Welcome to Part 2 of our series Calling All Sports Nerds! In part 1 of the series I made my admission to the world. The process of admitting your problem is the first step. So (imagine a conch blowing like in Anchorman 2), calling all sports nerds! Gather round and listen to my sports nerd confession. Every step after admitting your problem is good for the therapeutic process of dealing with your sports nerdery.
My sports nerdery extends far beyond just watching sports on television and in person. It enters all domains of life. Bless my wife’s heart, she puts up with it and even feigns interest occasionally (more on that in a future post).
I collected sports cards for as long as I can remember. It was the thing my brothers and I did when we were kids. One of my favorite parts of the hobby as deciding if I was going to put my cards into a binder or into hard cases. Oftentimes I would transfer them just to be able to go through them and admire them all again for the thousandth time.
The biggest complication as a kid was when I started to get special plaque hard cases for my favorite players with their names on the bottom (of course Emmitt Smith, Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton, Ken Griffey, Jr., and rotating of course between Patrick Roy, Joe Sakic, and Peter Forsberg). Which card was worthy of being displayed in the plaque and then placed on the wall? This is a Griffey, Jr. rookie, but I like the picture on this card better. I love the look of this Emmitt Smith, but this card is worth more. Oh man, the stress this caused. My ultimate decision was to rotate cards through and give each one its own turn.
Trading cards with my brother and school friends was serious business. We would cautiously let the other peruse our cards. Proposals would be conjured in our minds, but careful not to show too much excitement because that would of course raise the stakes if the other knew how much we wanted a card.
During summers we would ride our bikes to our local sports card shop to check out all the new packs of cards. I swear, every time you opened a pack of cards it seemed like Christmas or at least like a line from Forrest Gump, you never know what you’re gonna get. We developed a careful system of opening each pack so as not to crease or bend the corners. This skill was honed after dozens and dozens, perhaps hundreds and hundreds, of packs of cards being opened.
My parents keep everything that has to do with their children. When I moved out there was a “phase” where I didn’t look at my cards anymore, but my parents stored my case of cards. A while back my folks found my collection of cards and gave it back to me. Oh…my… God, did my sports nerdery return and with a vengeance. I immediately went through them and was hit with all the memories. “Oh, I traded this card with a friend at school,” or “I had to give about 10 cards to finally make that trade for this card with my brother.”
I realized that I might have some cards that might be worth something, but quickly realized that with how much these cards were handled they would never be graded highly. Guess what? Don’t care, sports card collecting, to me at least, is so much more than the value of the card. Of course, it’s exciting and cool to get a valuable card. But, more times than not, it is more important to have the memories and conversations around that card. Each wrinkle, crease, and dog ear is a memory. That time I took my cards to school and wasn’t supposed to. The favorite cards of our favorite players that were handled so much that we’re lucky to still be able to recognize who the player is on the card.
So, calling all sports nerds! What were your favorite cards growing up? Were you able to keep it pristine or has it seen some use? Let us know below.
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