So my mother, in all her infinite wisdom, was having a garage sale today at our home. Besides the hours of heavy lifting and listening to old people as they asked me to read off prices of various items, a few interesting things happened.
A creepy old guy hit on my sister, a old man told us, "he was looking for that one thing," and some young kid asked me about trading cards.
"Trading cards? Yeah I got some"
I looked at the kid, couldn't be older than 10 I thought. I sprinted up to my room, grabbed by two binders full of baseball cards, ran back down to the garage and handed them to him. I was giddy, nay, pumped. How often do you see kids these days interested in trading cards?
It was the best thing to happen so far in the day. Someone younger than 18 knew what trading cards were and was interested in taking a look at the old collection. Man, it put a jump in my step and for a brief moment I was 12 again.
"I got some rookie Ken Griffey Jr./Sr.'s, two Randy Johnsons a few Cal Ripkin's and one pretty old Sammy So-"
He cut me off.
"Sorry, no offense but I was looking for Pokemon trading cards. Those are really interesting."
"Oh," I said, deflated and saddened that this kid was mentally challenged, "I used to have a good amount of those but I got rid of those years ago."
"Don't worry sir I'm sure someone will want that stuff."
Stuff....STUFF!?!? Dude! Do you know how much some of these cards are worth? Bad enough you called me 'sir' but you are throwing mud in the face of Topps, Donruss, Upper Deck, and Fleer you little S.O.B.
So, defeated, I sat down to look at these cards from the '90s. I have the complete set of Fleer 1990 Baseball Trading Card Set and two binders of various cards over the years.
Man, kids these days don't know how great it was to have baseball cards. I don't think the "youngin's" of today get the appeal of a piece of cardboard with your favorite baseball hero on them.
As I looked through my binder I noticed some stuff I'd never seen before. I had a Curt Shilling card from his time with the Phillies, a Ken Griffey Sr. and Jr. Card right next to each other—10 years apart—from when they both played on the Reds. There, in all their glory (suck it Boston) was the 1991 New York Yankees, the whole team.
Griffey Jr. and Johnson from the Mariners (you know, like in Rookie of the Year) and I even had a Conseco card from '90, when everyone thought he was the man and was not, I repeat, NOT fighting giant Asians in the octagon. Two Mark McGuires from when he was on the A's and also a Giambi from the same era.
While I only had a few Boston cards, since I'm sure my father ripped them up and I repressed the memory, I had some winners. Of course, I had Nomar Garciaparra but I also had Mo Vaughn, Jim Rice, and Gar Finnvold. I even had some throwbacks in the form of Al Zarilla and Clyde Vollmer. I knew what I had to do to my great collection of cards.
Sells these at Sotheby's. I'd make mint.
But then I realized, this was one of the few things from my childhood I could hold onto for my children to love and cherish. Also, if I held onto them until I was 60 I could retire on some of these cards (anyone want a Darryl Strawberry from 1992?).
Anyway, it was pretty freaking cool to take a look back and realize the little treasures in life.
Originally Posted at MASScrastiNATION
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