Even if you’re a lapsed baseball fan, the idea of Major League Baseball’s Opening Day probably puts a smile on your face. New season. New beginnings. Spring is here. The boys of summer are back!
For many of us, baseball was king when we grew up, and as an offshoot of that, in the 70s, 80s and 90s, we participated in the greatest sports card boom of all time.
It’s easy to look back on the wax packs and powdered pink gum and think it was kinda dumb how much we bought into the whole trading card scene, but I’m here to tell you, it wasn’t dumb at all. It was awesome.
In fact, we had it so good with baseball cards, we didn’t even know it.
How could we?
When we were kids, those little rectangle packs held so much promise because we weren’t just collecting our favorite players, we were seeding our future fortunes! We grew up hearing about how our parents had boxes of Mickey Mantle rookie cards worth tens of thousands each in the attic. Or they remembered having a drawer with Willie Mays and Hank Aaron and Ted Williams cards in mint condition that we could only imagine was worth six figures. And there was no way in hell we were going to make the same mistake.
No. Way.
So we hit up every grocery store, convenience store, pharmacy, gas station and 7-11 we could find to grab cards.
If you had a dollar in your pocket you were baseball card rich. Cards. Gum. Assets.
Our kids today have no idea how much they’re being screwed.
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There were no box breaks or buy-ins or $49.99 packs or $99 packs or $1,000 packs or limited edition sets or live streams to see some grown man open up packs of cards or dozens of different sets with holograms and refractors and subtle variations or uniform slivers cut inside…
HELL NO.
We had cardboard. And three ring binders. And plastic sleeves…And that was it.
We had a 4-pound Beckett guide that was our bible.
We coveted like 7 rookie cards:
Rickey Henderson
Don Mattingly
Kirby Puckett
Roger Clemens
Doc Gooden
Mark McGwire
Ozzie Smith
And then, of course, we overloaded on Ken Griffey Jr…
But for about 6 years we treated our card collection like it was our personal hedge fund.
We’d trade cards in the school cafeteria like stock brokers…
3 Frank Violas and 2 Ryne Sandbergs for a Jose Canseco Rookie
1 Jack McDowell RC plus 1 Ruben Sierra RC for a Benito Santiago rookie
We’d try to get lucky by loading up on Ellis Burks or Jim Abbott rookies. We took shots, cornering the market on random players with upside like Todd Benzinger and Walt Weiss or personal favorites like Oil Can Boyd…
And on and on we’d go, thinking that once we had the rookie cards from the entire ’94 all-star team or all of the rookie cards from the ’88 Sox or Yankees or A’s that we could then put our cards in a vault for thirty years…
Then we’d open that vault up in 2026 when we were 45 and we’d… BE… RICH!!!
We know now that it wasn’t meant to be. It was our first lesson in inflation.
Damn. What a time to be a kid. What a time to be alive.
Jon
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Jon Finkel
Editor-in-Chief, Midlife Male
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P.S. Did you know collecting has made a massive comeback?
Everyone from Tom Brady to Logan Paul to Mr. Wonderful from Shark Tank have jumped into the game because opening packs, at just about any age, is a good time.
I personally started collecting again with my son a few years ago. And when I say “collecting” I mean it in the old school sense that you’re thinking of.
We’re not opening packs hoping for a winning lottery ticket in each one. We’re grabbing packs to get our favorite players from our favorite teams first, and if we get rookie cards from high draft picks and they pan out, great. If not, no worries. We picked up a Jayson Tatum rookie this way that’s turned into being a pretty valuable card now.
If you’ve been thinking about getting back into collecting (or doing it with your kids), the world of baseball cards (and football, basketball, NASCAR, WWE cards and more) has changed drastically into an almost unrecognizable blob of super high end cards, things call box breaks, live-streaming of packs with potential six-figure cards and more.
In my opinion, that’s investing in sports cards, not collecting.
If you’d like to collect again, you can still get cards at Ace Hardware and Target and a bunch of places. And there’s probably still a local card shop within a half-hour of you. We’ve got a great one. Walking into those places feels like you’re stepping into a sports time machine. You’ll love it.
And unless you’re really getting into it again for investing, forget about “slabbing” your cards (putting them in high end pressed, plastic cases) or getting your cards graded (the only way to actually sell them now) and just buy a few packs. Most of the big brands still sell packs for under $5.
And if you’d like to try for a cool rookie card or two, there’s still some value in the $20 and under range.
The most important part is: enjoy it.
If this whole column hits home, let me know who you collected as a kid. Who was your one guy that you had pages and pages of cards of. As you can see from the photo at the top, mine was Jose Canseco. Ha!
Happy Opening Day!
