Junk Wax Jay: Collecting by the Book: Tyler Kepner's The Grandest Stage: A History of the World Series....and, oh, I collect Bill Buckner cards now.

We’ve all screwed up.

We’ve all made mistakes.

Bought the wrong items at the grocery. Told somebody something that we shouldn’t have. Sent a text or email to the wrong person…in a really wrong way.

Forgotten somebody’s birthday?

Mistakes.

Look, I’m not happy about that fact. I hate mistakes. I hate making mistakes. I hate it when people I’m counting on make mistakes. I don’t even like the word mistake. It sounds like a kinder way to say failure. That’s probably harsh.

But is it incorrect?

Most of my mistakes have been small. Akin to the things I’ve listed up above. I’ve made a few big ones. Mistakes I won’t mention on here. But my mistakes have been personal. Out of the public eye.

Not like the mistake this guy made on October 25, 1986.

Ouch.

Did you know he went 0-5 in that game too?

More on Bill Buckner later.

I recently finished Tyler Kepner’s new book, The Grandest Stage: A History of the World Series.

I’m going to go out a limb here…but if you’re a baseball fan…I think you might like it. I know that I’m a fan of the book. And I like Kepner’s writing in general. Both in his last book, K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches, and the baseball articles that he writes for the New York Times.

Kepner is a good baseball writer. And he’s a fan. A big fan. You can feel it in his prose. His also a pretty great baseball historian. He’s a baseball history weaver. What I mean by this is that Kepner’s books aren’t straight narratives. Time moves in that Doctor Who wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey way. For a few paragraphs we could be talking about 1919 and those damned Black Sox, and in the next few paragraphs we’re in the 21^st Century, the early to mid-2010s, and Madison Bumgarner is doing some sick things with Word Series ERA.

And it all works.

By book’s end history finds a way to coalesce.

Anyone who can pull and bend and twist history, and then make it seem by book’s end that you’ve been told a straight narrative this whole time…well…they’re okay in my book.

As a card collector, I enjoy reading about baseball and baseball history. Obviously, nothing touches sitting down and watching your favorite player play their sport to the best of their ability, either in live action, or maybe watching a moment from games past. But reading about the sport, about players in action, is a close second for me. I can’t read genre fiction. My imagination doesn’t work with Sci Fi, Horror, or any kind of genre writing. But stick my nose into the narrative of sports non-fiction, and I’m there, man. On the field. In the stands.

Over the summer, I did a Junk Wax Jay blog post entitled: Collecting by the Book.

You can read it HERE.

The gist of the post was that I’ve developed this, well, to me at least, strange little PC of players whom I’ve begun collecting based on reading about them in sports non-fiction books.

Here are a few examples of what I’m talking about:

Okay, Terry Bradshaw cards I probably would’ve collected on my own. But I do credit Gary Pomerantz’s book on the 1970s Steelers dynasty, Their Life’s Work, to be the impetus for my really getting back into Football cards. Same with Dan Good’s book on Ken Caminit, Playing Through the Pain. Did I ever think I’d have Caminiti cards in my collection?

This brings us to my new inductee into the Collecting by the Book PC…

Ladies and Gentlemen and all others…I give you…Bill Buckner.

It’s a modest PC.

But it’s a start.

I guess you’re probably asking yourself, or maybe I’m asking myself, why, after having read a book on the history of the World Series, why would you choose to add Bill Buckner to the PC instead of someone else. No one from the Big Red Machine? Carlton Fisk waving that home run ball not enough to entice me to start truly collecting his cards? A Tim Lincecum PC not enough of a challenge? Couldn’t find a single player from the 1990s Braves teams?

Honestly, I don’t know why Buckner struck me the way he did in Kepner’s book. More than Pete Rose or Johnny Bench (both of whom I have many cards in my collection). Or Carlton Fisk (name a Hall of Famer who seemingly showed up in every single pack of cards I ever opened, and I’ll show you Carlton Fisk). Or Tim Lincecum (I have nothing witty to add here). Or a member of the 1990s Braves (I would never…NEVER…unless his name is Henry Aaron…collecting ANYTHING from the Atlanta Braves, past or present…all apologies to Ronald Acuna Jr.).

Actually, I think I do know why I chose Bill Buckner. He’s a sympathetic character…to me at least. If I know Red Sox fans, I’m sure there’s still some middle-aged guy out there in the world holding a grudge. Get over it, will you! They’ve won 4 in the last twenty years! Us Pirates fans have to go back to 1979 for the last time that once-storied franchise actually appeared in the World Series.

But I digress.

Yes, I have sympathy for Bill Buckner. The guy was hurting during that World Series. Buckner had been hurting almost his whole career, Had the guy not severely sprained his ankle in 1975, we might’ve been looking at a potential 300-hit/Hall of Fame player in Bill Buckner. Instead, we get the bottom of the 10^th-inning in Game 6.

Okay, maybe that’s too dramatic.

I think what gets me is that the 1986 World Series is the first World Series that I remember being fully invested in, as a fan and as a collector. The 1979 World Series Pirates, I barely remember. The 1980 World Series is the first one I remember. The ones between 1980-1984, meh to me. The 1985 Series between the Royals and Cardinals is probably the first Series that I saw full games played. I was eleven…they were on school nights, so I saw what I could. But the 1986 World Series is the one I remember being event television for me. Staying up to watch the whole game. Watching parts of games at friend’s homes and then racing back to my house to catch the rest.

I was twelve in 1986. I was probably at my collecting apex. At my most feverish as a collector.

I loved and hated the 1986 New York Mets. Still do. Hated them because they beat up on my hapless Pittsburgh Pirates. Loved them because…well…how could you not be wowed by Doc, Straw, Mex, The Kid, and that colorful cast of other players on the 1986. I might’ve “hated” the Mets, but you can be damn sure I had Gooden, Strawberry, Hernandez and Gary Carter cards in my collection.

Still do.

Full disclosure, me and my friends, Miller, we used to shut Pirates games OFF to put the Mets games on. In Pittsburgh we got New York’s WWOR with our cable package. They played Mets games back then. So, we’d just turn the dial. Boy was my old man pissed when he’d some in from the backyard to get the Pirates score, and we weren’t fast enough to change the channel back.

Remote controls, if you were lucky to have one, were still a touch on the slow side in 1986.

So, see, I was somewhat invested in the 1986 World Series.

Invested how…kind of a love/hate or love to hate thing.

I still don’t know if I’m happy with the outcome.

Actually, that’s not true.

I like the Boston Red Sox about as much as I do the Atlanta Braves.

Eighteen years in New York will do that to a guy.

And I collect this guy.

So....Let's go Mets?

But I remember seeing that Buckner play. And I remember feeling bad that the Red Sox blew it and couldn’t end the Series then and there. And Game Six was a crazy game. Tyler Kepner does a good job detailing just how crazy the game was, as well as the multitude of mistakes the Boston Red Sox made during the course of those 10-innings. Hint…it’s not just Bill Buckner, folks.

If you need a refresher, you can find it HERE.

Plus, the box score.

Yeah...Buckner wasn't having a good time at the plate either.

And the folks at SABR do a pretty good job of detailing Bill Buckner’s career right HERE.

A collector would be proud to have his cards in their collection. But Buckner got to be the goat of the 1986 World Series. People need to pin it on one-person instead of a bunch mistakes. It stinks that Bill Buckner got saddled with that. It’s nice that he made his peace (somewhat with it), before he died. That the bulk of Red Sox fans forgave and forgot. At least if what Tyler Kepner wrote is true, they forgave and forgot. Except that one middle-aged guy out there. You know who you are. Go watch your Big Pappi highlights DVD.

And I’m glad to have Bill Buckner in my Collecting by the Book PC. And I like my Collecting by the Book PC. I feel like, as an adult collector, with players not on the Pirates, I've gotten into that rut of just collect the stars and all others pay cash. A boring PC...to an extent. And I don't want a boring PC. Having Buckner's cards or Ken Caminiti, or even Glenn Burke (another guy I started collecting because of a bio I read on him...it was easy...he only has two cards), adds a splash of color and fun mixing them in with all of them Cooperstown boys.

I look forward to scouring SportLots, Flea Markets, 10-cent bins, and ComC for all of my Bill Buckner needs.

That said...I'm currently reading this book.