Check in on me and tap into some of the obscure history of baseball and my journey collecting baseball cards, our experiences at shows, some interesting player stories, and how a collector navigates his life.

An often over looked addition to the definition of a cartophile as a person enamored of maps is a second one stating the same about cigarette cards, trading cards, and gum cards. How is one not so enamored to think of those of us who are? I am a  collector’. So be it.This of course covers millions of things from bottle caps and charms to rocks and statues to plants and taxidermy. Why then, do I think, “What would make a person collect such a thing!”, when I see other collections?  I begin remembering  how my own collection started.  I had a critical point when I was 26, I quit using and drinking. It was through this angst that the desire to reconnect with the positive experiences from my upbringing manifested itself in several packs of 1989 Bowman baseball cards., then a hobby box, then another! And maybe it starts that way, in an desperate outreach, a blessed substitution or addition at a critical life moment, but that alone may only go so far as nourishment for the cartophile and cannot be enough to explain the full shelves currently in my office. For soon after it started, I had to reflect on it as unfavorable to share with friends. It's not cool to invite your friends to look at baseball cards, or talk to them about your latest favorite prize. Not the same as setting up a time to play tennis, or grab a coffee. No that initial realization that a 1989 Bowman Ken Griffey Jr card would begin to have some place in my life as a recapturment of youth when I needed it only went so far. To grow, the beanstalk it would need more than nostalgia for nourishment, it would need love. Indeed some hooking moments of nostalgia certainly don’t begin to explain the inner workings of the mind and motivation of very many true baseball card collectors. One such collector was Jefferson Burdick.

Mr Burdick was not a significant looking man. Our introduction came via Dave Jamieson and his book, Mint Condition, (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2010). As I read, I pictured an almost obsessed mole of a man, complete with geek glasses and some sort of a shoveled nose for pushing around and organizing an endless album of cards. Forever in motion I saw him incessantly  pasting them to the pages unknowingly damaging the backs, but no matter.. He was admirable and tragic. He was ahead of his time. His dream was a lonely one, yet it somehow sustained a drive like a locomotive train and not merely of some puny tunnel-digging rodent. Shuffling around and organizing a collection, but not just a pile of cards, an epic of the grandest proportions which crowded around him in endless stacks of boxes upon boxes, albums atop albums encumbering makeshift shelves on every available wall space in his tiny apartment.. Mr. Burdick was an idealist who wanted to find, note, and catalog every trading card ever made. By no means a rich man, he never the less compiled an unrivaled collection which attracted the attention of The Metropolitan Museum in New York. Wow! The key to my fascination with Jefferson Burdick is in the simple and wonderful distillation of his unrelenting drive to collect given by Jamieson, He just loved cards! (p71).

Of course, this is the real food for nurturing a collection of baseball cards, isn’t it? Love. What? Love a piece of cardboard? Is it more strange to propose such a reason for what occurs in the mind of a cartophile or to dismiss it and the afflicted as some kind of strangely pathological adult trying to be a kid again? Surely a bystander’s observation of some sort of ‘man trapped by a juvenile obsession' doesn’t quite cut it! The hurtling momentum involved in the moments of time thinking... desirous of cards and the collection are only really explained by that word, Love. I love collecting baseball cards! There I said it. This and other pieces are to be an attempt to share it with you.

This state of mind I find myself in flounders for description. As near as I can clarify right now, it is my fatal attraction to the combination of the photo, painting or rendering, card style and card back, and my afore mentioned nostalgic connection. The experiences which I have had in ballparks, drugstores and my haven for collecting; my bedroom, and the mystique and history of the game and the endless learning about it which reveals so much about us as Americans. Whew! I really cannot think of card collecting in a business sense if I truly acknowledge that what I really want is to get lost.  And I am lost, truly lost at times!!! As with any human endeavor, there's always a ‘catch’ though, right? Well, while I am admitting that for me, a real idealism in collecting is as significant as for a collecting god like Jefferson Burdick, Of course, no real pragmatism is involved! Yes, I am greatly interested in the value of my cards, but they aren't stocks or anything like that. How many ebay listings have I read where the seller is trying to convince me that this card described was always part of a college fund for junior.... If I could, I'd keep everything, but that's not how it works, isn't it? Cardboard is a pretty fragile investment, right? I can't use this cloak of it being an investment. If I work hard, I might be able to replenish my paypal account a bit, by turning some cards over and inevitabley at a loss, but I'd just end up re-spending it on another card or three soon anyway. :-)  If I wanted a college fund, I'd buy gold, right? It's a hobby. Participation is included, and what I want! So, what becomes of this?

Now, when I search for a new card or think about my collection, somehow it quietly re-balances me. I love the search, and there is no need to feel disappointed, ashamed, or regretful. It is some sort of grail which quietly evolved, the collector's daydream and subsequent reverie which so effortlessly puts aside the tragedy in where the world took me that day. It's as compelling as any drug I've ever taken. I marvel at how perfect it is. I like everything about it and am also a bit suspicious of the way I feel. At the same time, however, I am happy to latch onto to something to take my mind off of a pressurized life. It feels triumphant to be attracted to something considered healthy and not a waste of money. Instead of drugs, right? I guiltily look forward to sorting a set, or cataloging player lots, or even rearranging boxes on shelves. So, the door was opened for me to learn as much about myself.as anything else.

I began learning about the rich history of cards and collecting in part because of those 1989 Bowmans. It began quite simply. Do I like the card? What is the back-story of it? And, yes, could it appreciate in value.  That's my initial criteria. If I like it, it is worth the price...usually., but I'll let it go if good sense tells me it's above a reasonable cost. Ebay taught me that! So, what is it that I like? A card attracts me because it catches my eye. Ever come across that explanation from a collector? Totally true for me. It could be the intense blue sky behind the player, as on the 1953 Bowman Joe Adcock card, the starkness and ultimate grace of motion in a Ted Williams Exhibit arcade card, the frozen defensive leap and purple color of the 1950 Ferris Fain, the perfect baseball dugout contemplation shot of the 1989 Topps Don Mattingly, (not worth a plug nickel, but honestly one of my favorite cards!), or the classic style of the 2006 Legendary Cuts ‘When It Was A Game’ Lou Gehrig, I've just got to see or know that something in it or about it, to like it! Simplicity and succinctly beautiful, right? Hmm  that true? Maybe I'm just cloaking that old monkey lurking over my shoulder from days past....

When I did find collecting, I marveled at how perfect it was. I liked everything about it and was indeed a bit suspicious of the way I felt. At the same time, however, I was happy to latch onto to something to take my mind off of things. I felt triumphant to be attracted to something considered healthy and not a waste of money. Instead of drugs, right? I could look forward to sorting a set, or cataloging player lots, or even rearranging boxes on shelves. So,  you're thinking OCD, right? Right!

My mind has no doubt been subject to certain conditions ripe for this love and learning to come and grow. Cartophile? Yes! I can say a  trite aphorism  like ‘happy collecting’ or ‘happy bidding’ to end this umm, public explanation if you will. It’s clearly a bit more personal for me, and never-ending So, I’ll just ask you to maybe understand a bit more than before you read this piece , check in on me now and then, and say a prayer or a meditation for me and anyone out there like me when you’re of a mind to...