Nostalgia is one helluva drug
A trip to a Card Show reminds me of how much my priorities have changed
I went to a Card Show this weekend for the first time in three decades. I wasn’t there to buy, sell, or trade. I was there because my friend Ryan was the show organizer and nostalgia is one helluva drug.
We got Van and Fred to broadcast their “2 Men On” radio talk show for The Sports Animal on Friday afternoon live from the Card Show. I joined them on the radio for a couple hours. Ryan gave us packs of cards from the 1980s and we opened them on the air.
We remembered some dudes, traded cards on the air, laughed a lot, and I told a bunch of stories about the players whose faces appeared on the cards. Fred and Van actually ate the bubble gum from a 1989 pack of cards. I filmed it. I have no idea if it was entertaining radio for the masses, but I sure enjoyed it.
Collecting baseball cards, autographs and all things memorabilia were the biggest part of my childhood. To say I was consumed and obsessed is an understatement.
These days? I care more about the experience than any physical possessions. I sold 99% of my collection to Ryan during the pandemic. One of the more entertaining aspects of the Card Show was looking at my former items that are now for sale.
Believe me, I have zero Sellers Remorse. I hope Ryan doesn’t have Buyer’s Remorse.
We collect things for a variety of reasons. Mementos remind us of the past, of happy times, and remind us to chase happy futures. Memorabilia is a connection to an athlete who impressed us with his skill or his style.
This weekend had me thinking about how we obtain information, how we identify ourselves, and how we tell the world what matters to us.
While modern collectors hunted for items for their collection, I casually browsed the offerings while wearing a powder blue “Baseball Bunch” t-shirt one day, and a kelly green and gold “BillyBall” t-shirt the next day. Not sure what message I was trying to tell the world, except I’m old enough to remember the early 1980s and I’m from the Bay Area.
What we display on the walls of our home reflects who we are, or maybe it’s a reflection of how we want people to think of us. It starts as a kid in your bedroom. Then it grows to your entire residence.
My top memory of my sister’s bedroom is Van Halen album covers.
In my room, I displayed posters of Reggie Jackson and Tom Seaver when I was too young to make my own choices, then the Bash Brothers when I got a little older, and then covers of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issues when I hit puberty. I had pennants of the A’s and Giants, naturally, but also the Reds and the Expos.
I had pro wrestlers on my wall, including an enormous “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff poster on the front of my bedroom door during junior high. Yeah, that was definitely weird.
Before social media, the bumper stickers you put on the back of your car were your “wall” of likes.
Before Wikipedia, we had the backs of baseball cards to tell us that Tony Phillips attended the New Mexico Military Institute and Dwayne Murphy turned down a football scholarship at Arizona State to sign with the A’s.
What we post on social media is temporary. You type a few words, maybe attach a photo, and press POST. Hopefully, someone stops their scroll to see it, like it, comment on it, then moves onto the next post. More times than not, your “friends” never see it, unless the algorithm thinks they should see it.
What we put on the walls of our home is permanently temporary. When you pound a nail into a wall and hang a frame on it, you really care about it. When someone walks into your home and looks at the walls, they know it matters to you. Items on the wall are a conversation starter … or depending on the item, a conversation ender.
Even though Sports is an enormous part of my life, and most of my identity, I have zero Sports related items on my walls. Seriously, nothing.
Admittedly, I’m a minimalist. I used to own a huge bookshelf and delighted in filling it up with books I’ve read. Maybe I subconsciously wanted people to think I was really smart. I donated almost all my books to the public library about four years ago. I don’t miss them.
Now I own a house. I have more walls to decorate than I’ve ever had in my life. I can’t leave them all white. I’ve had tentative plans for a Man Cave of sports stuff, or a quasi-shrine to my career. It’s been two years and I still haven’t done it.
It’s possible that I’m just lazy, or I have doubts about what should be the theme, or how to display it all. I thought about an Audio Room that has all things San Diego State displayed. But I painted the walls blue, so that’s already a bad match when our colors are red and black, and a shrine to my college while living in Albuquerque strikes me as trying too hard.
I enjoy old-time black and white photos of cities. I’ve got three of those on my walls, plus some beach/ocean artwork that’s a nod to California. I’ve got some photos from my vacations and more photos with my friends (many are from sporting events). I’ve added some art with motivational words. That’s about it.
But I’ve got memories, a whole lot of memories, and the best part of the weekend at the Card Show was just talking to other people about their memories of attending games, and why an item matters to them.
The last time I attended a Card Show was early 1991. I was a senior in high school, and I teamed up with my friend Jeff Coulthart (RIP, miss you Coully) to split the cost of a table. The Card Show was in San Francisco and this is what I remember:
I had car trouble in the morning. Jeff’s parents, Don and Linda, were worried my car would break down on the Bridge or something. Don did some things under the hood to fix my car, then they ultimately decided to drive us to San Francisco instead. They dropped us off, enjoyed a day in the City themselves, then took us home safely later in the day. I don’t think I truly realized the magnitude of their decision to completely change their weekend plans on the spot until years later. Hug your parents.
Coully and I devised this game to lure people to our table. For $1, a customer rolled a pair of dice to determine which card they’d get. If they rolled a 2 or 12, they’d get a pretty darn good card worth somewhere in the $5-10 range. If they rolled a 3-4 or 10-11, they’d get a card worth about $2-5. All the numbers in the middle, roughly 5-9, were a common worth less than a buck. Jeff and I were each responsible for half the cards and we split the money. The strategy worked. Our table was hopping. I do recall the customers got hot with the dice at times and we parted with some very good cards for just a buck. Oh well.
A young Robin Ventura was there signing autographs. Ventura was coming off a very good rookie year, getting some Rookie of the Year votes, and I bought a bunch of his signatures – the sweet spot on a baseball, a minor league card, and an Olympics card -- banking on a lengthy career. Three decades later, Ventura had a solid career, but not impressive enough that my friend Ryan decided to display any of those signatures this weekend that were part of the collection he bought from me.
Little did I know that card show was basically the end of my collecting. It's possible that I just burned out on memorabilia as a teenager.
When I left for college, I put my entire collection inside a large crate and lots of boxes. For the next three decades, I never displayed any of it. I rarely had room in the small apartments I lived in. Some of my best autographed photos got ruined when there was a water leak into my closet once (RIP Bo Jackson autographed 8x10). I got tired of moving all that stuff. Since selling the collection, I’ve moved four more times and was grateful it was gone.
Ryan is a good friend and actually insisted that I keep a few items. They are currently tucked away inside closets.
I came home Friday with a few cards after opening the packs on the air and it made me happy. Now they’re sitting on my counter and I’m wondering what the heck I do with them now. It’s a hangover after the nostalgic buzz.
It crossed my mind to pick a new specific thing to collect. Maybe I’ll collect every card ever made of Rickey Henderson. Or maybe every Oakland A’s card that Topps ever produced.
But then what? I’d rather put that money toward new floors or a vacation.