Baseball Card Fever

Sunday January 27th 2008 - Milwaukee, WI

I love sports. I love sports cards. I’m hooked. Is that so bad? I suppose it could be crack and hookers and that would be real trouble. These two are hard enough. I loved playing as a kid and collecting cards went along with it. My dreams of playing are long gone but I’m still a collector deep down inside even though I know it’s only pieces of old cardboard.

There is something nostalgic about seeing the pictures I burned into my head as a kid as I devoured all the statistics while I rotted my teeth out with a big pink blob of bubblegum. Even the older cards that I didn’t collect have appeal because they are historic. Seeing the players from a different era is very entertaining and each card is a little piece of history.

I told myself all those things as I spent the day at Gonzaga Hall in West Allis, WI. I had not been to a Gonzaga card show in quite a while and today was the day since I had a gig last night in town and was here already. Yesterday I stopped at a Salvation Army store for a few minutes to kill some time between appointments and I relit my flame for this stuff.

There was a 5,000 count box of baseball cards from the mid 80s for $20 and I bought it. It had a lot of stars from that era and Cubs and White Sox and lots of players I remember so I gambled the twenty bucks. Most of the cards I will give away to friends with kids but I know I can make my money back and then some. There are some decent cards in there.

I hadn’t intended to buy a big load of cards but this was a good cheap deal so I did. I did intend to go to the Gonzaga show today to meet up with my friend Richard Caan. Richard is my age and he and his friend Dennis Barrett are wheeler dealers when it comes to cards in the Milwaukee area. Dennis is my age too and we’ve all been friends for years. Dennis has a day job and does cards for a hobby. Richard quit his day job to sell cards full time.

Both guys are very honest and I like hanging out with them. We all love cards and since we’re all the same age we have very similar tastes. The reason I wanted to meet up today was for Richard to help walk me through the Ebay thing. I wanted to see if it’s worth it to get my own Ebay store to sell Uranus Factory Outlet stuff along with some old cards too.

We hung out at the show and talked about sports and cards and saw the same faces that have been coming to the show for years and years. I talked to a guy named Mark I’ve had conversations with for about 20 years and for a million bucks I couldn’t tell you what his last name is. We see each other at card shows and enjoy our talks and then we all leave.

I got the itch again as I walked around and saw all that beautiful old cardboard. I looked at everyone’s setup and admired what they had but wasn’t jealous or envious. That’s not a factor at all. I just took a day off to forget about everything and lose myself in cards again.

I know I should have used today to work on Uranus or comedy but I didn’t. I did get all I needed to know from Richard and Dennis about Ebay and that made the trip worth it all. Plus I had a lot of just plain FUN. Once in a while that takes precedence and today was it.