Neoliberalism With a Stick of Gum (The 80s Baseball Card Boom)

 Tropics of Meta was kind enough to publish a recent piece I wrote about baseball cards and neoliberalism. Check it out here.

Here's an excerpt:

"That decades-old unopened boxes of baseball cards can be acquired so easily and cheaply tells the story of speculation run amok. My first investment portfolio was an early lesson in capitalism’s shady promises, collapsing bubble and all. Ironically, so many people bought and saved so many baseball cards thinking they would be valuable that they made them worthless. This is not just another story of boom and bust, however. Baseball cards in the 80s are a fine metaphor for neoliberalism’s triumph in that decade, from deregulation to speculation to intensified stratification and inequality."

Zen and the Art of Opening Wax Packs

A lot of things have surprised me about parenthood, but among the happiest surprises is that my daughters love baseball cards. Nothing tickles my nostalgia quite like baseball cards, in large part because I am in that late Gen X cohort that was the perfect age to experience the baseball card boom of the late 1980s.

A lot of people back then thought the market would just keep growing, and bought all kinds of cards to hoard. That practice, of course, made those cards worthless because of a lack of scarcity. All us Gen Xers heard our Boomer dads talk wistfully about how their moms threw out their Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays cards, and vowed the same would never happen to us. Oops.

So I never made a pile of money off of my cardboard fetishes, but I gained something better. Nowadays you can buy whole boxes of wax packs from the boom era of baseball cards for ten bucks. My daughters and I can now sit down and rip through the packs together, feeling that sense of anticipation and possibility that comes in each wax pack.

The cards also bring a kind of mindless labor that's good for clearing my thoughts. After we open the packs we sort the cards by putting them in piles by 100, 200s, 300s, etc, then break down each of those piles in tens. There is comfort in the repition and routine, and each time we find a double my daughters yell with delight, since they get to add one to their personal collection.

Right now we are working through a box of 1991 Score, which I did not collect in my youth. In 1991 I switched to blowing my summer job money on CDs and tapes instead of baseball cards and comic books. The design of the cards is a reminder that the early 90s had its own, particularly ugly aesthetic. The font is too sharp, like something out of corporate earnings report, and the colors heavy on teal and purple tones. Breaking out these wax packs and seeing those colors and the tragic mullets on some of the players is the kind of time warp I usually only get from watching those videos compiling old commercials on YouTube.

For my kids, the names and hair styles mean nothing. They just sort of looked quizically when I shouted happily over getting a Bo Jackson card and laughed over the likes of Juan Berengeur and Mickey Morandini. That made me wonder if I was in actuality just dragging my children reluctantly through my nostalgia, something I swore I would never do.

My fears left me two weeks ago, however, when I let them buy some packs from 2019. The first card in those packs? A Pete Alonso rookie card. They both screamed with delight when they saw it behind the freshly torn foil, and not just the daughter who is a Mets super fan. It was the ultimate baseball card pack experience, one of the small pleasures capable of sustaining us in these rotten times.

More Baseball Ephemera For The Winter Blues

Pitchers and catchers report to spring training in 23 days, position players in 28.  We are one orbit of the moon away from baseball's partial return, and I am joyous.  The NFL has maintained its diva-esque insistence on two weeks between the conference championships and the Super Bowl, which this year has meant interminable discussions of ball inflation and Marshawn Lynch's recalcitrance in press conferences.  And people call baseball boring.

Anymore baseball is less a sport than a symbol of spring, summer, and early fall to me.  Baseball's return is the return life, of the sun, of days when I can wake up with something to look forward to.  The older I get, the more the winter wears on my body and saps my soul.  When spring returns I practically celebrate like a Russian peasant overjoyed when the ice cracks and the rasputitsa comes.  To tide me over, and for your consideration, are some pieces of baseball ephemera.

Jim Kaat's 1983 Fleer Baseball Card

I love the ramshackle nature of 1983 Fleer cards.  The background color is like the walls of a secretarial pool, and the Helvetica lettering makes it seem doubly institutional.  I imagine if they had baseball cards in Soviet Russia, this is what they would look like.  I love cards like this, when the photographer is snapping a photo of Jim Kaat while he's doing an interview, not even bothering to have him pose.

Reggie Jackson's Scrapbook

I was a weird kid, which meant that I learned an awful lot about sports events of the past by checking out recently outdated sports books from the library.  One of my favorite was Reggie Jackson's Scrapbook, published after his 1977 season, when he ended the World Series by hitting three homers on three straight pitches for the Yankees.  By the time I picked it up, he was a slightly over the hill slugger with the Angels.  It was full of great photos, including a breakdown of the famous game 6.

Gary Matthews' 1979 Topps Card

You can see why they called him "Sarge."

Ron Luciano's Books

Luciano was a colorful umpire in the American League in the 1970s who went on to be a broadcaster and author in the 1980s.  I devoured his books, fascinated by how the game looked from the ump's perspective.  For a little while in middle school, I seriously thought that becoming a major league umpire would be my life's calling.  I would get to see all the games I wanted, get paid for it, and have a lot of time off.  When I got the news that he had committed suicide, I was profoundly upset.

Tim Flannery's 1988 Fleer Baseball Card

Surf's up.

Seasons in Hell by Mike Shropshire

I just read this book, inspired by its inclusion on a top baseball books list by Dan Epstein, who's no slouch as a baseball writer himself.  In it a beat reporter for the Texas Rangers of the mid-1970s describes a particularly crummy team and what it was like when the anything goes culture of the 1960s finally hit the more staid world of baseball.  Shropshire has a great voice reminiscent of Hunter S Thompson, and would recommend the book to any fans of baseball or the good doctor.  It also happens to contain the definitive account of the Ten Cent Beer Night fiasco in Cleveland in 1974.

Wally Moon's 1959 Topps Baseball Cards

Great name, all-time great unibrow.

Ten Cent Beer Night

The "aw, fuck it" brand of rebellion in the 1970s was on display in Cleveland one fateful night, the same year that Nixon retired.  Part of me believes they're somehow connected.

Baseball Artifacts For Winter Dreaming

Now that the new year has begun, I can start dreaming about baseball again.  I just picked up a used copy of a baseball game for my PS3, and have started to internally assess how the White Sox and Mets will do this season.  As if that wasn't enough, when my friend Brian came to visit this weekend he brought the gift of a box of assorted old baseball cards.  Even though they are commons, I love that I have cards from the 1960s in my possession, and enjoy comparing styles and designs.

I've said this before, but I have become inordinately attached to baseball in my middle age.  Its coming heralds the spring, and the hope I am allowed to feel before the season starts is a feeling I rarely allow myself in other aspects of my life.  I've been immersing myself in baseball ephemera now that the holidays are over and there's little else to look forward to during these coming, cruel months.  With that in mind, here are some baseball related things you might enjoy, too.

1975 Topps Dave Kingman

I found this card in the box my friend gave me, and it struck me immediately.  In the first place, I love the 1975 Topps design, with its bold colors, raised letters, and signatures on the photo.  This card strikes me especially because of Kingman's laconic expression, which seems to be saying "Do I really have to do this?"  It's particularly fitting for a player with a well-known difficult streak that he appears bored as he is being immortalized on cardboard.

The Sully Baseball Daily Podcast

I have become a big podcast fan, and I started listened to this particular podcast after seeing the moving video Sully put together over the All-Star break honoring major league players who'd died in the last year.  Sully talks baseball each day for about twenty or thirty minutes, and does so from a unique perspective.  He talks not as a journalist, researcher, or player, but as an articulate fan of the game.  During the season it was my preferred way to keep up on what was going on in the game, but in the off season it has been great to hear him talk about all kinds of aspects of the game, especially its history.  I found his podcast on New Year's Eve, when he called on baseball to take drastic action against fan drunkenness at games, to be particularly interesting.  How many other baseball commentators reference The Wire?

1984 Fleer Glenn Hubbard

Well, that's one way to make your baseball card more spirited.

Game 6 of the 1986 World Series Rendered In An Old Nintendo Game

This is one of the most brilliant things the internet has ever given to us.  Somebody recreated the famous game 6 of the 1986 World Series, and did so using the old RBI Baseball game for the original Nintendo.  The whole thing is synced up with Vin Scully's original call and is sublime in the kind of way that only people born between 1973 and 1977 can appreciate.

1988 Topps Record Breakers Eddie Murray

I loved the double vision effect of this card, especially since it commemorated Murray's unique feat of hitting home runs from both sides of the plate two games in a row.  Steady Eddie was always an underrated player who somehow managed to amass 500 homers and 3000 hits with as little fanfare as possible.  This striking card is a fitting tribute.

Wilford Brimley in The Natural

Wilford Brimley was born a grumpy old man, since he looks like he's already gone full codger in this film, even though he was still only in his forties.  This is one of my favorite baseball movies, not least because of Brimley's performance as the manager.  I can only aspire to be this crotchety.

1987 Topps Darryl Motley

I still remember seeing this card in one of the wax packs I bought with my lawn mowing money, and being weirded out by the "Now With Braves" on the photo.  Evidently he was traded so late in the season that Topps couldn't get a photo of him in the right uniform.

Chris Chambliss's Walk-Off Homer in the 1976 ALCS

When Chambliss hit this dramatic homer to put the Yankees in the Series, the fans stormed the field and made it impossible for him to touch home plate.  This giddy chaos could never happen today, and is one of the best examples of New York City's epic anarchy in the 1970s.  I hate the Yankees, but this clip still makes me happy.

Life Metaphors from Baseball

[This is one of my favorite all-time posts. Seeing some old friends from grad school recently has it back on my mind.]

The sport of baseball has provided many useful metaphors over the years.  Some people have two strikes against them, some throw you a curve ball, others hit a home run in their career, or strike out, if they're unlucky.  Unprofessional behavior is "bush league."  High school boys still grade their sexual encounters by what base they happen to reach, or at least claim to have reached.  (Stand-up doubles very easily get stretched into triples or homers in the retelling.)

I was reminded of this today in an email conversation with a close friend.  Like me, he's been buying old wax boxes of baseball cards from the 1980s (they are surprisingly cheap), and has been noticing the career trajectories of the various players.  He saw a parallel with his academic career, likening himself to Steve Balboni and perceiving a similar career decline.  (I think he is being to hard on himself, and also forgets that Balboni hit clean-up for the 1985 World Series-winning Royals.)

During my brief academic career, I never managed to stick as a big league starter.  I was a solid journeyman who never played for the right team, and am now I out of the game as a player.  Working as a "visitor" for a regional state u was like riding the bench on a fifth place team.  Moving from there to my job as a tenure-track professor, where I was not allowed to teach in my specialty most of the time, was like hitting seventh and being switched from a left fielder to a third baseman.  My current job teaching high school is almost like becoming a minor-league manager.  The best player metaphor for myself that I could come up with was Tom Brookens (he managed the West Michigan Whitecaps, one of Detroit's class A teams, when I was living in the area.  He also wore glasses as a player.)  Then again, maybe I never played in the majors at all.  My old institution was the very definition of bush league.

Baseball stings hard because like life itself it is so dominated by fear of failure.  One line in the movie Moneyball has really stuck with me: "at some point, we all realize that we can no longer play the boy's game."  As I crack open my packs of baseball cards, I see names that I had forgotten about, and players whose accomplishments have all but disappeared into oblivion: Calvin Schiraldi, Ken Phelps, Chet Lemon, Kirk McCaskell, Atlee Hammaker, Sid Bream, Oddibe McDowell, Mark Wasinger, Floyd Youmans, and on and on and on.  Some were pretty damn good for awhile, others only managed a season or two in the majors.  Then again, they did make it to the bigs, their names are in the Baseball Encyclopedia and they've been immortalized on very own bubblegum cards, something that can never be taken away from them.  Baseball greatness, like greatness in any walk of life, is pretty goddamned hard to achieve.  Perhaps its pursuit, rather than its attainment, ought to be emphasized in this cruel, failure-laden world.  After all, we all can't be Robin Yount.

1969-1991: Baseball's Real Golden Age

Awhile back I read a book that I'd highly recommend to all the baseball heads out there: Big Hair and Plastic Grass, by Dan Epstein. It's a fun, breezy look at baseball in the 1970s that persuasively argues that the Polyester Decade brought major changes to the game. Free agency and the DH are just two of the more important ones. Since reading it, I've inevitably been comparing baseball then to now, but especially to the so-called Steroid Era.

I tend to date the start of the Steroid Era to 1992, and reliable sources back me up on this. There's no doubt that players were using steroids prior to 1992, but evidence shows that by 1992 a critical mass of users had developed. Some of this is consistent with the fact that Jose Canseco came to the Texas Rangers that year, and got many prominent teamates, most notably Rafael Palmeiro, onto the juice. The home run numbers in 1992 also start going through the roof.

As a fan of the game, my issue with the Steroid Era goes well beyond accusations of cheating. The preponderance of muscle-bound sluggers slamming long balls made the sport much more one dimensional and less interesting. For example, Barry Bonds had once been an exciting all-around player who could run, hit, and field. When he managed to break the home run records he had been transformed into a slow, lead footed bruiser topped by an anabolically swelled colossal Olmec head. Not only did the new focus on the long ball create one-sided stars, the attendant high scoring meant more pitching changes and longer games.

It didn't used to be like this. In fact, I think the era right before the needle held its sway over the diamond may in fact be the greatest in baseball's history, though we never think of it that way. I for one can't define any period before the integration of baseball to be a "golden age" for obvious reasons. While some wistful oldsters might praise the 1950s as a golden age, it too was an era of boring, station-to-station baseball. Plus, if you weren't a New Yorker, you hardly ever got to see your team in the World Series.

The laggard pace of the game at least began to change in the 1960s. By 1969 other important changes had happened. Both leagues were now truly integrated after years of foot-dragging in the American League. That year also saw expansion and the addition of the playoffs, which have been great for adding excitement in October. By that time the cultural changes of the sixties were finally being felt in the button-down world of the National Pastime. As Epstein argues in his book, during the ensuing years baseball would adapt to fit the times.

Why is the time between 1969 and 1991 the best? Here are my reasons:

Faster Style of Play

I've explained this already above. If home runs become too common, they stop being special. Furthermore, stolen bases, hit and runs, squeeze plays and other small ball tactics make the game that much more exciting.

The Uniforms

It has been fashionable to deride the double-knit unis of the seventies and eighties ever since baseball teams dropped bright colors, stirrups, and elastic for the baggy, belted, and boring duds of today. While some of the concoctions might not have been successful (such as the infamous Bermuda shorts introduced by Bill Veeck's White Sox shown above), they were at least interesting, which is more than what I can say about the uniforms since. Here are some of my favorites:

I think the Astros' "tequila sunrise" shirts made JR Richard and Nolan Ryan that much more intimidating. Or maybe not.

Who can resist the Padres' taco-colored fantasia?

Road blues! They look so much cooler than grey.

Classic World Series Championships

For reasons that can't be fully explained, the time between 1969 and 1991 saw several memorable World Series championships. The bookends themselves are pretty damn good: the 1969 "Miracle Mets" shocking the baseball world, and the 1991 Twins winning in a seven-game war with the Braves that might be the best World Series ever. The 1991 series was only one of several seven game nail-biters: the 1972 tilt between the dynasties in Oakland and Cincy, the "You Gotta Believe" Mets and the As in 1973, the famous 1975 Reds-Red Sox battle (another contender for best ever), the 1979 "We Are Family" Pirates prevailing over Earl Weaver's Orioles, the Cardinals and Brewers in 1982, the Royals and Cardinals, in 1985, the classic Mets-Red Sox tilt in 1986 (including the infamous Buckner game), and the back and forth battle between the Twins and Cards in 1987.

Even in the matchups that fell short of seven games there were plenty of memorable moments: Kirk Gibson's miracle homer in 1988, the earthquake in '89, and Reggie Jackson hitting three homers on three pitches to clinch the title for the Yankees in 1977, just to name a few. The seven gamers have plenty of their own, of course: Buckner's flub in 1986, Carlton Fisk willing a home run in 1975, and Jack Morris' dominating performance in game seven of the 1991 series.

Small Market Dynasties

I also think the game had a lot more competitive balance in the 1969-1991 period. Curt Flood, Marvin Miller, and the players finally killed the hated Reserve Clause and won the right to free agency and salary arbitration, but the smaller market teams could still compete, Hell, they had dynasties of their own. During this time the Oakland As won four championships, including three in a row between 1972 and 1974. The Minnesota Twins won twice, in 1987 and 1989, the Reds in 1975, 1976, and 1990, the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1971 and 1979, and the Kansas City Royals in 1985. The Royals also went to the World Series in 1980, and won their division in 1984, 1976, 1977, and 1978. This is a team that today, like the Pirates, is seemingly stuck at a permanent disadvantage due to the current economics of the game.

Great Movies

I don't know why or how, but this period, especially the 1980s, brought us a slew of classic baseball movies: The Bad News Bears, The Natural, Bull Durham, Eight Men Out, and Major League. I watched the latter film so many times in college I just about have the damn thing memorized.

Baseball Cards

The 1980s were indisputably the greatest time ever to collect baseball cards. A fever gripped America for the cardboard fetishes, much like the tulip mania that overtook 17th century Holland. Like tulipomania, it couldn't last forever, and the bottom dropped out in the 1990s. However, it was a lot of fun while it lasted. With Donruss and Fleer competing with Topps after 1981, the number and variety available to young collectors like yours truly seemed limitless. Before Upper Deck ruined everything, they were still relatively inexpensive, meaning that the $2 I got for mowing the lawn could get me at least four packs, depending on the brand. My personal favorite series, for sentimental reasons, is the 1987 Topps, since that was the first that I ever seriously collected. I especially liked looking at John Franco's contorted arm.

Then again, Score's 1988 series was a great leap forward that pushed other card makers to great heights before it all came crashing down. The owl of Minerva flies at dusk indeed

More Outlandish Player Appearances

Is it just me, or have baseball players become a lot more bland and conservative in their dress and style? Where are our Bill "Spaceman" Lees, our daffy Mark Fydrichs, afroed Oscar Gambles, or sartorially mustached Rollie Fingers?

Milestones

Between 1969 and 1991, several great records were broken without the aid of performance enhancing drugs. Henry Aaron beat the greatest record of the all, eclipsing Babe Ruth to hit more home runs that any other player (he also has more RBI and plate appearances, too.) Pete Rose beat Ty Cobb's all-time hit record, and Lou Brock, then Rickey Henderson, topped his career stolen base mark. Reggie Jackson beat Ruth's record for most home runs in a World Series, and Nolan Ryan set a new mark for career no-hitters that will never be broken.

Stadiums

To be fair and objective, I should discuss the things that made the 1969-1991 era less than stellar. As my good friend Brian I. pointed out when we discussed this once, the seventies and eighties were the high point of Astroturf and ashtray-style, brutalist, multipurpose modernist stadiums. No one is really shedding any tears these days over the demise of Veteran's Stadium, the Metrodome, Riverfront Stadium, Three Rivers Stadium, or the Kingdome. The renovation of Yankee Stadium in the 1970s made it much more sterile and less human. The new Yankee Stadium lacks the history of the old, but its open concourses make going to the game much more fan-friendly.  Houston's Astrodome may well have been the Eighth Wonder of the World, but Minute Maid Park (which I've attended) is a much more enjoyable place to watch a ballgame. Furthermore, Miller Park, Jacobs Field, Camden Yards, The Ballpark at Arlington, A&T Park and Turner Field are all considerable improvements over their predecessors.

However, let me play devil's advocate for a second. Astroturf is unsightly and presents injury dangers for players, but it did contribute to the speeding up of the game. (I will only take this so far, there really should be a Constitutional amendment against it.) A great number of the new stadiums have been built with public money, despite the big bucks raked in by major league baseball and the fact that they were usually replacing perfectly serviceable facilities. Considering the financial crisis faced by cities and states these days, that money probably could have been better spent.

The DH

The seventies also brought us that bugbear of baseball traditionalists, the designated hitter. For years I was an avowed opponent of the DH because it distorted the game in favor of offense, reduced the need for managers to strategize, and effectively made players incomplete by allowing them to specialize purely on hitting or pitching. However, I have to admit I am today on the verge of the apostasy of accepting the DH. Who really wants to see pitchers take the plate and kill a rally? Isn't it nice that players like Frank Thomas and Jim Thome can have their careers extended by not having to field? I guess I'd say the status quo suits me just fine: the DH in the Al and not in the NL. As a bit of traditionalist, I do like that the leagues are still distinct from each other.

Labor and Free Agency

In terms of baseball's endemic labor issues, free agency allowed players to actually be paid what they're worth (which is why I won't knock it like so purists will), but owners countered with their shameful strategy of collusion during the 1980s. Perhaps that illegal activity had much to do with competitive balance in that decade, the only good thing that I could say about it.  Unlike today, the prospect of strikes hung over baseball during the 1969-1991 era.  Much of the 1981's season was lost to a strike, but at least it didn't mean cancelling a World Series like it did in 1994.  Although owner chicanery and labor strife were common during this period, in the larger scheme of things, these were the birth pangs of a new baseball labor system that no longer treated players like "million dollar slaves," in the words of Curt Flood.

Announcers

Finally, there's something about baseball between 1969 and 1991 that really beats what we've got today: the national broadcast network coverage. I am sooooo tired of having my enjoyment of the World Series ruined by Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. McCarver is the worst kind of over-critical ex-jock color announcer, and Buck is a colorless, sanctimonious prig who has his much more talented father to thank for his position. (That's the only explanation I can think of, since I don't know a single sports fan who actually likes listening to him. His lackluster call of the epic David Tyree catch in the Super Bowl should have gotten him fired.)

Back when NBC had all or part of the post-season and its Saturday Game of the Week (which I watched religiously as a child), things were a lot better. For one, so many games were called by Vin Scully, to my mind without a doubt the greatest play-by-play baseball announcer ever. He lets the events on the field speak for themselves and fills the dead time by talking without being a bore. I have to admit that I'm also a big Bob Costas fan (for my money he's the best all-around announcer in the biz, better than Al Michaels, Jim Nantz, Brent Musberger, etc.), especially because he had opinions about things without being a bully or unreasonable. With coverage on Fox these days, his advocacy for reform in baseball has been lost.

Because I have mlb.com's package I can watch most any game I want on the computer; it's taught me that there are a lot of good broadcasting crews out there. Many small market teams have guys I'd much rather listen to than Buck and McCarver. Please, Fox network, put them out to pasture. Vin Scully is still with us, and Steve Stone would make a great partner for him.

Baseball Card Memories

As usual this time of year, I've got cardboard fetishes on the brain.  With the Super Bowl over, my mind is free to dream of baseball season, and pitchers and catchers reporting to camp in only a couple of weeks.  With each passing year I cherish more and more the start of baseball season and its promises of hope and renewal, and with it green grass and the warmth of the sun.  When I was younger and my baseball enthusiasm had just been sparked, this was the time of year when I eagerly set out to buy wax packs of the new sets of baseball cards at the local Walgreens and Woolworth's.

My collecting was most intense in the years 1987-1989. In '89 I entered junior high and switched my collecting habits from baseball cards to comic books, and by 1991 I would be on my way to being the music junky that I still remain today. My collecting years happened to coincide with the Golden Age of baseball cards. Almost all of the other boys at school were into it, and we traded cards in our basements after school and on the playgrounds during recess. Card collecting became a big time hobby; I still remember buying copies of Beckett's Baseball Card Monthly at the local card shop and tracking the prices of my most valuable rookie cards like they were valuable blue chip stocks: Bo Jackson, Will Clark, Greg Maddux, and Mark McGwire. Trading could be ruthless as anything on Wall Street. I still remember the time I made a kid cry because I basically swindled him out of a 1986 Topps Pete Rose card. (They were considered especially valuable in the brief period between his breaking of the career hits record and his public disgrace.)


My main frustration in collecting arose from my biggest frustration in life at that time: I lived in an isolated Nebraska town. This meant that in 1987, my first big summer of collecting, I could never find packs of Fleer or Donruss cards, only Topps or small, cigaratte-pack sized miniserieses from the other brands. For that reason I have more 1987 Topps cards than of any other series; by the end of the summer there was a massive stack of pink planks on my dresser, the unpalatable pieces of gum that came in every pack. The gum's presence, however, meant that I didn't have to pay sales tax on wax packs of Topps, which cost a mere forty cents. Since I got paid the princely sum of two dollars every time I mowed the lawn, I could run out immediately to the local Walgreens and buy five whole packs, eighty five cards in all.



In 1988 I could at least get Donruss cards easily, and one of my proudest moments was when I saved up enough cash to buy an entire box of thirty-six packs. Opening, surveying, and organizing those cards occupied my mind and time for weeks on end. Being a ginger-complected kid averse to the blazing sun of a scorching Nebraska summer, this suited me just fine. At the beginning of the season I was enomored with the series put out by Score, the new kid on the block who put their cards in plastic rather than wax paper, a sign of greater sophistication in my eyes. The card buying highlight of that summer, however, was purchasing some O-pee-chee cards on a family vacation to Manitoba. In the Canadian version of Topps, the information on the back was in both French and English!

During the next year I went back to Topps and flirted a bit with Fleer. That summer I worked my first detasseling job, which meant that I had less time to pore over statistics and search out missing commons. My first big purchase with my first summer job was a Nintendo, and my adolescent mind concentrated on defeating Piston Honda in Mike Tyson's Punch Out, rather than cracking open new packs of cards. In retrospect, it looks like I got out at the right time. Upper Deck put its first series out in 1989, a set of cards geared less towards kids and more towards adult collectors. They charged 99 cents a pack, a high price that negated their obvious high quality in my eyes. Because I was just one of millions of avid collectors, the cards themselves are practically useless from an investment standpoint these days. However, I can't wait for the rush of memories they will bring me when I finally get to look at them again.

*******
Here are some sets I remember, some good some bad.



1987 Topps

This was the set I cut my teeth on, and one that I think still looks great today. It was kinda retro, with the wood background and chunky 1960s font

1987 Fleer

This was the set I wanted really bad, but couldn't get in my hometown. Although I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Topps, the cardboard on Fleer's cards was less flimsy, and the backs were much more interesting and colorful.

1988 Donruss

Nowadays this design looks dated, but at the time I thought it was much superior to what Topps and Fleer were doing. I especially liked that in 1988 Donruss decided to portray pitchers like Fernando Valenzuela batting, rather than on the mound.

1991 Fleer
After my most intense card-buying days were over I'd still pick up a pack or two. Despite the praise I just lavished on Fleer, their all-yellow 1991 set stung the eyes.

1988 Fleer
Doesn't this design just scream 1988? For some reason the 1988 Fleer cards had all kinds of oddball photos, like this one featuring Tim Flannery.

1988 Score




Although the 1987 Topps is my favorite for sentimental reasons, the title of highest quality set belongs to the 1988 Score series. All of the photos were action shots, much more interesting than the endless potrait shots Topps used in '88. The backs were the real revelation: a second color photo and in-depth narratives. Unlike the later Upper Deck, Score managed to walk the fine line between having a beautiful design and remaining a kid's item that could be bought with lawn mowing and paper-delivery money. Once baseball card companies stopped trying to appeal to that demographic, the most essential one for their survival, historically, the downfall really began.

Footnote: Those interested/obsessed with baseball cards must check out Josh Wilker's book and blog Cardboard Gods.  My musings on the subject are rather amateur by comparison.