Memories – Dub Mentality

The Comeback Edition

I’m not going to lie; I’ve been floundering lately. I haven’t written about sports cards in almost a year; June 18, 2021 to be exact. Seeing that date really puts it into perspective for me. It’s been a while. A lot has happened since that time; and very little of that has had anything to do with cards. Though I am still surrounded by them every day.

I haven’t even been opening much. I pick up the stray blaster from time to time at Target but I haven’t picked up a hobby box in ages. I have really been buying singles on eBay and satisfying my card itch that way. I’ve been sorting old common boxes and opening old wax packs that I have stashed in a shoebox. But I can count on one finger the amount of times I’ve been to the card shop in 2022.

I do have cards to open here at the house. I have a hobby box of 2021 Topps Chrome that has been sitting unopened since some time last year. There is a Mosaic Basketball Mega Box, and a couple of 2021 Update Hangers staring me in the face. I have 2 plastic totes full of football, baseball, and basketball boxes from 1987-1997. I tell myself every day that “tomorrow is the day that I get back”. I have been telling myself that since Christmas.

I go to bed with the best of intentions; and awaken in the same fog I was in the day before. That seems to be the only way to explain my existence since last October. I still love the things I loved before; I am just distant. I’m watching the Braves, I am just not living and dying with them right now. I was excited about signing day and the draft for the Bulldogs, I am just not losing any sleep over what is going on. I’m collecting and sorting cards regularly, I’m just not sharing it with the world right now.

Where is the passion? I don’t know. Will it come back? I hope so. Do I miss it? Of course. Am I in literature class right now and asking myself questions in this post to meet a word minimum? No; I just have a lot of questions and I talk to myself a lot. That is where the blog came from to begin with, so I guess it is a part of the process.

Passion is a foreign word to me at the moment. I need it but it eludes me. I feel nothing for the better part of being awake. Just empty. I am going through the motions but the excitement is just so hard to find. So I thought I would sit down in front of this laptop and just start typing. Maybe it will spark something; even if for the short time I’m writing this. And maybe I will do it again, and again, and light some sort of motivational fire along the way.

I find solace in nostalgia. No matter how I feel right this minute, I can get lost in old retro commercials or an old movie and momentarily go back to a time when I knew nothing but happiness. I have been playing old seasons on Tecmo Super Bowl and Tecmo Basketball lately; just focusing on the old 16 bit graphics and letting the old NES game sounds wash my brain.

I’ve been watching a lot of Hardwood Classics on NBA TV. I’ve spent far too much time watching movies that weren’t even good but were movies that were on the shelf at the video store I worked at and always thought I wanted to see. And listening to music that would have been blaring at the skating rink when I was 14. I am on this weird Samantha Fox kick right now. I’m telling you, I am searching.

Nostalgia is great for the soul. It is soothing, calming, and helps take weight off of my shoulders when I feel like I just can’t carry any more. But all of those things that are a part of nostalgia are also remembered more fondly in our minds. The “living it out” part is not always sustainable. I love playing RBI Baseball but after a game or two, the nostalgia wears off for the time being. I used to be able to play full Tecmo Seasons in one long night. It only takes a 3 game stretch now.

Maybe I have matured beyond being satisfied by those games. Maybe my brain can’t carry on the fantasy of an 80’s horror movie like it used to. Or maybe I just realize that the nostalgia is a temporary emotion that is going to fade. I know that I am not going to be cracking a Mountain Dew and joking with my friends at 3 am while trying to conquer Contra on 3 lives. Pizza Hut really doesn’t have those frosty glasses anymore. There is no video store uptown. There is no 1989 Sports Card Release that I am going to experience for the first time again.

I love nostalgia but it can also be a painful reminder sometimes. One such baseball card set that fits this description quite well, is 1989 Bowman. Wow, the memories that come with this set. I remember thinking that 1989 Bowman was going to be such an asset in the years to come because it was Bowman coming back to the hobby. I was only 12 but I knew that the old cards my dad and uncle had were Bowman cards. I knew what that name meant. And in 1989, I was all in.

1989 Bowman even teased us kid collectors with reprints of the old Mantle, Mays, and Robinson. Holding that old lo0king design on what felt like old card stock (compared to Fleer, Donruss, and Upper Deck from that same year) just made it even more exciting. So in 1989, Bowman was playing on nostalgia with older collectors who had their kids joining the hobby during the 80’s boom.

1989 Bowman has a lot of redeemable qualities. I liked the card stock. I knew what the other companies were doing by innovating but I felt like Bowman, for what it was supposed to be, was a great feel for old school collecting. I still miss the rough, cardboard feel of baseball cards today. Everything that comes out of packs today is shiny and almost plastic feeling. “Wax” packs are foil packs now. “Cello” packs are fat packs. And gum has been replaced by “Kid Reporter” cards or awful reprints that don’t really feel like throwbacks at all.

I liked the old nod to the facsimile autograph on 1989 Bowman. At 12 years old, living 2 1/2 hours from my closest major league ballpark, autographs were not a big part of my collection at all. Pulling them out of card packs was unheard of. So, seeing how players signed their name on the cards was interesting stuff for me. I don’t think they aged well for a world of in person and through the mail autographs, but for that particular moment in time, they got my attention.

While I was not a huge fan of the backs of the cards from a statistical perspective; one thing I did enjoy was the “Player is making his Professional Baseball debut in 1989” for the rookies. The cards didn’t have standard Rookie, Future Star, Rated Rookies, or Prospects identifiers; but one look at the back could immediately put you on notice for the chase card of my generation, the Rookie.

There were some solid photographs in the set as well. Bowman did not specialize in action shots. For the most part, they went with the old school pose approach. These are the cards I remember seeing as a little kid when I would see some of my uncle’s collection. Players were posing with the bat over their shoulder or crouched down taking a ground ball. The quality of the photos have not held up as well, but again, for what they were going for, I appreciated it.

1981 Fleer Dan Ainge in front of 1989 Bowman Wade Boggs for Size Comparison

The one major flaw that collectors can’t get past is the size of the card. While all major sports card releases had moved to the 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inch measurements, 1989 Bowman took it back to the old days there as well. The release put cards in our hands that were 2 1/2 by 3 3/4 inches. That 1/2 inch in length really doesn’t sound like much. But it was impossible to find card sheets or protection for a card that was larger than the standard in 1989. Thus, just like my uncle’s old collection, it was hard to find mint cards from the set after owning them for a couple of weeks. The tops of the cards eventually folded over like a bookmark in an old Baptist Hymnal.

For all of the good parts of 1989 Bowman, the overall concept, the rookie class, the wax wrappers; it was all undone by the oversized cards. To this day, it’s easy to brush past 1989 Bowman because of the odd length. They are still tough to find in mint condition and even tougher to keep that way if you do find them. You just can’t store them with the rest of your cards. And that is a shame.

Bowman figured that out and released a very similar product in 1990, but with the standard sizing of a baseball card. But I feel like the damage had been done a year prior. The rookie class wasn’t as strong as 1989 and new players like Leaf were furthering the push for modernizing the card printing game. They would eventually have to rebrand as the “Home of the Rookie Card” and they are still flourishing today in that role.

But in 1989, I think the timing was perfect for that product to have been a truly memorable release for all the right reasons. It had nostalgia, good rookies, an “against the grain” design, and the chance to captivate young collectors. Instead, one major flaw has made it memorable for the wrong reasons.

I still look back on the set fondly. I have memories of ripping packs in the backseat of the car after grocery shopping with my parents. I opened a lot of it over at Fort Gaines thanks to the Wal-Mart in Eufaula AL. Those memories always make me smile, because they come with so much more attached; fishing, skiing, tubing.

I guess the moral of the story is that not all comebacks are perfect. Some have potential, some fall flat, and some miss because of an error in execution. I guess time will tell if this comeback post is met with excitement or reservation. I enjoyed writing it, and I suppose that is what really matters. That is why I started the blog in the first place. This is where I document my memories and thoughts on the sports card hobby. While I’d rather be the 1990 Leaf of blogging, I suppose there are some positives to be had if I wind up being the 1989 Bowman as well.

J-Dub

Remembering A Smile

How do you make sense of something that doesn’t make sense? One of the things we learn as young children is the principle of causation. You know; touch a hot stove and you get burned. I learned that I couldn’t swallow ball bearings, or jump down a flight of stairs, or climb up a chest of drawers. The results were never good.

But sometimes, causation gets thrown out of the window. Sometimes bad things happen and there is no real explanation. There is no answer to the question, “why?” There is no level of understanding to be found. And that is hard to accept. We all want to know why this thing has happened.

The thing about those really difficult “why’s” is that you can never really prepare for them. Sometimes you can see them playing out and still not be ready. We always think there is a tomorrow that we’ll have to face. But eventually, that tomorrow becomes today.

My family has had to face two of those “today’s” in the last 10 weeks. I lost my dad on October 1, 2021. He had been sick for over a year. He had his ups and downs but he had been sick. Yet, I still thought I had time. The morning he died, I was headed to my parents’ house to stay the weekend. I knew about the possibility. But I didn’t accept it. I kept thinking, “we still have tomorrow.”

A few months after my dad got sick, my uncle was diagnosed with the same brutal disease as him, albeit in a different form. A disease that we had very little experience with as a family took hold of two of the most important/influential men in my life. There were three men in my wedding party; my dad, my brother, and my Uncle Greg. And within months of each other, dad and Greg were both facing the same difficult battle.

In June of 2021, for my dad’s birthday, we gathered together for what would be the last time as a family. Dad was in good spirits. Greg was there; tired but laughing and talking about fun memories. We took this last photo that I’ll hold dear for the rest of my life. I look at it often. I remember it vividly.

In 3 short months, we lost my dad. Ten weeks later, we have lost Greg. Selfishly; I ask why? Why did we lose two great men in the same season? Why did they have to go through what they went through? Why did this have to happen? I’ll never have an answer to any of these questions.

I can only try to honor their memory in the way I walk through this life moving forward. I wrote about how important dad was to me HERE. If you haven’t read it, I ask you to do that – just to understand what kind of a man I was blessed with as a father.

As for Greg, though he was my uncle, he was sometimes like a big brother to me. He was closer to my age than he was to his own brothers. He was about 15 years younger than my dad and only 9 years older than me. He was still in high school when I was about to head to middle school. When most kids were looking up to high schoolers they didn’t know, I had Greg.

He was a star in baseball and football. He was a great basketball player. He was funny. He was tough. He would let you think you were going to beat him at something and then turn it on at the last minute. He taught me how to race bikes around my granny’s house. He taught me wrestling moves on the trampoline. And he even tried to convince me that Auburn was better than Georgia.

Greg was the unintentional reason that I met Alicia for the first time. He was the head of the city recreational fields and had me making some extra cash as an umpire while I was in high school. And my wife, as I’ve written about before, was almost tossed from a game for arguing with me about being out at first base. I didn’t know her before then. We would start dating a year or so later.

I remember going to my first men’s softball game when I was about 15. He played for the “Dodge Boys” with several of the guys from his high school team and I don’t remember them losing very often. Like my dad and Uncle Speedy, Greg knew how to handle himself on a baseball field. I worked scoreboards, umpired, and played bat boy for some of those men’s teams and I know it’s where my passion for weekend softball came from.

Greg loved his high school alma mater like me too. He played football at Mitchell-Baker where he won “Best Hands” one year as a wide receiver. When he graduated, he wore the mascot gear (a big eagle) for a couple of years. In the late 90’s, we started doing the stats for the team and traveled together all over the state of Georgia for a few years.

We watched the coaches lose their minds in Fitzgerald. We experienced elation at Greene-Talieferro. We experienced heartbreak at Cedartown after watching a 12-0 season. We watched one of the craziest plays ever in Early County that we laughed about the last time we talked. We really did experience it all on those Friday Nights. I wouldn’t trade those memories for anything in the world. And I’ll never see a Mitchell County game the same way again.

We saw our share of Eagles Basketball too. We went to Macon every year the Eagles made the Final Four during the 90’s, which was a lot. We saw them win a State Title and we saw them not make the playoffs. Alicia was with us the night he got a chicken sandwich from Wendy’s in Perry. We got about 10 miles up I-75 when he thought he bit into a cold tomato. Turns out it was an uncooked chicken breast. Salmonella was no laughing matter; but we laughed.

I watched the 1993 Suns/Bulls finals at his house. We pulled for the Suns because Barkley was from Auburn. I watched the A’s in the World Series at his house because he loved “The Bash Brothers”. I stayed all night to watch the George Bush/Al Gore election and one of the last things I said to him was, “we have a developing situation in Broward County.”

I played softball on the same field in Baker County with Greg the last time he played. I was at first and he was at second. He demolished his achilles and hung em up after that night. I kneeled over him to check on him. The guy I watched from the dugout when I was 14 had played his last grounder with me on the field beside him 25 years later.

We gathered on Sundays at my parents house to watch NASCAR. We all had our drivers and we were relentless with each other. Dad was an Earnhardt guy. Greg liked Gordon. My guy was Tony Stewart. My mom liked the Labonte brothers, and Alicia was a Sterling Marlin fan. We all put our $5 on the TV Stand at the beginning of the race with the driver who finished highest winning the pot. We really bashed each other during those races.

But if I had to pick one memory that stands out more than any others, it would be the 1997 Auburn/Tennessee SEC Championship. Greg asked me to go with him and I was excited for a few reasons; although neither of those teams are on my favorite list. First, I had never been to an SEC Championship Game. I was only 20 at the time and wasn’t traveling around to major sporting events. Second, I had the chance to watch Peyton Manning play. And finally, it was a trip with Greg so it was a no-brainer.

We got a hotel in downtown Atlanta and took a fairly short cab ride to the dome. Our first issue arose pretty quickly. We found out the tickets we had at the top row of the lower section didn’t have physical seats. We had a spot that was actually for wheelchairs. We would wind up sitting in metal folding chairs at the top of the section.

The game was exciting, with Tennessee winning 30-29. Auburn had several chances during the game but couldn’t quite close the deal. That’s when Greg coined the nickname for Karsten Bailey; “No Hands”. He had some critical drops in the game and anytime he said “No Hands” over the years, I knew exactly what he was talking about.

After the game, we decided to take the Marta back to the downtown area where our hotel was. It was my first experience and was quite a ride with hundreds of drunk college football fans. When we got off of the Marta, we walked and we walked and we walked. Remember, there were no cell phones with GPS back then. I had zero experience in Atlanta and just knew we were staying in a Holiday Inn.

After we walked in circles for what felt like an hour, we finally gave up and picked up a cab at a red light. We told the driver that we were going to the Holiday Inn. He took an immediate right at the light and stopped, about 20 yards from where he picked us up. He turned around to Greg and said, “that’ll be 8 bucks Holmes.” A 30 second cab ride that took us 20 yards was $8 (in 1997). When I tell you we laughed about that 20 years later; believe me, we got a lot of miles out of that story.

I am blessed to have these memories of Greg. We spent a lot of time together over the years. We experienced a lot of laughs and a lot of sadness over sports together. He was there on stage with me at my wedding. He was there at my graduation for me. He was there with me on the softball field when we were old men.

And he’ll be with me forever in my heart. I’ll never understand why he’s gone at 53. I’ll never understand why my dad left just 2 months before him. I don’t know how somebody is supposed to feel after experiencing this kind of loss in such a short period of time. I’m sad, I’m anxious, I’m reflective, and sometimes I’m just lucky to feel any emotion at all.

I know I’m not the only one. Everybody in my family is dealing with this in their own way. My mom is facing it. My granny is facing it. Brothers, Sisters, Aunts, Uncles, Nieces, and Nephews are facing it. Greg has a daughter and son that are going through the same thing I have been going through. We are all facing this moment with each other but it’s hard not to feel alone in it at times too.

I am just thankful I had the life I had with them. I am thankful God gave me the family he gave me. I couldn’t have had a better father than Dewey Shiver. And there could never be another Greg Shiver either. I’ll see his smile forever. He had the biggest smile. Somehow, we will go on. We will never forget; but we will go on.

J-Dub

One Day Farther Away

I’m in a bit of a weird place right now. There’s been more introspection lately. That’s saying something for me. I spend a lot of time in my own head and emotions. But more so lately than ever before. I don’t really know where it’s leading but I’ve always been one to just let it pull me along. In a life where I have to have so much control, it’s the one aspect of my personality that I let drift.

I couldn’t think of a better word to describe my mindset when I get like this; other than drifting. And for good reason I suppose. I read once that “drifting” was when you “make a decision by not deciding.” That seems appropriate. I’m not moving forward and I’m not going backwards. I’m just drifting.

That’s where I’m at right now. I’m just living day to day and letting it unfold. It’s been both good and bad. I lay down a lot of nights wondering if what I did that day really meant anything at all. But then I lay down some nights and my mind is totally at ease; which isn’t a normal occurrence for me.

And before you think this is a cry for help; let me assure you it isn’t. This is all a part of my current introspective state. I’m trying to figure it all out. I’m not suffering in my own thoughts. I’m finding out a lot about myself. Some of the things I like and some I don’t. But that’s a part of reconciling who we are, I suppose.

My passion for nostalgia has been hypersensitive lately too. As a part of putting life in perspective, I think a lot about where I came from and what experiences make up who I am. I’ve spent a lot of time over the last couple months in and around the house I grew up in. It has changed a lot over the last 35 years and some memories are less vivid than others. But when I’m there, I always end up seeing something that makes me feel something I haven’t felt in a long time.

Sometimes it’s as simple as pulling a 1989 Score Ron Gant baseball card in the bedroom I grew up in. Or listening to the ceiling fan I installed myself when I was 16 or 17 years old. It’s still the only room in the house with a fan. I know that’s probably weird; but it’s a memory. It’s something that puts me back in a small moment in time when I wasn’t carrying all this weight around (mentally; before you crack a fat joke).

Sometimes the memories aren’t so simple. Sometimes I have to seek them out. I’ll ride around the neighborhood in my dad’s golf cart and stop in front of a house where I played basketball. Could be a house where I spent the night with a friend and we played Nintendo all night. Or sometimes I’ll just walk around the yard itself and mentally picture the baseball diamond in the front yard or the extension cord I stretched around in the backyard that made a 3 point line for my basketball court.

The memories may come from driving over to the old Legion Pool, or the building where the old Video Superstore was, or the softball field where I played with Corey, Jared, Jason, David, and other friends. I don’t know how many times I’ve driven really slow around my old middle school and showed my daughter where I traded baseball cards on the playground or played basketball. She doesn’t really care all that much anymore but she humors me.

Every day that passes takes me farther away from those memories. I don’t want to ever lose them. So I constantly remind myself of them; even if I’m repeating them over and over to people that get tired of it. It’s just who I am. I never want to lose the experiences that shaped me. So if I write about the same thing from time to time, be like my daughter and just humor me, please.

I know that when you lose someone, you go through some weird stages. Maybe that is what this is. I’m thinking so much about old memories. Those memories lead me down a path that holds other memories. Then I start to think about how long ago some of those memories are. Some of the people from those memories are gone. I don’t want the memories to go too. So I find little ways to tie them together. And sports cards have been a major conduit for those memories. That’s why they remain so special for me.

Sometimes it’s a tangled web of memories but it works for me. For instance, I’ve told the story about the 1990 Fleer Mark McGwire card that always makes me think of my grandmother. That card has sent me down so many roads. I pulled the card at my parents house not long ago and I had to drive out to the apartments where she lived much of my childhood. The apartments were owned by my great uncle, which unlocked memories. I had an aunt that lived there, which unlocked memories. Sort of like a reverse butterfly effect.

I ripped a box of 1990 Pro Set Football recently. Of course, that led me to Tecmo Super Bowl; which unlocked memories of sleepovers with friends and family. Those sleepovers unlocked memories of getting in trouble for staying up too late or watching horror movies I shouldn’t have been watching. I keep those memories alive today by playing NBA 2K with my cousin and his boys late at night when my kids have gone to bed. The same cousin that would stay up with me until daylight playing Coach K Basketball on the Sega Genesis.

I’ve written about the 1989 Topps Orel Hershiser that always reminds me of when I opened a pack of cards when my dad told me I couldn’t until we got to the lake house. He took the pack and I didn’t get it until the weekend was over. All I could think about was the Hershiser I saw on the back of the pack. But when I see that card now, I think about spending time at the lake – fishing and skiing.

1989 Bowman makes me think about those same lake trips. My parents bought me some packs when we would go to the grocery store in Eufaula to stock up for the weekend. There were also packs at the Pataula Creek Bait Store, back when cards where EVERYWHERE. Pataula Creek was where me and my dad would Crappie fish on the “Stump Row” and keep our eyes peeled for gators. Or we would bream fish along the rocks of the Pataula Bridge until mom got breakfast ready and would come out on the dock and yell for us. Yes, a 1989 Bowman Nolan Ryan can take me there.

I have a couple of 5,000 count boxes that have Atlanta Braves players in alphabetical order. It wasn’t an easy project but I’ve reached a point where it’s manageable when I get new cards in. I go through that box regularly. I skim through Dave Justice, Steve Avery, Andruw Jones, Brian Hunter, Javy Lopez, Sid Bream, and Terry Pendleton. Those cards take me back to sitting in our old dining room eating supper and watching the Braves on TBS. My mom was, and still is, a big Braves fan. We watched them when they were terrible in the 80’s and were rewarded with the great teams of the 90’s.

Our whole family would gather during the playoffs and cheer for the Braves while we yelled at Kent Hrbek, Kelly Gruber, and Jim Leyritz. Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents, Cousins; all in our living room yelling like we were in Fulton County Stadium. I’ve watched most of the playoffs with my mom over the last several weeks and it has been such a great experience. This past week, she even found her old T-Shirt with the AJC Headline and photo of the Braves swarming the plate and Sid Bream in the 1992 NLCS. I was there when the Braves went to their World Series in 1991 and I was there last week when they beat the Dodgers to go again.

I’m going through a lot of memories right now. A lot of it is helping me cope with everything going on in life. A lot of it is helping me stay in touch with my roots. A lot of it is helping me reconcile who I am and where I came from. You may read one of my posts about an old baseball card and not think twice about it. But more often than not, when I’m posting a picture of some random, seemingly meaningless piece of cardboard, there is a ton of thought behind it. That piece of cardboard is a door to my past. The year, set, or player usually determines where that door leads. But it always leads somewhere.

I don’t know where I’m going with this other than just putting in writing what is rattling around in my head. I see so much negativity on social media in the card community about who/what people collect and why. You never know the reason behind what they do when it comes to their collection. You may have never thought that deeply into why people collect. But it’s not always about money. Sometimes it has a much more personal reason. Sometimes it is a link to memories that are so cherished that you’ll go out and spend money on boxes of 1991 Fleer when nobody else will.

My only piece of advice in this post is to do things for you and your happiness sometimes. Obviously, you need to care for those around you and make yourself available to them. But when it comes to preserving your peace of mind, memories, sense of self, etc; do that for you. If it means old baseball cards from the Junk Wax Era, so be it. It could mean so many other things to each person individually. Just make it mean something for you. Every day is a step farther away from the past. Hold on to the good times and the good memories. You’ll need them one day.

J-Dub

The Legend

I am a lucky man. I’ve lived 44 years on this earth and my dad and mom have always been there for me. No matter what I did, they were there. They weren’t always happy to be in the situation but they never backed down in their support.

We all have various types of relationships with our families. Some good, some bad, some indifferent. Sometimes we experience all of that in our relationships. I did my absolute best to drive my parents crazy when I was a kid. I broke every bone in my body, climbed everything, jumped off of everything, and tried to eat everything.

I probably shouldn’t even be here today based on some of the things I did when I was a kid. In my “finest” moment as a kid, I don’t remember all the details. But I do remember being told my dad was seen sitting on the floor of the hospital, head in hands, crying for me. That level of fear is born out of love for someone. My dad loved me.

When I was a teenager, I continued my tormenting ways, just with a different means of attack. I pushed buttons. I didn’t do my school work. I grumbled every time I was asked to help work on his truck or tarp a load. I tore up every lawn mower we owned because I wouldn’t pick up sticks or rocks in my path. I left fish in the livewell to be found days later (unintentionally). I interrupted Sunday afternoon naps with constantly going in and out of the front door. I did so much more, but there aren’t enough hours in a day to go through it all. But over the course of those teen years, I always knew my dad loved me.

When I got married and started my young adult life, I called my dad for everything. “Why is this light flashing on my dash?” “How do I charge this battery for the boat?” “How do I get around Atlanta?” “How long before I have to change my oil?” “My sink is clogged, what am I supposed to do?” “My truck is making a weird noise, what is it?” The boat won’t crank, what am I doing wrong?”

But every call – every single one – he had an answer for me. It didn’t mean that he wouldn’t make fun of me at some point for not knowing that maybe the kill switch was disengaged on the boat and that was why it wouldn’t crank. But he didn’t deny me for not learning more than I should have when I grew up doing all of these things with him when he worked on his truck. He never left me in a bad spot. Because he loved me, and he wanted to see me do well for myself in life.

I didn’t learn how much he loved until I became a father myself. When I became a dad, I realized how debilitating it could be to worry about your kids when they were hurt. The love you have for your kids is all you think about when they are in trouble.

I didn’t learn that my dad was right about most everything until I started to argue with my own kids about how important it is to do their homework, or to put their things up when they are done, or to not lose (or break) things that they use that are mine. They grumble when I ask them to do something. They tell me I don’t understand how hard it is to be a teenager. And they usually don’t remember anything I tell them. But my love for them doesn’t waver. I learned that from my dad.

When I think back on it, I’ve learned a ton from my dad. I learned how to fish. I learned how deep to fish in certain temperatures. I learned what color BAB Fly to use depending on how muddy or clear the water was. I learned what a slab is. I learned what a titty bream is. I learned how to clean those fish. I learned all of this from the greatest fisherman in the world.

I learned how to drive. I learned how to change my own oil. I learned how to change a tire. I learned to pick up those sticks when I was mowing. I learned how to trust people and when to be leery. I learned how important credit was. I learned how important honesty was. I learned how valuable it was to have people be able to trust you. I learned to be a man of my word. I learned that from my dad. We are talking about a man that mowed the grass in a dress to pay off a bet we had about the Braves making the World Series in the early 90’s.

I learned that Rick Hendrick was a “nasty sucka”. I learned that Terry Labonte didn’t have the nerve to compete with Earnhardt. I learned that the great late 80’s baseball player’s real name was Joe’s CAN-suh-ko. I learned how to throw a curve ball, though never as good as his. I learned that you had to keep your head down on a ground ball, even if you were scared. I learned all of this from a man that outplayed his competition in Sunday Church shoes on the baseball field.

I learned an awful lot from my dad. I learned things from him until this very week. I learned how to fight. I learned how to keep pushing, even when you feel bad. I learned how much he loved my kids and how much they loved him. I learned just how important family is. I’m lucky. I can come to the same house I came to 30 years ago and see what a family is supposed to be based on; believing in God, working for your living, taking care of the people under your roof, and teaching those you’re charged with caring for how to survive in this world.

That’s what being a dad is all about. And I had the best. If I learned half of what he taught me, I’ll be just fine in my daily walk as a father and husband. He loved my mom. He loved his kids. He worked hard. He took care of those around him. He was honest, trusting, faithful, and a man of his word. I want to be like my dad.

I’m going to miss him a lot. The older we got, the better our relationship got. Because I understood more and more what he was trying to tell me all those years along the way. Love you Dad! A lot of people do. Despite what the seminar taught, a lot of people gave a damn.

J-Dub

The Value of a Memory

I’m going to go on a bit of a rant here. I don’t necessarily like doing so but I’ve heard the same comments so much in the last 3 weeks, I can’t help myself. I’ll try to go ahead and get it out of my system and hit you with some nice Junk Wax Photos along the way as a peace offering.

I had the fortune/misfortune of going somewhat viral on Tik Tok with a video of myself opening up a pack of 1987 Topps Baseball. Of course, I was looking for Bo, McGwire, and Bonds. If you collected then, you know why.

I don’t necessarily try to go viral with anything because it comes with both good and bad. I just make fun little videos about sports and cards and usually live with my 10 likes or so. But the combination of wood grain and yacht rock seems to have hit home with the Tik Tok algorithm. As of today, the video is sitting on 828k views, I’ve gained 7,500 followers and picked up 20k likes; all in a few weeks.

I’ll say up front that the overwhelming majority of comments have been pleasant and I’ve enjoyed the successful run of the video. I’ve had players’ relatives, former team photographers, and even former Creed frontman Scott Stapp commenting or liking the post. I’ve also made a few collector buddies and followed several back who have great content.

But there are a few comments that I have received over and over and over.

“You know those packs are resealed right?” I am aware that packs from the 80’s and 90’s can very easily be resealed. But I paid less than $30 for a full cello box and pulled two Bonds, McGwire, and Canseco. I did ok.
“Those aren’t real packs. Those cards came in wax packs!” Again, I am aware of how Topps released cards in the late 80’s. There were in fact wax packs. But there were also Cellos and Rack Packs. These were cellos.
“Why are you looking for those cheaters?” Well, I’m a nostalgic guy. Those were the cards that I wanted when I was a kid. Those are the cards I’m going to look for in 2021. I’ll look again in 2051 if I find some packs. I never even liked Bonds. But if I can pull his 87 Rookie, I’m happy.
“Everybody already has those cards. LOL” First off, nothing pushes my passive aggressive button faster than an LOL at the end of a statement that really wasn’t intended to make you laugh. But I have the cards too. Look at my timeline. I’m not some guy just randomly opening 1987 baseball cards hoping to pull those rookies for the first time. It’s just supposed to be fun!
“The gum is more valuable than the cards in that pack.” Last but not least, this gem. I am WELL AWARE that a raw Bo Jackson RC is worth about $3. But this is my biggest pet peeve as a proponent of the Junk Wax Era. I don’t collect these cards because of their perceived worth. I know their monetary value but their worth varies from person to person.

This brings me to why we are here today. It’s time to stop telling other people what their cards are worth. Anybody with a smartphone can look up the value of a baseball card and see what the market thinks. But through 15 packs of 1987 Topps; nobody got a bigger pop in the comment section than Cory Snyder. It’s not because it was valued at $50. It’s because it was a player and a name that was universally recognized by collectors from that era.

One thing I’ve tried to repeat in some form or fashion over the last 18 months is to collect what you like. Yes, Prizm Blasters are $100. That doesn’t mean you need to go out and spend that kind of money to be a part of the rush. There are people who weren’t even basketball collectors that jumped into it because it was all over the Twitter timeline so surely it was something that couldn’t be missed.

I do buy modern. I don’t pay secondary market prices. I’m not saying I’m better than you if you do. I’m saying that goes against why I collect. And yes, I love to pull a big card that I might be able to sell to fund more of my collection. But the gamble isn’t worth paying someone else a premium because they got to the shelf faster in my opinion. Again, this is about me.

I collect because it was such a part of my childhood. We lose a lot of connections with our childhood. For me; video stores are all gone, Nintendo games are dust in the wind, my childhood athletes have retired, I’ve grown apart from my childhood friends, and all I have left are the memories. And baseball cards.

Therein lies the worth for me when it comes to 1987 Topps, 1988 Fleer, 1989 Donruss, and countless others. Those cards haven’t changed a bit in over 30 years. The players are the same, the errors are still there, and even the smell of the gum is still sweet. The taste, not so much. Those are tangible memories that I can hold in my hand. And the memory is not just about “Bo Jackson”. It’s about where I was, who I was friends with, and what life was like when I held that card in my hand for the first time.

Baseball cards remind me of a simpler time. I didn’t have a power bill in 1989. I didn’t have a car payment, insurance, or a job. I didn’t have a single person’s life and safety I was responsible for back then. I was somebody else’s responsibility. Times change and the world progresses; those are accepted facts. But I never want to lose touch with who I was and the events that led me to be who I would become.

I don’t want to lose memories of middle school playground trades, exchanging video games with friends, playing ball in the front yard, going fun places with my family, or weekend sleepovers filled with horror movies and Mountain Dew. Those things are childish and immature. But even though I’m 44, I will always have that 13 year old sports crazed, video game lover deep down in my soul. With all of my might, I want to keep a piece of that forever.

The way I do that is baseball cards. Plain and simple. If I see a pack of 1991 Donruss for .25 at an antique store, there’s no way I’m passing it up. The only card in the pack may be a Ray Lankford Rated Rookie but it will take me back instantly. So it is worth it to me; whether you think so or not.

It has been well established that cards from 1987-1994 (roughly) are overproduced. They are cheap to buy. They are still readily available. Most collectors already have them or had them. And no, you won’t be able to retire on your Gregg Jefferies Rookies. I’ve come to terms with all of this. But you really can’t put a price on their worth in my opinion.

Just like your grandfather’s old handkerchief might just be a handkerchief to others. It means something to you because it represents something of meaning. My childhood has meaning. The people in my life during that time have meaning. The memories I created have meaning. And the 1988 Ozzie Smith Starting Lineup card has meaning.

So the next time you see someone enjoying some Junk Wax that you think is (and in fact may be) “worthless”; just keep it to yourself. There is a reason they are doing it. It’s their reason. If you don’t enjoy it, that’s fine. But you don’t have to be the internet hero that you’re trying to be. You’re not breaking news that 1987 Topps doesn’t carry much monetary value. But sometimes, a memory is worth way more than the card itself.

J-Dub

A Weekend in The 90’s

One of the major things I miss from my youth; is spending the night at friends’ houses or vice versa. It seemed like every weekend I was trying to coordinate various destinations and events for my enjoyment. The entire weekend would be full for me before I even got permission from my parents.

I had a few circles of friends that I could count on when the weekend came around. I had the neighborhood guys; Brewer, Jim, Rusty, etc. Then there were my school friends; Josh, David, Michael. Finally, there were my cousins; Adam, Trent, Jared, Corey, and Dusty. Each group of friends meant small differences in the way the weekend was spent, but almost every weekend had the same basic plans.

I remember staring at the clock on Friday afternoon in Ms. Lee’s computer room. The final bell would ring at 3:20 but that time from around 2:30 to 3:20 seemed like a lifetime. When it finally did ring, I would sprint to my locker and unload everything. There was no such thing as homework on the weekend for me. In reality, homework was rare during the week for me as well. But I digress.

Most of the really memorable weekends that come to mind began with a trip to Dairy Queen on the way to the Mitchell-Baker Football Game. Our football team was very good when I was a kid and up through High School. We were a small school but we could pack “The Woodyard” every Friday night!

The stadium was dubbed “The Woodyard” because of the huge wood preserving plant behind the stadium that is now on the EPA Superfund site list. We now have a stadium built on the High School property. While I will always remember the good times at The Woodyard, I would have LOVED to have a stadium right there at the school. That would have been perfect!

David is actually working – I am pretending….

I would usually spend the night with Josh or David after a football game. Josh’s step-dad was the announcer for the local radio station (and our English teacher) and we could sometimes sit in the booth and listen to the call. And David was in the band; a trumpet player. Sometimes we would all go back to Josh’s house. After the football game, we would usually spend the rest of the night playing Nintendo or something stupid like “Bloody Mary” to try to scare each other.

We were too old for Saturday morning cartoons but we were right in the thick of the drama that was unfolding at Bayside High School on “Saved by the Bell”! We would watch the “grown kids” shows and then find something to get into during the day. We went fishing, played Home Run Derby, rode motorcycle’s, played mini golf in the house, or would sit and go through sports cards to compare who had the best collection.

I would usually get back to my house sometime in the afternoon on Saturday. Upon arrival, my plans would begin for either heading over to Brewer’s or having Adam come over to the house. Saturday nights were usually the typical Pizza and a movie kind of nights. We loved cheesy horror movies and would try to find the oddest looking VHS cover at the video store to bring home.

Of course, there was Nintendo that night as well. We played a ton of RBI Baseball 3, Tecmo Super Bowl, and Double Dribble during those days. It led to some tension among friends at times, but we couldn’t get enough of the 16 bit action! It was absolutely the typical 90’s scene; Mountain Dew, Pizza, Video Games, and Horror Movies.

Here is where I list some of the awful horror movies that we watched. I list them because it is going to make me look them up to see if they are on some streaming service so I can relive the glory days. We watched The Video Dead, Return of the Living Dead 2, Phantasm (not awful but definitely weird), Ghoulies 2, Leprechaun, and Dr. Giggles. We watched some good ones too, but who wants to hear about those?

When my parents would come into the Living Room on Sunday morning, it would look like the aftermath of one of those “Living Dead” movies. We would be spread out on the living room furniture, pizza still in hand, dead to the world. Those were some long nights but were so fun! I usually didn’t know how I was going to do it, but we were less than 24 hours away from that school bus pulling up to carry us off again.

Sunday’s were all about sports. We would play sports, watch sports, play sports video games, and trade sports cards. No matter what time of year, you could find NASCAR, Basketball, Sunday Night Baseball, or Sunday afternoon Football to satisfy the sports craving. I even recorded Sportscenter back then and we would re-watch it during the week like we hadn’t seen it 100 times already. Sunday was the culmination of the week’s events.

There is one thing that was constant on Sunday’s during the basketball season; NBA on NBC. I can still hear Marv Albert, Mike Fratello, and Ahmad Rashad in my mind. The NBA was at a peak for me during the 90’s. And every Sunday brought some of the biggest stars in the league together to battle. Whether it was Jordan & Pippen vs Starks & Ewing, Reggie vs Bird, Barkley & KJ vs Stockton & Malone, or Run TMC vs Kemp & Payton; the games were loaded with Hall of Famers!

I was also at my peak in the early 90’s when it came to collecting basketball cards. And you knew that this would all come back around to cards in some way, right? I don’t care if I am the old man yelling at clouds, I will forever stand by those early 90’s players as being the best of all time. I legitimately get chills when I think about those days.

A small insert set that gives me the same chills if I haven’t seen it in a while comes from 1991 Fleer Basketball. Fleer had it’s ups and downs in other sports, but it was the King in Basketball during the late 80’s and early 90’s. And the King of inserts from the early 90’s was Pro-Vision.

Found at an average of 2-3 per box, the Pro-Vision cards were artist renderings of some of the biggest superstars. The art work was illustrated by Terry Smith. These remain some of the most aesthetically pleasing cards from the Junk Wax Era. And they remain extremely popular to collectors. Here is the 1991 Set breakdown.

Card #1 David Robinson – The Admiral was the College Player-of-the-Year, NBA Rookie-of-the-Year, the league’s top rebounder (13 rpg), two-time NBA All-Defense (first 2 seasons), a top ten scorer (25.6 ppg), the second best shot blocker (3.9 bpd), and the fastest center the NBA had seen up to that point. He was a game changer at the center position. This card depicts Robinson with his smooth left handed jump shot surrounded by a beautiful, cloud-filled sky.

Card #2 Michael Jordan – MJ had cemented himself as a superstar by 1991 but was still growing his legacy. He was on the way to a tremendous championship run and dominance on a scale that we would remember forever. He had led the league in scoring for 5 consecutive seasons (31.5 in 90-91), and shot at a then career-high field goal percentage (53.9%). He was named the League’s MVP and led the Bulls to the first of six titles during the 90’s. The card features Jordan rocketing into space to dunk the ball. This was foreshadowing for the 1996 movie titled “Space Jam”!

Card #3 Charles Barkley – Many people from the 2000’s or later think of Barkley as the jovial but controversial round man on the NBA on TNT broadcast. But basketball fans who got to see him play during the 90’s remember just how dominant an athlete he was. He was really unbelievable. He did not have the body type of a Jordan or Dominique Wilkins; but he had led the Sixers in rebounding from his rookie season in 84 through 1991 and had never shot below 57%. He was the MVP runner-up in 1989-90 and won the 1990-91 All-Star Game MVP with 17 points and 22 rebounds. And this was when the All-Star game was more of a game.

Card #4 Patrick Ewing – I would meet Mrs. Dub a couple years later and found out that this was her favorite NBA player. I was a fan of Ewing as well. In 1990-91, he finished in the Top 10 in scoring (26.6), rebounding (11.2), and blocked shots (3.19). He had led the Knicks in scoring from his rookie year in 1985 through the printing of this card in 1990-91. He scored 20+ points in 70 games that season while leading the team in scoring for 61 of those. The card is a beauty, with Ewing standing at the forefront of the New York skyline. Coincidentally, this is the same skyline that is seen at the beginning of Super Tecmo Bowl.

Card #5 Karl Malone – “The Mailman” was somewhat overshadowed in the Western Conference in the late 80’s and early 90’s by the last player in this set. But he was an absolute stud in the league. He would eventually get a shot at a championship in 1998 but would fall to Jordan and the Bulls. In 1991, he was 6’9″, 256 lbs of pure muscle. Over the previous four seasons, which included 1990-91, he averaged over 29 ppg and over 11 rpg; all while only missing 3 games. This card features Malone standing in front of a pane of broken glass with the ball crashing through it. That is what I think about when I see him; just crashing through teams.

Card #6 Earvin “Magic” Johnson – It turns out that as dominant as Malone was, he isn’t even the best #32 in this 6-card set. That distinction belongs to “Magic”. He was known in 1991 as the best point guard to ever play in the league. He was bigger than the average point guard but could move the ball with the best of them. By the end of that season, he passed Oscar Robertson as the NBA’s All-Time Assist Leader (9,921). He was an 11-time All-Star, 3-time NBA Champ, Athlete of the Decade, NBA Man-of-the-Year, and the MVP of the NBA Finals 3 times as of this card’s release. He truly was Magic on the floor.

I challenge you to look at any of these 6 cards and find a flaw, besides the actual condition of these 30 year old cards in my collection. The artwork is perfect, the player selection is on point, and the cards hold a place in basketball card history as one of the best inserts of all time (as per a study conducted by me and for me only).

These are the kinds of cards that make collecting what it is for me. These cards look good, feature great players, and come from an era that is full of great memories. I can look at Barkley and think about hanging out with Adam and battling for rebounds. I can look at MJ and think about Rusty wearing his Jumpsoles around the house. And I can look at Magic Johnson and think about all of the fancy passes I would try to pull off in the backyard.

And as I have said time and time again; that is what it is about. It isn’t about the flashy 1/1 autograph from the best prospect we’ve never seen play. It isn’t about scooping up all the retail boxes when find them at Target. And it isn’t about “investing”. It is about a piece of cardboard and what it means to you. It is about what the card says to you. Mine speak to me. I’m just the only one that hears them.

J-Dub

What Is A Memory?

If you stop and think about it, our entire life is a memory; except the one second you are living in, right now. That sentence you just read? A memory. Some memories are good and some are bad. Some we learn from and some just vanish without a fleeting thought. But memories make up our almost our entire lives.

This blog is about memories. It’s about things that I did or things that happened to me that made some sort of impact in my life. I do this for me. I appreciate the readership beyond words. But this is for me, each and every post. When I’m feeling nostalgic, I just start writing – for documentation sake, but hopefully, as entertainment for you as well.

Memories fade as the years go by. Well, the memory itself remains; but the details (the when, where, and who) become a little hazy. We also tend to bend memories to our benefit over time. Not in a bad way, but in a way that helps the narrative of our lives flow smoothly over time. Small bits and pieces morph but remain rooted in the basis of the memory as a whole.

Memories are sometimes our only link to people and places from our past. This photo is from the public library I went to when I was a kid. I have driven by it but haven’t been inside in over 20 years. I’m certain that it looks different inside but my memory holds on to what it looked like when I was a kid. I can even smell what it was like back then. It’s a good smell.

I will never walk into this library again and check out a Lewis Grizzard book. Partly because I own most of them; but also, because books are so readily available through so many other mediums. I will never walk in and check out a VHS tape again. I will never go through the newspaper rack again. Unless something crazy happens, I will never have to use the microfiche either. But I can walk through that library any time I want, in my memories. And they will be good memories.

Here is the church I grew up in. The church was downtown, right on Main Street. It was a big church for a small town. It is where I would sit next to my GaGa during Sunday morning services. It is where I was baptized. It is where I played football in the big yard just to the right in the photo. I experienced RA’s, Youth Group, and Choir here. I haven’t been back inside this church since around 1999, when I moved. But my memories are strong when I ride by.

This is my middle school auditorium. It’s been upgraded in a major way and the school grounds are now home to the board of education. But I saw Okefenokee Joe here and saw him hold live snakes and alligators. And I saw Deputy Dawg here as he scared the bejeezus out of all of us with his speech on drugs and crime. I watched and participated in many events in this little theater. The picture looks nothing like the picture I carry in my mind. I will remember it how it was when I was 14, not 44. That’s what I mean by bending the memories sometimes. The room in 2021 is foreign to me. But I have my name written on the past of that room.

This high school has changed a lot since 1995. For one, it used to be Mitchell-Baker High, but now is just Mitchell County High, because Baker has their own school. But it was, and remains, “The Eagle’s Nest”. There are a TON of memories here – both good and bad. I grew a lot from 1991 to 1995. I grew even more after, but that 4 year stretch saw love, heartbreak, new friends, new enemies, playing it safe, pushing the envelope, and just about any other push and pull you can think of. I may never step foot inside that school again. But I think the halls would remember me if I did. I like to think they would. I know I would remember them.

This is just a front yard to many. But this is my front yard. This was the yard where everybody gathered to play kickball, football, and baseball. Whether it was Jason next door, Brewer across the street, or Jim and Rusty down the road; this patch of grass holds more memories than all of the other places combined. We battled on that grass. We ran in the “rare snow” on that grass. My brother jumped in his little pool in that yard. We hooked up speakers and tinted windows in that yard. I worked on Saturday’s with my dad in that yard. That yard is so special to me. When I look out at it, I see the ghosts of the past. That’s not an exaggeration. I can tell you where every bump and hole is in that yard like it is etched into my brain.

Without memories, we become empty shells, just trudging towards our end. Everything ends. It’s the cruel part of this mortal part of life. I’ll never see my Grandaddy again. But I remember going to Western Sizzlin and the Flea Market on Sundays. I’ll never see my GaGa again. But I remember sitting in her living room floor on a Saturday night, eating a bowl of chili. I’ll never play baseball in that front yard again with all my buddies. But I’ll remember a towering left handed home run that we lost to the neighbor’s dog for the rest of my life.

This is where the blog and sports cards come into play. I can tie just about any memory to cards because they were a part of my life during all of the moments I mentioned above. We traded cards at school, I looked at price guides at the library, and we mimicked our favorite players in that yard. I even looked for cards on those flea market trips with my Grandaddy. And as long as I can tie those cards to the memories, I’ll have this extra link to my past. The cards remind me of other events that may have become otherwise hazy. And vice versa.

The set that has the absolute most memory power for me is 1989 Donruss. I’ve written about it here before but it’s time we had a little refresher. The set has gained a little popularity as the card market has turned some attention towards the Junk Wax Era recently. 1989 was a pivotal year in collecting because of players like Ken Griffey Jr, Randy Johnson, John Smoltz, Gary Sheffield, and others. And Donruss was the colorful alternative to Topps while Fleer was a drab gray and Score was all over the place. There was Bowman too, but it has its own little place in history. All of the sets are meaningful to me; but Donruss has a little extra pull for me.

The packs are some of the most beautiful pieces of wax I’ve ever seen. I recognize this more than I would recognize some of my family members that I haven’t seen in a while.

Believe it or not, one of the most memorable cards in the set for me is this Ron Washington. It is one of the least flattering photos in the set but one that always stuck out to me. As fate would have it, as of 2021, he is one of the most beloved Atlanta Braves assistant coaches ever!

The Wizard can be found with a standard base card and a sweet MVP card. These MVP’s are my favorites of the Donruss catalog. I still remember wanting to be as good at shortstop as Ozzie when I was 12 years old. He might be #1 on my bucket list of people I’d like to shake hands with.

If I wanted to be as good as Ozzie defensively, I certainly wanted to be as good as Tony Gwynn with the bat. He was one of the sweetest swinging hitters I’ve ever seen. He made us guys that weren’t the most athletic looking feel like we could make it too. And I mean that in the best way possible.

Eric The Red is another one of my favorite players from the 80’s. He feels underrated but most people from my generation still love him. I used to play with the Reds on RBI Baseball 3 just so I could use Eric Davis.

This one is for all the investors out there. This was our King in 1989. Sure, there was Ken Griffey Jr; but Gregg Jefferies was that guy that we were going to stock up on and hold for retirement. The career didn’t match Jr, but I will always keep every Jefferies I pull.

Another rookie that was highly sought after was Gary Sheffield. He started his career as an infielder but would eventually blossom into a big power hitting outfielder. He even made a stop in Atlanta for a little while. Always enjoy pulling Sheff cards!

This rookie didn’t get near the publicity of Griffey or Sheffield. In fact, Jefferies commanded more as well. But The Big Unit went on to have a Hall of Fame career as one of the most feared left handed pitchers in history. He made a habit out of making the Braves look bad.

Here is the big boy from the set; the most sought after rookie player from the Junk Wax Era, aside from possibly Jose Canseco. Ken Griffey Jr. was a favorite of every baseball fan in the late 80’s and early 90’s. There was nothing to dislike about The Kid, except for that appearance as a bad guy in Little Big League. I owned way more of these than I did the ’89 Upper Deck. But even this card has taken off in recent months.

Even though Griffey was the hottest rookie in 1989, the card that graced the front page of my binder in 1989 was this Jose Canseco. He was an absolute beast during the Junk Wax Era and I couldn’t get enough of his cards. I have always preferred the Oakland A’s cards, with this one being one of my favorites. I didn’t really like the 40/40 card that was included in the set. It didn’t really look like Jose to me.

I will never open another box of 1989 Donruss “for the first time”. But I’ll never lose the memory of the first year that set flowed through my hands. The images, the border, and the packaging will remain crystal clear in my mind’s eye. It may ride a little wave of popularity in the hobby with eyes going back to that rookie class. But it’s always been popular to me. It has always had meaning for me. I feel like it knows me. It knows that my feelings for it are pure. I’m not here for the PSA 10 Griffey. I’m here for all of it. It’s a part of my life and why I write this blog. One day, my mind may not be able to retrieve all of those memories. But this blog will remain (hopefully) and the things that I write about will always be something I can reach out to when I need that punch of nostalgia.

J-Dub

We All Make Mistakes

No matter how old I get, 44 in less than a month; I learn something new all the time. Sometimes, I learn that something new because I made a mistake and had to adjust. Sometimes the mistake is so obvious, we should have been able to immediately identify it and avoid it. Other mistakes are less obvious on the surface and become more regrettable over time. Mistakes come in all shapes and sizes; but it’s important to remember that everyone makes them.

Let’s take, for instance, the time in 6th grade that I thought I was way more of a grown up than I actually was. I’ve written about it before but it deserves a re-visit with the topic at hand. I had learned a fresh new batch of dirty words and I got the chance to use them when I wrote a letter to a classmate that I thought had wronged another.

Eleven year old Dub wrote a gem of a letter, with all the choice words that an eleven year old should never say. It was sort of like the explosion that Ralphie had in “A Christmas Story”. That letter quickly made its way to the principal’s office and my mom quickly made her way to the school. My dad was a truck driver so I still had to wait for him to get home to get my third, and most feared, reprimand.

The worst part of getting in trouble was not my dad finding out; but my mom making me tell him instead of her telling him. I had to tell him exactly what I had done. That was tough. I learned a few things that day, including what my parents had always told me; they will always find out when I do something wrong. I also learned that particular course of action was most certainly not the appropriate one to take in the future.

Speaking of 6th grade, there was another big lesson waiting on me there. I am more embarrassed over this mistake than the previous one, but you live and learn. I had a “girlfriend” at the time but there was another girl I had my eye on. This already sounds bad, doesn’t it.

I picked the worst day in history to make that known. On Valentine’s Day, in an assembly, I passed a note to the “other girl” asking if she wanted to be my new girlfriend. It didn’t take long for the note to end up in my current girlfriend’s hands, unbeknownst to me. Because I didn’t get a response, I went ahead and gave my girlfriend her Valentine’s Teddy Bear. At recess, she put it in a mud puddle and then threw it at me, splattering mud on my shirt.

I deserved every bit of the anger and ridicule I got that day. I learned to always respect friends and partners at that very moment. I didn’t take into consideration the current girl’s feelings when I was pursuing the new girl. We were 11, so it had never really been an issue up to that point. We used to be boyfriend/girlfriend with everybody in the class throughout the school year. Some lessons are harder than others.

I’ve been with my current employer for 23 years but it hasn’t always been smooth sailing. When I first started in 1998, I was a raw 21 year old just looking for a paycheck to fund my partying and whatnot. I never thought at the time that it could possibly turn into a long-term career. And it almost didn’t.

My buddies went to college at Valdosta State and I worked in Albany. That is about an hour and fifteen minutes in travel time. When I got off everyday, I would drive to Valdosta and hang with them. I would spend the night there and get up and drive back to work the next morning. To say I was coming in a bit disheveled would be an understatement. I was a zombie, going on about 3 hours sleep.

The President of my place of employment would eventually call me in to have a discussion. She praised my work. But she also gave me a stern ultimatum. I could “straighten up and fly right” or I could collect a paycheck until I made a mistake big enough to find another job. That is one of the biggest learning experiences of my life. I had to learn balance between working a job that would support me and galivanting with my buddies.

Twenty-three years later, I am still there and I have worked my way up to a very nice position within the organization. The job has provided me with so many benefits in life. I am where I am today (professionally) because of the blessings I have received from my job. My family is secure because of my job. And it can all be traced back to that moment I had that meeting with my boss. I will always appreciate her for that learning moment as well.

I have learned A TON from being a husband and a father. It is certainly too much to cover in a blog post but you make a lot of mistakes as a husband (less as a wife, of course) and even more as a parent. I am fortunate to have learned a lot from my own parents with how to be both a husband and father. I was taught by the best!

I still make new mistakes all the time. I am far from perfect. But I accept that and I see what can happen when you learn from them and move forward in life. It is ok sometimes to beat yourself up about a mistake in the moment. But you have to learn from it and take a step forward. Life is in front of us, not behind us. I still haven’t figured out how to go back to 1989. So until I do, I have to look forward with my life.

As usual, there is more to this than just me trying to push some life experience on you. This includes some card talk too! When it comes to mistakes, they do still occasionally happen in the sports card market; but they were certainly prevalent during the Junk Wax Era. Error cards were always more popular than their corrected counterparts. Some sets were worse than others; but you could always count on a good error card coming out that would make for a fun chase.

1990-91 Hoops Sam Vincent – While this isn’t exactly an “error” card, there is a very big problem that isn’t quite “in your face” as you might imagine. Anybody alive in the 80’s and 90’s knows the name Michael Jordan. And I would say 90% of the population knew what number he was, #23. But here, in this game against the Orlando Magic, MJ was wearing #12. To my knowledge, it is the only card he has ever appeared on without wearing #23 or #45.

Hoops would later issue another Sam Vincent dribbling with no other players in the background. You can imagine that the desire to have the one with MJ wearing #12 outweighs that of the later issue. So what’s up with Jordan in #12 you ask? Read about it here!

1985 Topps Gary Pettis – Here we have the 1985 Gary Pettis. To a non-collector, there is nothing to see here. Just a baseball player with a rather humorous pose for a baseball card. However, there is one big problem. That isn’t Gary Pettis. It is actually Gary’s 14 year old brother, who was at the park that day playing with other kids, dressed out in full gear. It is actually a pretty fun story and can be found here!

1991 Topps Wes Chamberlain – This is another case of mistaken identity. But this time, Topps caught it and corrected it in later print runs. The original release was a card with Louie Meadows pictured (left). Chamberlain (right) would eventually land on his own card and all would be well. I have actually talked about it with Wes on Twitter and had a good laugh.

1990 Donruss Mark McGwire All-Star – This one isn’t quite as noticeable. In fact, I was completely unaware of it until recent years. 1990 Donruss will have several entries here but the first is this Big Mac. The error can be found on the back. The All-Star Cards had one line of stats and was labeled “All-Star Game Performance”. The error card looks exactly the same, except it is labeled “Recent Major League Performance”; just as normal base cards do.

1990 Donruss Nolan Ryan Diamond Kings – This is another error that can be found on the back. If you are familiar with Diamond Kings, you know that the back of the card is just text about the player (like on this Ken Griffey Jr). This Nolan Ryan Diamond King has the back of his base card. I don’t know what happened with card backs in 1990 Donruss.

1990 Donruss John Smoltz Error – One of my favorite errors as a Braves fan. The John Smoltz MVP card came in two variations. The corrected card has Smoltz with a big smile on the front. The error had another Braves Hall of Famer on it, but not Smoltz. Tom Glavine made the front of the error and I will forever cherish these cards in my PC!

1990 Donruss Juan Gonzalez – This is the last 1990 Donruss, I promise. But it is likely the most famous. In 1990, Juan Gonzalez was a huge rookie card in sets. Juan Gone went on to have a tremendous career; crushing 434 home runs, while winning 2 MVP awards and going to 3 All-Star Games. But to my knowledge, he never hit a home run in the big leagues while batting left handed, which is what 1990 Donruss would have you believe. The reverse Juan Gonzalez remains one of the more popular Junk Wax Rookies and is one that I will always own.

1989 Fleer Billy Ripken – Speaking of famous errors, this one ranks right up there with the letter that I wrote in 6th Grade. The story is too long for this blog but you can read more about it here. But in 1989, Fleer sent a batch of baseball cards out to a bunch of kid collectors with the dreaded “F-Word” on it, written right on the barrel of Billy’s bat. They would scramble to correct it and did so in multiple ways. There is a white out version, a scribble version, and a black out version. The white out version has the reputation as being the toughest pull and most valuable but the actual card that has the F-Word on it is the most fun to own!

1989 Upper Deck Dale Murphy – This one is the most valuable error card I own. And it took me the longest to obtain. It is a $50+ card all day but those that have been graded and certified to be in good shape can go in excess of $100. Just like the Juan Gonzalez, it is a reverse-negative. Simply put, Murph is standing in a left handed posed and Braves is backwards on the jersey. I honestly don’t know the print run on the error but I have opened a ton of 1989 Upper Deck over the years (in search of Ken Griffey Jr.) and have never pulled one. So I suppose it can be considered awfully rare by Junk Wax print run standards.

I’m glad that I wasn’t the only one making big mistakes in 1989. Fleer may have me beat on that one. But in the grand scheme of collecting, error cards have always been sought after. The 1991 Topps Baseball set is so riddled with errors, my checklist is 16 pages long as I try to complete that set. Some errors are mere printing issues, but the errors above are clear visual errors that are made during production.

So while we all make mistakes along our life’s path, we can take solace that we are never alone in that arena. Cancel Culture doesn’t seem to take that into account anymore. I won’t get into that in this blog post because I just don’t have the energy. But sometimes, a mistake is a mistake, plain and simple. Learn from it – make amends – be better in the future. In the end, that is all we can do.

Dub

Take A Couple Cards and Call Me In The Morning

There is a lot of hate in the world today. Welcome to 2020, right? I understand that some of the feelings we are seeing play out are valid and some are outlandish. So I am not really here to justify or choose sides in the many battles that are raging in society today. I’ve already made my “statement” on Facebook and Twitter so I’m not going to re-hash it all over again. That’s not the point of this post.

But let’s pretend for a moment that the Book of Revelation is playing out in front of us. I know that some of you are thinking as you read this, “Pretend??” The reason I word it that way is that I understand that there are people reading this that practice different religions and some that don’t practice at all. But Revelation is my reference point for what is happening right now. So for the purposes of this look at “what the hell is going on”, it seems fair. It feels like the end, right?

We are in the middle of a pandemic that has pitted neighbor against neighbor over things like conspiracy theories, whether you should wear a mask or not, whether numbers are being manipulated, and where it all came from. People are being labeled unjustly, attacked unprovoked, and just being overall assholes to each other. Each side is intolerant of the other and brags about being tolerant. I’ll say this – I know people personally affected by the virus and my heart breaks for them, so I am taking it seriously.

We are having 15 second video clips shoved into our eyeballs like we’re in a Tool video; while at the same time being forced to pick a side almost immediately. I’m guilty of it myself. I judge things based on optics sometimes without understanding how we got from “Point A” to “Point B”. That’s the nature of society here in 2020. And it downright sucks. And that means that I suck too. I’m not preaching to anyone. I’m venting.

We are dealing with Saharan Dust overtaking the sky. We are seeing locusts travel over entire oceans to invade Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, South Asia, and South America. Locusts = Revelation, if you catch my drift. We have had earthquakes, murder hornets, wildfires, lockdowns, market crashes, sports season cancellations, Olympic postponements, and cities being torn apart. All of this while we are scared to go the grocery store to get bread because we might bring home a deadly virus to the rest of our family. It’s only July folks.

Here is where I am going with this, and yes, there will be pictures of baseball cards in a moment. In a time when everything around us is burning; instead of reaching out to our neighbor to offer comfort, we are looking for yet another reason to “cancel” them. Instead of texting someone a funny Snapchat video to make them laugh, we are posting a video of a shopper yelling about American Rights over a medical mask.

Instead of reaching out to someone and reminding them of some positive impact they had on our lives, we are reaching out to remind them of something they said in 2005 that may or may not actually be offensive and discounting the last 15 years of their actual lives that may have been spent helping others. Mind you, wrong is wrong and right is right; but finding someone’s low point in life and measuring them by that alone is not how this is all supposed to work.

Now is the time we should be looking at ourselves and not someone else. Now is when we need to make amends for the things we may have done wrong, instead of looking for wrong in others. Now is the time to listen when we need to listen, and talk when we need to talk. We need to reach back to the part of ourselves that only knew how to love. We have an innate ability to care for people around us. Sometimes we just choose not to do that. It hurts like hell, but we keep doing it.

The reason I love baseball cards so much is because they remind me of that time of my life when the world around me was a little friendlier. Some of it was naivety, but I didn’t dwell on the negative in people. If you didn’t enjoy the things I enjoyed, I just went to another part of the playground. I found people with common interests. I wasn’t miserable because I liked shooting marbles and someone didn’t. I found someone who enjoyed it. I didn’t care what race, sex, or persuasion they were.

We didn’t have to walk around with fake smiles when we were 10-12. We were one group for the most part and we all had our own personalities that made us unique. We naturally gravitated towards others that shared common interests and we avoided those that would conflict with our happiness. We don’t do that anymore; we embrace the conflict. We sort of thrive on it.

Baseball cards provide that outlet for me to escape back to innocence. When I see a baseball card from 1990, I don’t see some overproduced, worthless piece of cardboard like some do in the hobby. More times than not, I see something well beyond the card. I see a moment in time. I see a friend that traded me the card or was a part of my life when I first stuck it in a binder. I smell a classroom where we looked at the cards. I hear a voice telling me they would trade me all of their Kevin Maas rookies for a Ken Griffey Jr. That’s a rough voice to hear.

As is a big topic of debate on the Twitters in 2020, I don’t look at baseball cards as investments. I look at them as tiny snapshots from the timeline of my life. Cards from 2020 will be a snapshot too; I just may not ever get that film developed. Yeah, I sell cards to make money to buy more but I have been in the hobby long enough to know that a card is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, right Ben? But cards are not currency for me. They are like looking at an old yearbook.

What do you see here, besides one of the greatest 1987 Topps Baseball Cards ever made? I see a card that was the first card in my binder when I was in 7th grade. And when I was in 7th grade, I had my first school dance, my first real girlfriend, and some of the best friends of my youth. One of my friends, Joel, would walk home from school the same way I would because of where our parents worked. My cousin, Adam, would walk the same way because his mom worked at the ambulance service. We would go to a store called Shiver’s (no relation) and stock up on Now-n-Later’s, Sunkist, and one of those big pickles that were kept in jars at the counter. Good times!

Here is one of the cooler cards from 1988, the great Tom Lasorda. This card reminds me of times at my Uncle Speedy’s house. My uncle was our baseball coach growing up and we would spend days practicing at his house with all the team equipment, nights at the fields (dominating), and then our off time playing RBI and RBI 3. My uncle was an old school baseball player and fan and this card always makes me think of those days.

Here is a gem. This is a .10 cent card all day long but what a memory it stokes. We used to go to Lake Eufaula almost every weekend when I was a kid. Also, when I was a kid, I didn’t necessarily mind my parents. We would stop at a Costco type grocery store and load up on groceries before the weekend and I would occasionally talk my parents into letting me have some packs of cards. This particular time, I got the cards, but was told I couldn’t open them until we got to the lake. I tried to sneak a peek by breaking the back wrapper and was caught. I lost the packs until we got back from the lake. The card I saw was this Hershiser All-Star!

Here is one of my favorite rookies from 1989. Sure, Ken Griffey Jr. was the big one but I searched for Sheff every time I opened packs. There was a kid in my school that said he was a distant cousin to Dwight Gooden. So when I found out the Sheffield was Gooden’s nephew, I held on to this dream that one day I would get them all signed. Autographed baseball cards were hard to come by back then unless you went to games frequently or paid at a card show. This would have been my first auto but it never actually happened. I still have that dream when I see this card!

1990 was a big card collecting year for me. I was also 13 years old, so a pivotal year personally as well. I didn’t know who this rookie was when I pulled this but I would find out in a big way in 1992. After the Braves made their improbable worst to first run in 1991, we made the playoffs again in 1992. Backs to the wall in Game 7, Frankie Cabrera stepped to the plate and delivered the most famous hit of my lifetime. My entire family would gather to watch the games at my house and I can still hear the screams in that living room as we erupted! I would trade just about anything to go back and watch that game. My grandmother was there, her sister, my aunts and uncles. There are three people that were there that night that are no longer with us and when I think of them, that night always comes to mind.

Speaking of my grandmother, this card is one I have talked about many times. It still deserves a mention every time I write a nostalgic post like this. Instead of the boring old candy that we would get from everybody else at Halloween, my GaGa surprised me in 1990 with a couple of packs of Fleer. You could not get much bigger than Canseco and McGwire in 1990. When I pulled this, it was a huge hit! I think it was worth about $3 in Beckett back then. You can have all the candy corn you want; leave me the McGwire! I simply can’t see this card and not think of my GaGa. I miss her so much.

1990 Leaf was one of those crazy sets that caught fire and was like chasing 2019-2020 Prizm Basketball. There were actually a couple of months where every single card had an up arrow beside it in Beckett. Two of my best friends, Jim and Russ, had the full set in a binder. Leaf always makes me think of those brothers and the good times we had. We played ball, went to the lake together, watched Mike Tyson knock out Peter McNeely in 89 seconds, and watched The Dirty Birds make it to the Super Bowl! Leaf will always take me back to those times.

The first full set I ever owned was 1990 Topps and Topps Traded. My parents got me this for Christmas that year. They were always top notch with the Christmas gifts. I got plenty of cards, a Nintendo, race tracks, and every other big Christmas toy of the time. This set will always be about me and my parents. I had it made in 1990 and I really couldn’t have asked for better parents. I didn’t realize it at the time but I was so fortunate to have loving parents that always wanted the best for me. Love you Mom and Dad!

Is there a better collection of Diamond Kings than those from 1992 and 1993? I loved Donruss so much back then. And the Big Hurt was my favorite player that didn’t play in Atlanta. My Uncle Greg was a huge Auburn fan and it made liking Frank a little difficult during football season but this card always reminds me of when I was 15 years old and my uncle was one of my heroes. He isn’t that much older than me and I was able to see him play high school baseball in the mid 80’s, travel with him to play softball in the 90’s, and spend most of the 2000’s arguing over Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon. I was a Stewart guy and you know they didn’t get along real well! But me and Greg did, and this card makes me think of him.

1995 was one of the last years I actively collected before my “hiatus” that we all take during our teens. I was dating Mrs. Dub in 1995 and it was one of the best years of my life! I eventually married Mrs. Dub and we’ve been hitched for 19 years. Aside from the year, there is Griffey. He was just about everybody’s favorite player from the 90’s and I got to watch him play in person just one time; in Atlanta when he was with the Reds. Mrs. Dub and I had seats in the outfield but we moved behind the plate at the end of the game as the crowd thinned out. We got behind home plate just in time to see Griffey lace a line drive into right center field. I can still see that swing and is the only time I’ve ever cheered when an opponent got a hit in Atlanta. Yes, a baseball card reminds me of my wife. And I am proud of it!

See, in spite of all the horrors and shenanigans going on in this world, baseball cards give me a chance to get away. I forgot all about how agitated I was at the beginning. All I want is for us to treat each other kindly. All of the memories I talked about here were fun, light-hearted times that seem so hard to find these days. It’s not hard to think about some good times with old friends or family and try to smile for a minute. It is a lot more fun than bludgeoning each other on social media just to have a brief moment to say “I’m right!”

But based on today’s social media situation, you’ll either enjoy this post or you will try to “cancel” me. Hopefully, you’ll just enjoy!

J-Dub

Retro Review – The 80’s Playground

I had to take my oldest daughter to school earlier this week because my youngest was sick. I don’t go to the school much anymore because Mrs. Dub takes her in the morning. But as I was passing one of the Primary Schools, for some reason I really noticed the bright plastic playground this time. This is a school that she had gone to before and I’ve been there a hundred times, but this time, it stuck out. I noticed how “safe” the playground looked and it made me think about my old playgrounds from the 80’s. Not that I want my kids playing in a minefield; it just took me back to the days of my childhood playgrounds and all the wild times I had.

Let’s be perfectly clear; I am an advocate for playground safety. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I go a little overboard when it comes to trying to protect my kids from getting hurt. But I think we (70’s-80’s kids) would have gotten bored pretty quickly with the playgrounds of today. Kids today have pocket video games, movies on iPads, and so many other ways to keep them entertained. In 1983, my entertainment came from trying to survive playground equipment made from steel and welded metal that would make Lord Humungus from “The Road Warrior” proud.

Let’s start with everybody’s favorite, the Metal Slide! There are several red flags here, so I will just rattle these off in no particular order. First, these slides were higher and steeper than any slide you will find today. They were also made out of a shiny material that could reach just below a melting point on a warm South Georgia afternoon (keep in mind that shorts were pretty short back then). So first, you had to climb this behemoth. Then, you had to mentally prepare yourself for the possible second degree burns you would receive on the back of your thighs. Perhaps the only saving grace for the heat of the slide was the otherworldly speed you could attain on this slick beast. If you were wearing the right fabric, you could be down the slide faster than if you actually fell off it. This created its own set of hazards; such as a proper landing, which was akin to a running stop if you could manage to land on your feet.

If heights weren’t your thing, you could challenge the old rusty Merry-Go-Round. I’ve never been a huge Merry-Go-Round guy because of the nausea it would cause when I would spin in a circle too fast. I do remember sitting in the middle of this death trap a few times while several of my friends would spin it as fast as possible to see who could stay on the longest. If you left the safety of the center because your stomach couldn’t take it, you risked getting pounded by the metal poles that were used to properly hang on. And once you were ping ponged through those, you were looking at a pretty nasty landing on the ground. Finally, you had to stay in the prone position where you landed to let the earth stop moving so your mangled equilibrium didn’t force you right back into this spinning contraption!

Some playgrounds had “The Rocket”, or some version of it. We didn’t have this exact model but it was similar. Look at the kids on this and you can surmise that this was about 30 feet tall, with the ability to climb almost all the way to the top of it on a steel ladder. While the height and potential for falling and smacking several floors of metal were enough to make this a disaster in waiting, they had the nerve to add on something we discussed in the beginning; the metal slide, but with a much higher landing platform.

Now we are starting to get into some of the stuff that was really rough. This version of the Monkey Bars was pretty tame to what I will close with but it still had a lot of potential for injury. If kids just climbed the ladder and tried to swing from one end to the other, this wasn’t so bad. But when we were in 6^th grade, we would climb to the very top and try to sit and walk on the bars, above where it was actually intended to be enjoyed. In fact, I was sitting on the top of one of these on that fateful Valentine’s Day that my girlfriend (ex) threw a teddy bear in a mud puddle and rifled it at me in a fit of rage. But we have discussed this on the blog somewhere before so I won’t dredge up the details of that for this post.

Even the basic Swing Set could be quite an unforgiving device under the right circumstances. First off, just like the metal slide, this was much higher than the swings you’ll find today. We had the ability to reach tremendous heights with these swings. The seats were a hard rubber that would flex and were connected with a thick metal chain. If you were taller, you could roll the seat over a few times and it would shorten the chain so your feet wouldn’t drag the ground and slow you down. This swing set was all about the dismount though. Who could fly the highest and farthest? And there was also a high stakes game of “dodge’em” that we played that was epic. We would fill the full 8 person set with people swinging at various intervals. Then, one unlucky kid would attempt to run from one center pole to the other without being creamed, all while trying to be the fastest time. There were some NASCAR style collisions in this game!

Finally, the most deadly apparatus of them all, the Jungle Gym style Monkey Bars. Who in the world thought up this apparatus and how many years in prison did they eventually get? We had a version that looked exactly like this on the 3^rd grade playground and I saw more than my fair share of kids who fell off of it. The height was one thing to overcome as an 8 year old but if you fell in the middle, you ran the risk of clanking every rung on the way down. It gives a real meaning to “fell out of the tree and hit every limb on the way down”. In hindsight, nothing good could’ve come from us playing on this. There was nothing to gain from conquering this monster but there was a lot to lose;including teeth, blood, and dignity.

I was overjoyed when I was introduced to this piece of playground equipment. There was still a risk of injury but it was easily the most fun I had ever had at school. The heat didn’t bother us, bugs were an afterthought, and you could always find chicks standing around watching so it was the perfect place to try to impress somebody. We would eventually move on to fancier goals and equipment over time but I still remember the old rusty goal on the 5^th grade playground where I honed my jump shot. The worst days were the days after a good rain because the court was just a big puddle and we had to resort to other activities. I have a lot of fond memories of playing basketball in school when I was a kid.

As a part of those fond memories, I also harken back to certain basketball sets of my youth. I’m talking about sets that had some of the greatest players in the history of the game; 1989 Fleer, 1990 Hoops, 1991 Skybox, and of course, 90’s Topps. These were some of my favorite sets because I was only 9 when 1986 Fleer was out and by the time I had reached an age where I could fully appreciate the hobby, that particular set had really blossomed into a higher end set for rich kids. I still don’t own a 1986 Michael Jordan RC but I will one day, mark it down! I do own some 1990 Fleer Jordan’s and that is what we are reviewing today.

1990 Fleer had a really clean design, much like 1990 Baseball. While the Baseball set is not looked back on too fondly, the same can’t be said for the basketball release. It is still very popular among collectors.

The backs of Fleer in the 80’s and early 90’s were very recognizable with the alternating bland colors. I don’t mind these backs though because they provide a lot of information.

Another extreme positive of this set is that it is loaded with players that were included in the NBA’s Top 50 Players that was unveiled in 1996 at the All-Star Game.

Reggie Lewis did not get to fulfill the career that he began in such superstar fashion. I was a big fan and he will always be one of those “where were you when” type of players. When he passed away in 1993, I was at a church summer camp, playing basketball myself. I really wish we could have seen Reggie play a full career.

Another one of “my guys” back in the 90’s was Manute Bol. I still remember the game where he drained SIX 3-pointers in one half! In 1993, as a member of the 76’ers, Manute went 6-12 on his 3-pointers and was a fan favorite for me from then on.

A lot of modern collectors may not remember this Rodman. Before he was tatted up, wearing wedding dresses, and dating Carmen Electra; he was a fairly normal dude with his appearance. He still liked to mix it up quite a bit, but who didn’t in Detroit?!

This card captured the patented Patrick Ewing one hand dunk. He did this dunk so many times. He was really a stud but his teams always ran into a buzz saw from Chicago in the playoffs. Then one year, they had an amazing chance at a Championship berth but Ewing blew a very makeable layup against the Pacers in 1995. I felt horrible for Ewing at the end of that game!

A lot of modern fans think of Charles Barkley as the outspoken, hefty, announcer on TNT these days. In fact, Draymond Green doesn’t even give him the respect he deserves. In the 90’s, Barkley was a tremendous athlete who dominated the boards and has a highlight reel that Draymond Green can only wish he had!

One of my all-time favorite players was Akeem Olajuwon, who would later become Hakeem Olajuwon. The “Dream Shake” was one of the deadliest moves for a big man during that era. If you enjoyed good basketball and liked players who did the talking with their abilities, there was no way you couldn’t like The Dream!

Another super athletic center that did his talking on the court was David Robinson, “The Admiral”. Another favorite of mine, The Admiral was a tremendous scorer and defender and was later complimented by Tim Duncan, as they became Champs.

One of the reasons the Bulls went on the historical run of two separate 3-peats in the 90’s was Scottie Pippen. Pippen could score, and was a great compliment to Jordan; but he was most impressive on the defensive end of the court. He was long and was a turnover creating machine.

The All-Star Inserts remain popular in 1990 Fleer. The Jordan is the most sought after but the list includes Isiah, Magic, Barkley, Robinson, Olajuwon, and many other greats.

The crown jewel of any late 80’s through 90’s set is His Airness, Michael Jordan! Any card with Michael Jordan on it belongs in sleeves and top loaders. I won’t get into the whole “who is better discussion” but I will just say that there has never been another Jordan in my opinion. This card alone makes the box worthwhile.

The score for 1990 Fleer on the Dub-O-Meter is one of the biggest no-brainers since the inception of the blog. This set gets an easy “5”! The design is great, the checklist is unbelievable, and the All-Star chase is very memorable from the era. When you throw Michael Jordan in the mix, there is not much more you can say about the set. It’s phenomenal and I recommend taking a shot on a box whenever you can find one at a reasonable price.

J-Dub

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