its entirely, tears in my eyes the whole time. If Mister Rogers has a card then I needed to own it.

            True story: my future wife and I once passed Mister Rogers on the street. He was crossing Forbes Avenue in the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh. I was too nervous to say anything to him. What could I say other than thank you?

I wish I told Mister Rogers thank you.

As for this…

Not a sentimental purchase. I’ve told the story of Phineas lording his Shigeru Takada card over me. Amazing what kids become obsessed with, and what other kids lord over them. This Jedi card was another one of those instances. Phineas pulled this card from a pack…Christ, I still remember where we were: the back of his mom’s car, riding along Allegheny River Boulevard, on a rainy summer day. Olivia Newton-John’s (RIP) Magic playing on the radio. Phineas pulled the Time Out for Love card out of a pack, and you would’ve thought he struck gold. He acted like it was the greatest card ever. I think I bought more Jedi cards than I did of baseball cards that summer of 1983 trying to get that card.

I own it now out of spite.

It’s in my spite PC next to the Takada card I own.

Okay…so my plan was to keep going along like this. Buying some inexpensive cards for my baseball PC, add a few Steelers guys I collect for my football collection. I think I had a whole list or so that I’d been keeping when at work. But then that plan got blown out of the water when I decided to take a gander at this.

I won’t lie. Going to the 1965 Roberto Clemente was intentional. I don’t know if buying it was intentional…but that’s what happened. Clemente cards, even ones not in the best of shape, are the ones I look out for now. I had a few Clemente cards as a kid, and I can’t even remember how lucky I was to get them. I don’t even remember how I got them. But by the time I stopped collecting in 1992, I had a 1969, 1971, 1972 and a 1973 Roberto Clemente card in my collection. When I can I pick them up now. Early this year I added a 1966 Clemente to my collection. This 1965 card is another that I always loved as a kid.

It changed my purchasing plan.

But I’m not sorry.

So, you see what I mean about not having a real card purchasing doldrum.

But even with that purchase, even with the Clemente, there’s still that desire to sit down in front of a big box of cards and just let her rip. It’s okay to have some fun, right? And, I think there’s still some storage space around here. It’s going to happen. Obviously, Archives is coming out in October. Or, maybe it’s coming out. Full disclosure, what I really want to open is a wax box of 1988’s Topps Big Baseball. I know there’s storage issues and supply issues with bigger cards. But I really loved them when they came out.

Maybe some day soon.

 

Thanks for reading! Happy Collecting!

 

NEXT FRIDAY: To celebrate Football Season coming.....ranking 1980s Topps Football.