It's 1966 and the gum tastes great.
WinPitcher
Posts: 27,726 ✭✭✭
It's spring 1966. I just left the corner store. A balsawood jet airplane (the one with the plastic wrap) is in my hand. It uses a rubber band for propulsion. A pack of 1966 Topps baseball cards and gum in my pocket. I am not even halfway home and the Packs wrapper is torn apart. Inside are the rewards of doing the home chores that I was assigned that week before. The cards come alive in my hand. The gum, the whole piece is shoved into my mouth. Marble dust and sugars burst with sweetness. The neurons in my brain go crazy.
Ron Swoboda had shined the year before and I was looking for his rookie card. Yes, I called them 'rookie' cards. Even though I did not really understand the meaning, only that it usually was a players card with other guys on it and I never liked those. Or, it could mean a card with the trophy on it. They were very desirable back then. They are usually always now considered 2 nd cards for most Back in those days they were the ones coveted. They had the stats from the year before on them! It would show me that Ron Swoboda surely did have 19 homers that magical year (too me anyway) when he lit up NY like no one else.
Back in those days the reverse of the card held vital info, and if you were lucky some silly cartoon, that held trivia or some obscure stat or fact. The hours spent reading the backs of those cards has served me well in knowing what a player did the year before and trivia like when Ruth hit 60, or that a player was also a tuba player.
Back to the pack...................
One by one I scan the cards. I had no idea if Swoboda was even in the series. Who is this guy? Don Le John "Dodgers" common, another common, Sandy Koufax! Wow, he won 26 games the year before. 382 strikeouts to set a record. The gum is still sweet. I continue looking at the cards. They feel so tight in my palm. The color stripe looks ok, it shows what team a guy is on. I instinctly see last years cards in my head. A picture of Mays with his bat on his shoulder is pictured in my mind. The pennant and all the colors. the 66's would grow on me. Every card a profile or staged pose. A simple yet exciting set. Years later it would dawn on many a collector how hard all the cards in thaat set would be to get.
I take the cards thinking that I could parlay them into more with some flipping and put them into my pocket. A new game was created later that summer (or at least became popular) called 'colors' and a spinoff 'teams' Both games based on luck rather then skill (flipping) I have cards at home from 1955 to 1965 all courtesy of flipping and other kids mothers who threw them out once they went off to college or just simply 'outgrew' them.
I tear open the cellophane on my aeroplane, I gently break off each piece, I wind up the band, the propeller begins it spin and the plane takes off. The gum still sweet in my mouth makes a giant bubble.
I never did get a Ron Swoboda that day.
'crack'! the bubble bursts.
Steve
Ron Swoboda had shined the year before and I was looking for his rookie card. Yes, I called them 'rookie' cards. Even though I did not really understand the meaning, only that it usually was a players card with other guys on it and I never liked those. Or, it could mean a card with the trophy on it. They were very desirable back then. They are usually always now considered 2 nd cards for most Back in those days they were the ones coveted. They had the stats from the year before on them! It would show me that Ron Swoboda surely did have 19 homers that magical year (too me anyway) when he lit up NY like no one else.
Back in those days the reverse of the card held vital info, and if you were lucky some silly cartoon, that held trivia or some obscure stat or fact. The hours spent reading the backs of those cards has served me well in knowing what a player did the year before and trivia like when Ruth hit 60, or that a player was also a tuba player.
Back to the pack...................
One by one I scan the cards. I had no idea if Swoboda was even in the series. Who is this guy? Don Le John "Dodgers" common, another common, Sandy Koufax! Wow, he won 26 games the year before. 382 strikeouts to set a record. The gum is still sweet. I continue looking at the cards. They feel so tight in my palm. The color stripe looks ok, it shows what team a guy is on. I instinctly see last years cards in my head. A picture of Mays with his bat on his shoulder is pictured in my mind. The pennant and all the colors. the 66's would grow on me. Every card a profile or staged pose. A simple yet exciting set. Years later it would dawn on many a collector how hard all the cards in thaat set would be to get.
I take the cards thinking that I could parlay them into more with some flipping and put them into my pocket. A new game was created later that summer (or at least became popular) called 'colors' and a spinoff 'teams' Both games based on luck rather then skill (flipping) I have cards at home from 1955 to 1965 all courtesy of flipping and other kids mothers who threw them out once they went off to college or just simply 'outgrew' them.
I tear open the cellophane on my aeroplane, I gently break off each piece, I wind up the band, the propeller begins it spin and the plane takes off. The gum still sweet in my mouth makes a giant bubble.
I never did get a Ron Swoboda that day.
'crack'! the bubble bursts.
Steve
Good for you.
0
Comments
Great writeup. Thanx for sending me down memory lane - in the summer of '66, I was in basic training.
Unfortunately nowhere close to the corner store.
BTW, I was way more sadistic than you - if we were lucky enough to acquire a pack of firecrackers - one would be attached to the rb-propelled plane!
thanks I was in a writing mood b4.
Steve
Now collecting:
Topps Heritage
1957 Topps BB Ex+-NM
All Yaz Items 7+
Various Red Sox
Did I leave anything out?
thanx for mindshare, big fun reading.
julen
RIP GURU
Nothing wrong with today's cards, but that was card collecting at it's very simple core.
"Molon Labe"
<< <i>Yep, the days of buying just one pack at a time were good ones! I bought 'em from the ice cream man, his truck came around every day at the same time. One pack every day during the summer. No inserts, no refractors, no G/U stuff, no autos, just 700 different cards to shoot for a nickel at a time. Got doubles? Triples? That's OK, just a bad day. Get another pack tomorrow.
Nothing wrong with today's cards, but that was card collecting at it's very simple core. >>
Sidepocket
Sometimes when I open a pack of Heritage - pop the gum in my mouth and start shuffling the cards...I get that ole school feelin' back!
"Molon Labe"
"Molon Labe"