FLIPPING OUT FOR BASEBALL CARDS
By BRETT TOPEL
The other day, a colleague walked up to me and asked if I was “into baseball cards”? I paused, and really thought about the question. I mean, just two days earlier, I had purchased an unopened pack of 1989 Topps cards I had spotted gleefully at an antique store. “Not really,” I answered.
Later that night, I sat and pondered the question. It’s true, I wasn’t currently into baseball cards, but the act of collecting cards has always been in my DNA.
Since the day I ripped open my first Topps wax pack in April of 1978, I’ve been hooked. Back then, the Mets team logo appeared in the bottom left-hand corner of the card in a distinctive script font. I remember that the Yankees cards had the team name in a strange, beige color. I loved the Thurman Munson card that year, not knowing at the time that he would only have one more Topps card in his future. However, the 1978 card was a work of art, and depicted the Yankees captain standing and looking out on the field in his full catching gear, including an orange chest protector. Orange? Munson somehow made it work. No card, however, captured my imagination more than my 1978 Lenny Randle card, which had a photo of the Mets infielder sprawled on his stomach, diving back into first base on a pickoff attempt, seemingly laughing at the entire experience. Perhaps the least exciting moment that can happen in a baseball game yielded my all-time favorite card—then and now. In fact, it currently hangs on the wall of my office.
Back in 1978, baseball card collecting was not transactional—it was just fun. We never even considered what a card was worth. The small clear pack of Topps cards cost 30-cents and the giant rack pack was 59-cents. Both came with a slice of gum. My friends and I used the flip the cards—“match or dematch” was what we used to say. I don’t think dematch is even a word, but in 1978 it was part of the rough baseball card street lexicon on Sterling Lane in Smithtown. We also scaled cards—in two separate games. The first one was you took the card between your index and middle fingers and used your wrist to hurl the card as far as you could. Whoever’s card went farther won both cards. Then, there was the game where you scaled the card and tried to get closest to the wall. This did wonders for the corners of the cards, but there were no PSA ratings in 1978, only the pride of walking away with the most cards. As an aside, that was rarely me. Finally, we played a game where we placed a card high up against a wall and let it flutter to the ground. We kept doing this until any card covered any part of a card already on the ground. That would earn you the entire pot of mangled cards on the ground and extreme bragging rights. The more cards on the ground, the more the pressure built up.
I remember the day in 1978 that my neighbor Raymond won every single one of my cards, except for the one that I had hidden in my sock. I wasn’t that good at any of the games we played, and I think Raymond also might have cheated. At least that’s what my mom thought. The only card I went home with was my Joe Torre Mets Manager card. I remember putting it on the dresser in my bedroom and staring at the one-card. That was all I had left. The rest of my cards were at Raymond’s house.
Within the next year we moved, and I had my 1979 cards, which inexplicably had the Mets team name represented by yellow block letters inside a chocolate brown stripe. I never understood that. I had a new flipping and scaling friend now, Douglas, who was a much better friend than Raymond. However, he also regularly beat me at all baseball card competitions. When he won my 1979 Reggie Jackson card in an epic battle royale wall flip game, I picked Reggie up and ripped the card. I was spiteful like that. Perhaps I should actually mail Doug a 1979 Reggie Jackson card. He will have no idea why, but I’ll feel better. Spiteful and selfish—the dirty duo.
As the years went on, I continued to collect, but stopped playing the card-damaging games. By 1982, I started to take better care of my cards, and put them in plastic holder sleeves, which I then placed in loose leaf binders. I didn’t have any cards worth money, but I loved to flip through the pages and look at the cards. I loved the photos, how the graphics changed every year, I loved it all. I started to go to baseball card shows and order special cards through mail catalogs. I built a nice little collection.
Nothing was better than waiting for the new season’s cards to arrive at the local stationary store or deli. It was not just about the cards themselves—they were a symbol—I know that now. It was about baseball season starting, yes, but it was about rounding third and heading for home for the school year. Spring would soon lead to summer—and what kid doesn’t love summer?
Today, baseball card collecting has become more like coin collecting. It’s all about the condition of the cards, and only the most perfect of the perfect—mint condition they say—with a top PSA rating, are desirable. Baseball cards are commodities now. The thought of flipping or scaling a Shohei Otani or Mike Trout rookie card is criminal. Forget about how many 1952 Mickey Mantle rookies were put into bicycle spokes or placed in shoe boxes only to be discarded from attics everywhere.
The love never goes away. I am still tempted to purchase a new pack of cards each spring and recently purchased an unopened pack of 1978 cards on eBay. The feeling doesn’t go away.
I am sorry, Ryan, I guess I was wrong—I guess I am “into baseball cards.”
Brett Topel is the author of six baseball history books, including “When Shea Was Home: The Story of the 1975 Mets, Yankees, Giants, and Jets” and “Miracle Moments in New York Mets History.” He is also the Director of Communications and Marketing at Brooklyn Friends School.