Take me out to the ball game...

             Before I start this next post, let me explain the consistency (or lack thereof) of My Life on Shuffle. I told you in my initial post that my life is busy. But sometimes it gets to the point where non-essentials take a backseat until things die down. This last week was one of those moments. While I enjoy a different style of writing, graduating from college is my #1 priority right now. So from now on, I'm gonna try to post weekly and if more happen, then it's a blessing.




               And now...the post.


               It's baseball season now & I'm kind of glad. When it comes to watching sports, I'm a little more than a casual fan, but not quite a die hard sports enthusiast. I love Duke basketball, but outside of them I don't follow another sports team to the point where I never miss watching a game. For some reason, especially in Georgia, baseball is ingrained into the minds of boys at a young age. But my first memory of baseball had nothing to do with me playing. It involved a 3"X2" piece of cardboard.


            I remember it vividly, a green 1991 Donruss baseball card with Atlanta Braves shortstop Andres Thomas. He wasn't a good player, Thomas hit .219 in 1990 and according to Baseball Almanac never played in the majors again. But the important thing was he was mine (on the card, anyway). 



           That card started something that became a big part of my childhood. I would get my allowance and immediately spend it on packs of cards. I gradually built a collection of baseball cards. No birthday or Christmas morning would pass without a few packs or God-willing, a box of cards! Before I was 10 years old, I had amassed a collection of a few thousand cards. These didn't get put in boxes for safe keeping. No, they were spread out all over my bedroom floor. I would spend hours playing games with the cards and sorting through them, organizing them in different ways. By teams, card year, birthdate, statistics, positions; even the state they were born. I learned a lot of useless knowledge that way. For instance: I still remember that Frank Viola finished 20-11 and a 2.67 ERA with the Mets in 1990. 


         There's something special about opening a new pack of cards: the rustle of the foil, trying to pull apart the seam at the bottom when the top won't budge, the squeak of the foil when you pull it apart, the smell of new cards, flipping through to see if you got a player from your favorite team, or even better...YOUR favorite player. I haven't been an avid card collector for years but every few months I'll buy a pack or two, just to relive that feeling.


         Most of my cards aren't valuable. The few that are aren't in great shape. Every once in a while, I'll pull a few out & sort through them again. I remember a day when my dad showed me his card collection. It wasn't much; just a few cards he had picked up that his mom hadn't thrown out. I was blown away at the time. Some of them weren't famous, but some of them were Hall of Famers. I'm thankful that my parents didn't throw mine away so I can one day show my kid my collection. Hopefully he will have the same reaction.