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What Got You Started in Sports Collecting: Then versus Now
70ToppsFanatic
Posts: 2,104 ✭✭✭✭
Was recently discussing how I got the "bug" for cards and sports memorabilia with a friend who was interested in my collection and I got to thinking that it would be an interesting topic to discuss here. How are the collectors of tomorrow going to get their start? Times have changed. how has the indoctrination to collecting changed with the times? What can WE as collectors do to make it easier for the youngsters of today develop the kind of interest we did in our hobby?
Here's my story:
I was a child of the 1960s and 1970s. But I had three significant people in my family who got me hooked on sports and collectibles.
The first was my dad, a lifelong Giants (baseball and football) fan up to the point in his life when he was hired as the team physician
for the Dodgers a few years before my birth.
The-Last-Dodger-Doctor
As a result of my father's involvement in the NY MLB scene, he maintained his connection with to baseball through close personal relationships with many of the former Dodgers still in NY, and also with the NY Mets (where many of the ex-Dodgers finished out their playing careers). I grew up meeting and getting "coached" by many of these players. It seemed like I was always getting an autographed ball or a game-used bat/cap from a player I met (most are gone, but my dad and I still have a handful of them between the two of us). Every chance I could get (which was a few dozen times a season and every birthday) I was going to a Met game a Shea, where not only did I get to see the game but pre/post game I could get into the clubhouse, onto the field for warmups, in the press box, etc. to see players I knew and meet more. Then I suddenly discovered that there were these things called baseball cards with pictures of my famous "friends" on them, and that all of the kids my age were in search of the cards of their favorite players it certainly made an indelible mark on me.
The second was my great uncle Louis. Uncle Louis had the good fortune of working as a scout for the NY Football Giants in the 1930s and 1940s. I guess there was more mingling of sports personalities from different sports because through his NFL friends over the next few decades he got introduced to many people in MLB (players and media) and became a regular at many Spring Training camps starting in the mid 1950s down in Florida. He also became a rabid fan of the original NY Mets (after his beloved Giants went to SF)
Mets-First_Spring_Training
He came home every year with Kodak pictures of himself with many of the stars of the game, and by the time I came along he would join my dad and I at Shea Stadium when we went to the games and introduce us to members of the visiting teams and other sports "dignitaries" that were at the game whom he knew. That just expanded my interest even further.
But the key "player" in my development of a sports collecting passion had to be another great uncle, my mother's uncle Milton. He had a stationery and candy store on Queens Boulevard in NY when I was a kid. Every time we went to visit him and my great aunt (which was a few times a month) he always had a pack of baseball cards, a sticker album, etc. for me. I later learned that each year at the end of the season Topps would give him a refund of a penny a pack for any packs he did not sell that returned to them. Knowing how much I was into baseball, and how I had met so many players in person because of my dad, it was always one of his great joys to see my face light up when he handed me one of his leftover packs and I opened it to find any NY Met or somebody who I had met.
Then for the holidays in 1970 the quintessential event that shaped my entire collecting future happened. For the holidays uncle Milton gave me the gift of THREE 1970 series 4 cello boxes (leftovers that he wasn't worried about getting the $0.72 for)! If only I had known then what I know now I probably would never have opened them, but back then I opened all 72 packs (still have most of the outer green boxes to this day in fact). Dozens of copies of Gil Hodges, Ron Swoboda, Ron Taylor, Jim Palmer, Tony Perez, the first half of the AS run (Carew, Brooks, Rose, Jackson)...I was hooked!
That's why the 1970 Topps BB set has always held a special fascination for me. It's why I built my registry set and went off the deep end adding every sort of 1970-related insert set, unopened product (wax/cello/rack), etc. to it. It took many years of my adult life to find, but I even managed to get an unopened box of 1970 cellos to replace the ones I opened as a kid.
So that's how I got started. Pretty unlikely that many kids of today would have these kinds of experiences to get them started. Access to the players is nowhere near as easy, even for someone who might have the kinds of connections that I did through my family. And the cost of the product is no longer pennies per pack (and no gum is included either!). How can kids today afford the hobby?
As I said at the top of this post, I think it would be interesting to hear lots of stories from people here that span many different ages. From that maybe some common threads emerge that can be helpful in helping to bring out the next generation of hobby enthusiasts. And at the very least, I think we'd get to share some really cool stories of our fond memories.
So don't be shy. Hop on in and tell your story.
Here's my story:
I was a child of the 1960s and 1970s. But I had three significant people in my family who got me hooked on sports and collectibles.
The first was my dad, a lifelong Giants (baseball and football) fan up to the point in his life when he was hired as the team physician
for the Dodgers a few years before my birth.
The-Last-Dodger-Doctor
As a result of my father's involvement in the NY MLB scene, he maintained his connection with to baseball through close personal relationships with many of the former Dodgers still in NY, and also with the NY Mets (where many of the ex-Dodgers finished out their playing careers). I grew up meeting and getting "coached" by many of these players. It seemed like I was always getting an autographed ball or a game-used bat/cap from a player I met (most are gone, but my dad and I still have a handful of them between the two of us). Every chance I could get (which was a few dozen times a season and every birthday) I was going to a Met game a Shea, where not only did I get to see the game but pre/post game I could get into the clubhouse, onto the field for warmups, in the press box, etc. to see players I knew and meet more. Then I suddenly discovered that there were these things called baseball cards with pictures of my famous "friends" on them, and that all of the kids my age were in search of the cards of their favorite players it certainly made an indelible mark on me.
The second was my great uncle Louis. Uncle Louis had the good fortune of working as a scout for the NY Football Giants in the 1930s and 1940s. I guess there was more mingling of sports personalities from different sports because through his NFL friends over the next few decades he got introduced to many people in MLB (players and media) and became a regular at many Spring Training camps starting in the mid 1950s down in Florida. He also became a rabid fan of the original NY Mets (after his beloved Giants went to SF)
Mets-First_Spring_Training
He came home every year with Kodak pictures of himself with many of the stars of the game, and by the time I came along he would join my dad and I at Shea Stadium when we went to the games and introduce us to members of the visiting teams and other sports "dignitaries" that were at the game whom he knew. That just expanded my interest even further.
But the key "player" in my development of a sports collecting passion had to be another great uncle, my mother's uncle Milton. He had a stationery and candy store on Queens Boulevard in NY when I was a kid. Every time we went to visit him and my great aunt (which was a few times a month) he always had a pack of baseball cards, a sticker album, etc. for me. I later learned that each year at the end of the season Topps would give him a refund of a penny a pack for any packs he did not sell that returned to them. Knowing how much I was into baseball, and how I had met so many players in person because of my dad, it was always one of his great joys to see my face light up when he handed me one of his leftover packs and I opened it to find any NY Met or somebody who I had met.
Then for the holidays in 1970 the quintessential event that shaped my entire collecting future happened. For the holidays uncle Milton gave me the gift of THREE 1970 series 4 cello boxes (leftovers that he wasn't worried about getting the $0.72 for)! If only I had known then what I know now I probably would never have opened them, but back then I opened all 72 packs (still have most of the outer green boxes to this day in fact). Dozens of copies of Gil Hodges, Ron Swoboda, Ron Taylor, Jim Palmer, Tony Perez, the first half of the AS run (Carew, Brooks, Rose, Jackson)...I was hooked!
That's why the 1970 Topps BB set has always held a special fascination for me. It's why I built my registry set and went off the deep end adding every sort of 1970-related insert set, unopened product (wax/cello/rack), etc. to it. It took many years of my adult life to find, but I even managed to get an unopened box of 1970 cellos to replace the ones I opened as a kid.
So that's how I got started. Pretty unlikely that many kids of today would have these kinds of experiences to get them started. Access to the players is nowhere near as easy, even for someone who might have the kinds of connections that I did through my family. And the cost of the product is no longer pennies per pack (and no gum is included either!). How can kids today afford the hobby?
As I said at the top of this post, I think it would be interesting to hear lots of stories from people here that span many different ages. From that maybe some common threads emerge that can be helpful in helping to bring out the next generation of hobby enthusiasts. And at the very least, I think we'd get to share some really cool stories of our fond memories.
So don't be shy. Hop on in and tell your story.
Dave
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Comments
some Baseball cards (spring of 1976). He asked if I wanted to go and I was hooked.
These cards were my IPhone and video games so it's going to be very hard to have
future generations collecting and sorting and trading? They just don't love it like we did.
My bike was my car and my paper route was my means to buy the cards. Now the paper gets delivered in a car
by an adult trying to pay their mortgage.
ON ITS WAY TO NEWPORT BEACH, CA 92658
In my case, the cards came before the horse, so to speak. I collected Wacky Packages first at age 6, then became obsessed with baseball cards at age 7 in 1974. I didn't really follow basebal at that age, but did identify with the Mets through the cards. I always felt the Mets (and also Yankees) cards held a special status and was excited to pull them from packs.
Studying the cards kindled my interest in baseball (I also started with PAL little league that same year) and the rest was history.
Then in 1970 I went to my first game at Fenway that was it hooked for life. For me they are little pieces of history, a snapshot in time that brings me back to a point in my life when things were simple and good. I used to set them up in the shape of a baseball diamond and play along with the radio broadcsat (less than half the games were on TV back then).