Conversing with a Baseball Card

From the age of 13, I collected baseball cards because I was a baseball fan. I did not collect and trade cards for any other reason. At age 85, my reason remains the same.

My most poignant memory at that age involved a quick stop at Floyd Nielsen’s local drug store on Main Street on my 45-minute route to deliver the Herald-News. Park my bike outside, enter the store, and buy 5 packs of baseball cards for 25 cents. Exit the store, sit still on the bike, open up the packs, sniff the gum, and shuffle through the cards.

What Yankees did I get? How many doubles were there? I neatly put the cards in a pocket that wouldn’t bend the new cards. Then finish my route and integrate my new cards with the old ones. Unlike many of my friends who mistreated or tossed their cards, my card box was carefully filled and sorted by teams.

Over the next four years, I would invest many hours classifying and memorizing players’ stats and personal information acquired on the back of each card. Newspaper stories and box scores supplemented this information, but I was always seeking more about each player. On one radio station, WCFL, Bob Elson would broadcast Yankee games via ticker tape with realistic (to me) background stadium crowd noises. My appetite was insatiable.

Collecting Cards

Baseball player nicknames would be remembered throughout my life. Mention Yogi, the Commerce Comet, Plowboy, the Big Chief, Moose, Scooter, Whitey, The Big Cat, Steady Eddie, Bullet Bob, and the Yankee Clipper? My card collecting companions knew immediately what I was talking about. 

But the Commerce Comet, aka “the Mick,” or Mickey Mantle was my all-time favorite. 

Collecting cards would remain my passion until it was time to go to college. I would remain a baseball fan, but I stopped collecting more cards as my time was now divided among school, playing baseball and basketball, and work. In the meantime, Mom kept my cards and other memorabilia in my closet where they would remain untouched for many years. 

And unlike other mothers, Mom didn’t throw out my cards.

When we purchased our first house in Wilmington in 1971, Mom suggested that it might be time for me to retrieve my old baseball stuff including the cards. As our kids got older, they enjoyed going through the cards (very respectfully) and reading the old Sporting Newspapers, magazines, and books. They were amazed at the way that these old items, especially the cards, had been maintained.

Was I Dreaming?

As I was sitting at my home office the other day, a thought occurred to me. Didn’t I keep an old card in my desk drawer just to look at from time to time? Yup, there it is. “Maury McDermott, No. 56.” A conversation with Maury seemed to be in order for old times’ sake.

The Conversation

“Maury, you’re looking good. No bent corners and still looking quite young for a guy born in 1928.”

“Thanks for liberating me from that damn desk drawer and keeping me around. You’re not selling me, are you?”

“No, just keeping you safe, sound, and secure.”

“Frankly, it’s good to get out and converse with someone. Pens, paper clips, and rulers aren’t very friendly. And those scissors scare the heck out of me.”

“Well, I’ll keep you on top for a while to look around but keep you out of the sun. Fading, you know.”

“No plastic sleeves in an album, either. Sounds really boring. By the way, the picture of the man on the desk…who is that?”

“That’s my Dad when he was younger.”

“Ah. What’s the reason you keep me around? I’m not exactly Sandy Koufax, you know. Is it because I remind you of your father?”

“No, I keep you around because you remind me of a 13-year-old boy opening baseball cards in front of Floyd Nielsen’s Drug Store.”