Back to Baker Street

I had a dentist’s appointment tonight, and when I went into the room to sit in the chair, I heard the familiar saxophone line of Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street. It’s as recognizable as any hook that’s ever been recorded, and I enjoyed hearing it again. But it also took me back to the last time

The baseball card time machine

Donruss was a company started by two brothers named—you guessed it—Don and Russ. More specifically, Donald and Russell Weiner from Memphis, Tennessee. They made trading cards in the 1960s for such TV shows as the Monkees, the Addams Family, and the Flying Nun. In the 1970s, they released trading card sets for both Elvis and

A weird and wonderful baseball card

I have written about baseball cards on this blog from time to time, because they inspire me on occasion. But I’m not at all a believer in the idea that they have any actual monetary value. They’re fun to have, but they aren’t worth the cardboard or cardstock that they’re printed on, either. Yesterday at

Me, quoted in the Times

A number of years ago, I would travel for work on a regular basis. The usual destination was Seattle, and to take the edge off of that long flight I would treat myself to a copy of the New York Times. It would help me to pass the time, whether waiting in the terminal or

The ivy’s the thing

I recently got a 2013 baseball card for David DeJesus in a trade through the mail with Brian at 30-Year-Cardboard. I saw the card (not shown here) and realized that Wrigley Field’s ivy is probably Exhibit A of what makes the park unique. It’s been the backdrop of hundreds of baseball cards over the years,

Things I keep at my desk

I’m a baseball guy, and a storyteller, too. And old baseball cards are just right for me. So I keep a couple hundred at my desk at work. Some I’ve written about already, and for some others I may yet do that. But most will just sit in a stack, waiting for a moment when

Something I once enjoyed

By 1984, the year that this baseball card came out, I had moved away from my boyhood interest in baseball cards. I had moved away from baseball toward videogames in the early 80s, and by the middle of the decade I had shifted to drinking beer instead. Of course I was 21 and fully legal

Eureka!

The reason that I started acquiring baseball cards–three decades after first doing so as a child–is their price. Thanks to what is probably a very large glut of these things, I can walk into any Dollar Tree store, find a display near the front of the store, and buy either 20 or 30 of these things for

What if I told you…

I’ve lately learned about Internet memes, and the Morpheus one from The Matrix is one of the cooler ones out there. But I found a picture today, on the back of an old baseball card, that puts a baseball spin on it. Simply put a Cleveland Indians cap on Morpheus’ head, and add a smile to

A gesture we all know

I was nine years old when the 1978 baseball season started. One of the things I would do sometimes was look around the house for loose coins. A dime here, a nickel there, maybe a quarter under the couch. It seems kind of silly now, but that was fun for me back then. Whenever I

An inglorious ending

Dateline: June 7, 1968. One week before the author of this post was born. The country is reeling from the shocking assassination of New York Senator and potential Democratic presidential nominee Robert F. Kennedy, who had died the day before. By some strange and spectral coincidence, the Baltimore Orioles used their first pick in the

I can’t explain this

One of the things that I do with my spare time is I collect baseball cards. It’s not like it was for me when I was ten years old, though. The cards themselves aren’t worth a dime, and never will be, so I don’t do it for the money. More than anything else, I do

It’s a nature shot and a baseball card

One of my favorite things in life is something unexpected. I wrote something for another blog a couple of years ago about going to an airport one day and being unexpectedly greeted by a live blues performance. It made the blues sound that much better, knowing that an airport baggage claim area is just about

A card unlike any other

I was going through an stack of old baseball cards today, when something caught my eye. And I have to admit that it’s a fairly exciting find, too. But first a few words about the intended subject of this card, Jamie Moyer. Moyer began his long professional career (24 seasons, and possibly still counting) with

Trading for PIDLs

If you’ve read any of these posts before, you know that I’m a long-time (though not life-long) Cubs fan. And one of the ways I manifest this is by collecting baseball cards from years gone by. It started when I was six or seven, and went away until I was in my thirties, and then

Mets from A to Z

One of the things that keeps me connected to baseball is collecting baseball cards. It started for me in the mid 1970s, went into hiatus in the early to mid 1980s, and laid dormant until the summer of 2001. A distribution of Topps cards reprints at a couple of games I went to at Wrigley

A baseball card cliche

In addition to collecting cards of Cubs players, which inspire me to write from time to time, I also collect cards of players from other teams, if the picture on their card (front or back) can be identified as being taken in Wrigley Field. The card scans listed above are some of the cards in

Solving an old mystery

A friend of my wife’s has a young son who just began collecting baseball cards.  I brought a big box of cards, mostly doubles of Cubs cards I already had, along on a weekend outing last fall, and told him could take whatever he wanted to add to his collection. But he insisted on trading

Jose, can you see?

On the heels of last night’s scintillating baseball action, I received word that something I had written a few weeks ago for the website sportscardfun.com was chosen for their “Sportscard of the Week” award. It’s always an honor to win anything like this, but when it ties together baseball, the Cubs, writing, and some fond

Is he a ballplayer or a candy striper?

I got the card you see above in a trade with Josh Wilker of cardboardgods.net. It’s really a great blog, and on some level he inspired me to start writing this blog. I enjoy baseball cards, because they connect me to both the game I love and to my long-gone youth, but I wouldn’t have

I love the irony here

Over the past decade or so, I have slowly waded back into a hobby that I thought had died out when I was 12: collecting baseball cards. I can even pinpoint the way that it started, but that’s a post for another day. I would hope that the 12-year old me would be more impressed

#MLB got it wrong

For last night’s 9/11 remembrance game in New York, which was broadcast by ESPN and was basically the capstone of the 10 year commemoration of the events of September 11, 2001, Major League baseball got wind of a plan by the players. The full story is here, but essentially the Mets’ players wanted to honor

Tarzan’s rookie card

I have already written about Jim Hendry’s ouster here, and I am excited that a new course for the Cubs will be charted soon. There’s no way that Mike Quade can survive, since the new GM will want to put “his people” in place. Does Quade finish out the season? Probably, but I think he

He knew what moves to make

Not a baseball card blog. This is NOT a baseball card blog. I’ve said that once before, and yet here is a baseball card. But it’s only there because it ties into a point that I want to make. Just bear with me for a few minutes. Dick Williams died recently. His was a name

Garza deserved better than this

This is not a baseball card blog. Josh Wilker writes a baseball card blog, and a very fine one at that. So I’m not intentionally treading into his end of the swimming pool. I just think this is interesting, and this space only exists for that reason, anyway. So here goes: The Topps trading card