Masscrastination

So my mother, in all her infinite wisdom, was having a garage sale today at our home. Besides the hours of heavy lifting and listening to old people as they asked me to read off prices of various items a few intersting things happened. A creepy old guy hit on my sister, a old man told us , “he was looking for that one thing,” and some young kid asked me about trading cards.

“Trading cards? Yeah I got some”

Munson- You Guys Wanna Trade for a Posada? Cause I don't.

I looked at the kid, couldn’t be older than 10 I thought. I sprinted up to my room, grabbed by two binders full of baseball cards, ran back down to the garage and handed them to him. I was giddy, nay, pumped. How often do you see kids these days interested in trading cards?

It was the best thing to happen so far in the day. Someone younger than 18 knew what trading cards were and was interested in taking a look at the old collection. Man, it put a jump in my step and for a brief moment I was 12 again.

” I got some rookie Ken Griffey Jr./Sr.’s, two Randy Johnsons a few Cal Ripkin’s and one pretty old Sammy So-”

He cut me off.

“Sorry, no offense, but I was looking for Pokemon trading cards. Those are really interesting.”

“Oh,” I said, deflated and saddened that this kid was mentally retarded, “I used to have a good amount of those but I got rid of those years ago.”

“Don’t worry sir  I’m sure someone will want that stuff.”

Stuff….STUFF!?!? Dude! Do you know how much some of these cards are worth? Bad enough you called me ‘sir’ but you are throwing mud in the face of Topps, Donruss, Upper Deck and Fleer you little S.O.B. I hope you turn out gay.

So, defeated, I  sat down to look at these cards from the 90′s. I have the complete set of Fleer 1990 Baseball Trading Card Set and two binders of various cards over the years.

Man, kids these days don’t know how great it was to have baseball cards. I don’t think the “youngin’s” of today get the appeal of a peice of cardboard with your favorite baseball hero on them. All they care about are their Japanese Anime and Rap music. Little bastards.

I sat down, curious, and dove into my old collection. As I looked through my binder I noticed some stuff I’d never seen before. I had a Curt Shilling card from his time with the Phillies, a Ken Griffey Sr. and Jr. Card right next to each other -ten years apart- from when they both played on the Reds. There, in all their glory ( suck it Boston) was the 1991 New York Yankees, the whole team.

Ken Griffey Jr. and Johnson from the Mariners ( you know, like back in Rookie of the Year) and I even had a Canseco card from ’90, when everyone thought he was the man and was not, I repeat, NOT fighting giant Asians in the octagon.

Oh if we knew then what we know now.

Two Mark McGuires from when he was on the A’s and also a Giambi from the same era. Pretty sweet collection if I may say so myself. But of course you guys are here for the New England stuff. I got some of em’ too.

While I only had a few Boston cards I had some winners. Of course I had Nomar Garciaparra but I also had Mo Vaughn, Jim Rice, and Gar Finnvold. I even had some throwbacks in the form of Al Zarilla and Clyde Vollmer.

With this many good cards I knew what I had to do to my collection.

Sells these at Sotheby’s motherfucker. I’d make mint.

Then I realized, this was one of the few things from my childhood I could hold onto for my children to love and cherish. Also, if I held onto them until I was 60 I could retire on some of these cards (anyone want a Darryl Strawberry from 1992?).

Anyway, it was pretty freaking cool to take a look back.

Sean writes on his own blog, Single/White/Geek, and holds down the unemployment line in his spare time