Welcome to Part 3 of our Calling All Sports Nerds series. In part 2 I relived my childhood and shared it with you, whether you wanted to know about it or not. Sorry to let you know, but I’m not done. Sorry, but not sorry. Sports cards were an obsession. Many trips to sport card shops, yard sales that advertised sports cards, and sometimes to big city malls with more shops. We were always on the hunt for that elusive card of our favorite players. I struck paydirt once as a kid and you would’ve thought I won the lottery.
It was in a Seattle area mall which was kind of a big deal for an Eastern Washington kid. You took full advantage and begged your parents to drive you around to all the best sports card shops. It was in this mall, I can’t even remember the name, that we were walking through when we saw a card stand set up in the middle of the walkway. It had a promotion where if you bought so many packs you would get a “mystery” pack that had the chance to win a Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card.
The best part was the fact that 1) Ken Griffey, Jr. was and is my favorite baseball player of all time and 2) the promotion was like being in a Willy Wonka movie. Inside this mystery pack were random baseball cards with the possibility of getting the “golden ticket”. If you got the golden ticket you got to exchange it for the Junior rookie card. I used the vast majority of my allowance to purchase the promotion. To help build the excitement even more, I saved the mystery pack for last.
I did the best I could to feign my excitement as I opened the mystery pack and tried, somewhat tried, to avoid walking into strangers, benches, and walls. I at least was able to avoid walking into water fountains. I carefully opened the mystery pack, each card that showed up lessened my already low chances of getting that golden ticket. I shuffled slowly trying not to peak behind the card I was looking at. The unviewed card stack was getting more and more slim as was my excitement. But, there it was, a simple piece of blank gold paper that was worthless and priceless all at the same time. It took quite a while to be sure that I won, but I did. I won. As a middle school aged kid, obsessed with Ken Griffey, Jr. There wasn’t anything anyone could do to tell me I didn’t strike literal gold.
As I walked/sprinted back to the card stand, after freaking out loudly and scaring my parents, I felt like I needed Secret Service protection to get me there. Hopefully nothing would happen to my golden ticket before I got there. But, alas, I made it. And, in exchange, I received my treasure. A 1989 Donruss Ken Griffey, Jr. Rated Rookie card. There wasn’t a safe or case that was able to assure me that my card would be safe, but it made its way home. In part 2 I wrote about going through my old cards. Guess which one was on top? Yup, Junior himself. Of course, this card was handled so much that today it wouldn’t be highly graded, but to me, it’s worth the world.
So, calling all sports nerds! Do you have a favorite sports card memory? Let us know and join the sports nerdery community.
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