Baseball cards: A collection of memories

As a kid growing up in the early nineties, I was part of the Nintendo Generation.

Super Mario Bros. Legend of Zelda. Mike Tyson's Punchout. My buddies and I played them all, tucked away on our little cul-de-sac during those long winter months in Ann Arbor, Mich.

But as little kids we could only stay cooped up for so long. When spring and summer rolled around — and, more to the point, baseball season — we emerged from the dank Michigan basements where most of our videogaming took place and into the snow-free sunshine.

What great force could possibly drive us to drop our controllers and end our hibernation — aside from our parents?

Baseball cards.

We'd race our bikes around the corner to the nearby drugstore and scoop up a pack or two with the five bucks we coaxed out of our parents.

And no, we weren't in it for the bubble gum that shreds your mouth like a kitten does leather. Nor was it our goal to decorate the spokes of our bicycle wheels as the Baby Boomers of our parents' generation did.

We weren't even really into it for the sake of saving the cards and hoping they'd be valuable one day. We did by the Beckett guides, religiously checking how much our cards were worth, but it was mostly for kicks. (I'd get excited when a card was priced at 75 cents).

When it comes down to it, we collected because it was fun. Because it was thrilling to open a pack and find our favorite player or a player from our favorite team.

For me, being the son of a Bay Area transplant, it was Barry Bonds and the Giants or A's. For my friend Jon, an Illinois native, it was Frank Thomas and the White Sox. And for my buddy Daniel, a multi-generation Michigander, it was Cecil Fielder and the Tigers.

When fortunate enough to happen upon a Thomas or Fielder card, I'd receive more trade offers than Jim Bowden did for Alfonso Soriano last month.

Obviously millions of dollars and the future of a professional baseball franchise didn't hang in the balance, but for us it seemed to feel that way.

Just imagine: Dave Stewart, Dennis Eckersley and Matt Williams for Cecil Fielder and Mickey Tettleton. I'd have taken that trade in a second. (Unless, of course, my Tettleton card was from when he played on the A's.)

All summer long, we aspiring general managers would meet on one of our front porches, overstuffed binders in hand, ready to make a deal. My A's and Giants carefully placed in plastic sheets at the front of my binder. The no-name scrubs from teams like the Royals and Mariners filed at the back.

I'd never throw any of them away either, figuring it was some unforgivable sin — even if a guy did have a .227 lifetime batting average with 11 career home runs.

But, much like video games, I grew out of my baseball card craze. I found myself more interested in watching the sport than idolizing a picture and series of numbers on a piece of cardboard.

And a piece of cardboard is exactly how I started treating them: shoving the cards into my bedroom closet, some wrapped in rubber bands, others stuffed in shoe boxes and dozens more scattered among clothes I no longer wore and books I never bothered to read.

For years, I thought my collection was at the bottom of some landfill thanks to the "Wrath of Mom," but I've recently discovered that several sheets of cards are still intact — and Mom was nice enough to offer to deliver them next time she's out west.

Sure, the whole collection probably isn't worth much, but while working on this card collecting story, I rediscovered some of that childhood luster.

Over at the new card shop in town, Play 4 Sports Memorabilia, I purchased a pack of '87 Donruss cards, hoping to unveil a Barry Bonds rookie card. There was no Barry to be found, but the 15-pack of cards did reveal three Hall of Famers (Nolan Ryan, Kirby Puckett and Ozzie Smith) and the rookie card of a now very iffy Hall of Fame candidate in Rafael Palmeiro.

I was geeked. Not bad for 3 bucks and a quarter.

Now does that mean I'm going to get back into collecting the way I did as a child? Probably not.

But hey, I wouldn't mind trading my Palmeiro and "Wizard of Oz" if anybody's got that Bonds rookie.

Ted Mero is the News-Sentinel's sports reporter. He can be contacted at (209) 369-7035 or by e-mail at tedm@lodinews.com.

First published: Saturday, August 12, 2006