Thank You ’89 Donruss!

I’ve written a lot about sports card collecting but I don’t know if I’ve ever just taken the time to explain what this hobby really means to me.  I hope my love for it shines through in my other posts but I think it deserves its own designated article as well.  Sports cards are the most important “material” object in my life and have been for a great part of it.  And while it started out as a potential money maker just like most collections did, it is so much more than that now.  The money is no longer even a factor except for the occasional replenishing of funds to buy more cards.  I will flip some non-pc items to buy more boxes or pc cards or to load up my PayPal with shipping for future randoms.  I’ve found that there is generally a collector out there for everything; you just have to find them.

I started collecting full time in 1989.  There are only a handful of things I really remember from 1989 in general but I definitely remember Jose Canseco’s 40/40 Club Donruss, Ken Griffey Jr. rookie cards, Sandy Alomar Jr., Gregg Jefferies and my first big pull, Gary Sheffield.   I guess you could say that the hobby is a time machine for me and ’89 Donruss is my DeLorean.   I am very fond of my childhood and was very fortunate to experience happy times.  I enjoy revisiting those times when I can.  And no matter how advanced we get with our technology and card designs, I can go to some old wax and instantly be taken back to a memory from my youth.  I can visualize myself scouring Beckett for the prices of the ’89 Score cards I just ripped.   I remember what my comforter looked like as I was getting that .50 value for the Luis De Los Santos RC.  I remember some of the specific cards on the hot list from time to time such as the aforementioned Gregg Jefferies.  I can see that nerf hoop hanging up on my closet door waiting for me to get done with the cardboard.  I can hear the Super Mario theme song while my Nintendo is idle.I remember pulling all-nighters at my cousin’s house with cards spread out all over the bedroom floor as we both re-sorted our binders, removing busts and adding new prospects.  We would pull off trades all night as we compared duplicates from each others collection.  I remember Canseco was the first player in my binder, followed by Ken Griffey Jr and then Nolan Ryan.   I remember the 1990 Topps set my parents bought me for Christmas when I was 13.  Not knowing what to do with complete sets, I went through and took out the stars and put them in the binder.  My binder was my show piece so I didn’t want them sitting in a box in the closet.   In that closet, I had a copy paper box stacked to the top with baseball cards that didn’t make the cut for the binder.  I would rummage through the box periodically to make sure somebody hadn’t resurrected their career, thus needing to be placed back in the binder.

I remember taking those non-star cards and playing baseball games in my bedroom.  I would take the cards and draft two teams using each position and then place them on an imaginary field at those positions.  I would then go through the cards and formulate a lineup based off of the stats on the back.  I put the speed at the top, power in the middle and utility at the end, just like a regular lineup.  I would then use a notebook to keep stats of a make believe game happening in my mind’s eye.   I specifically remember Jerry Browne, Ron Washington and Mel Hall being in that stack of floor game cards.  I didn’t use my stars because I knew not to damage them.  How else would someone remember Jerry Browne from 1989?  Even more nostalgic, that card game was played on nice blue shag carpeting!I remember my neighbor and I creating grab bags with 50 cards (mostly base) and a star or two and selling them at a yard sale his mom was having.  Our other neighbor wound up buying all 10 bags and was not thrilled that there were so many base cards.   The catch was that one of the bags contained an ’89 Donruss Ken Griffey Jr. so I would say he got his $10 worth but he also took a lot of junk cards off of our hands.  He said we would have been better off just asking him to buy the Jr. for $10 but what fun would that have been?  Then he wouldn’t have had all those Dion James and Mike Gallego cards!  That same friend got me back a couple of years later with the now infamous Ken Griffey Jr. autograph he traded me. I wrote about that one here.
I remember getting baseball cards for every occasion.  I even got them for Halloween one year instead of candy from my grandmother.  It was ’90 Fleer and the one card I remember pulling was the Mark McGwire.  I still love that card because of the sentimental value it has to me.  Who else remembers what they got for Halloween 27 years ago?  Sports cards are better for the mind than Ginkgo Biloba.  I got them for my birthday, Christmas, in my Easter Basket, you name it.  I think the only person that ever dropped the ball on getting me cards was the Tooth Fairy.One of my best friends in high school, David, pulled an Andre Dawson Elite one year and that was the first time I remember getting really jealous about someone else’s pull.  Now I get jealous all the time because he sends me photos of Carson Wentz and Marcus Mariota autographs.  For the past month, he has sent me a solid autograph pull every 3-4 days!  He travels with his job so has more access to card shops than I do in my 90 mile radius.  He was also a big Twins fan because he was originally from Minnesota and he had the 1987 Wheaties box in a plexi-glass case.   I remember wanting to burn that box in 1991 but David was 6’8 and could have squashed me like a bug.My parents had a weekend getaway camper at Fort Gaines and I even have card memories from those trips.  The classic Orel Hershiser grounding happened on the way to the lake.  But also, we would have to travel over to Eufaula to get groceries from Wal-Mart from time to time and I always picked up some cards there.  I remember getting my first look at ’89 Bowman on one of those trips.   I remember when you could pick up packs in Wal-Mart and they weren’t “retail”.  Those were the days when you could get packs almost anywhere.  I got them at Suwannee Swifty, Big B Drugs, Piggly Wiggly and Eckerd.  Even small little curb stores in the middle of nowhere likely had some Donruss gathering dust on a shelf.  I specifically remember that ’89 Donruss wax pack being everywhere I went.You see, I’m a very nostalgic person.   I think we all are to a large degree but I live in the neon lights of the late 80’s and early 90’s.  The movies, the music and pop culture in general just take me back to a time when I thought I had life all figured out but was too naïve to know that I didn’t.  Now, I know I don’t have it figured out, imagine I won’t ever figure it out and wonder if it’s even worth figuring out sometimes.  Life has a way of being overbearing sometimes.  Work is a constant stress, I spend every waking moment concerned for the well being of my kids and wife and making sure that they always have what they need and the bills never seem to stop.  So when I want to clear my mind, I don’t buy National Treasures or Flawless.  I go buy a $10 box of 1990 Pro Set and I’m immediately back in my old bedroom, scanning the Beckett Price Guide and looking for Emmitt Smith and Percy Snow rookies.  I actually have a box of Pro Set that came in last week so you’ll be getting a retro review in the next few days!

I’m now the old man that asks kids to stay off my lawn when it comes to newfangled products.  I’m the “back in my day guy”.  I find myself being more like Hank Hill than Boomhauer these days with my rigid, by the book personality.  That all melts away when I have a chance to sit down at the kitchen table and start looking through my cards.   I like the new stuff but it’s more about value than I prefer.  The value is higher but so is the cost.   I enjoy opening boxes that have potential autos or printing plates but it doesn’t help the rigors of adulting melt away like a couple of packs of 1989 Bowman.  When I’m done with a box of classic wax, I know that I got my money’s worth.  When I’m done with a new product, there is a good chance that I didn’t come close.  And that really boils down to the value I place on cards now.  I like a flashy auto but if I can buy 540 cards that will send me down memory lane to a day when my biggest concern was whether I was going to play baseball in the yard or Tecmo in the bedroom, that is priceless.This is why I love this hobby.  This is why I am so passionate about the cards and the community.  I want others to experience cards the way I do.  I know that isn’t entirely possible but I want to try and relay those feelings in my writing.  I may never be a famous writer or anything like that but I never have to worry about not having a passion for what I’m writing about.  I love cards and I love this community.   I random cards because I want my blog shared with like minded collectors.  I also random cards because I want to share some of those meaningful cards with my readers.  Some people may not think that four packs of ’89 Bowman is a very valuable.  Some people scoff at the thought of having to rip a pack of ’90 Hoops.  But realize this, when I send someone those unopened packs, it’s like I’m sending a little piece of my childhood to share with you.  Even if you open them and throw them in the trash, take a minute to soak in the players and the sets that I grew up with.  Most likely, you grew up with them too.

If people are going to use Twitter and Facebook to argue about politics and social issues, then I am going to try and spread as much positive vibes as I can.  Thank you sincerely for following me and reading this blog.  I really appreciate every comment, every RT, every like.  It is an awesome feeling to write something that engages even the slightest bit of discussion.  This is my extension to the hobby world from small town Georgia.  It has connected me to so many great people around North America.  I don’t own a shop or have a podcast or own a big time break company.   But I do have a passion for the industry and a thirst for wanting to get to know more people like me.  Sports Cards are a natural unifier of people regardless of your background or religious preference or political party.  From time to time, we all should stop and think about how we got here and why we are still in this hobby.   Odds are we all owe it a tremendous debt of gratitude.

J-Dub