(On this day after Easter, what am I appreciating? Whoever the genius was who first figured out that chocolate and peanut butter tastes good together. Brilliant! It's time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 26th in a series):
Is it possible to like a player forever based on his appearance on the first baseball card of his you ever saw?
You bet your sweet hedge fund it is. Because that's the case with myself and Cecil Cooper. This was one of my favorite cards as a kid. Why? Well, because the guy is smiling, of course. I think it's time we come up with a name for the impact a card of a smiling player has on a kid. Perhaps the Lucy effect?
I don't know what it is, but kids are naturally drawn to cards like this. Or at least I was. I had no idea who Cecil Cooper was when I first obtained this card. But I followed his career from that point. I rooted for him to become a regular for the Red Sox, and then when he was traded to the Brewers, I cheered him on when he hit .352 in 1980. He was always one of my favorite non-Dodgers, and I still like Coop to this day. And it's all because of the 1975 card.
But in a way I hesitated featuring this card in Cardboard Appreciation. I feel myself posting about a lot of cards from my childhood. That's understandable, I guess. And a lot of bloggers like the vintage cards. But there are other bloggers who only relate to the modern cards, and I feel like I'm leaving them out with these posts.
So I went through my 2009 cards and tried to find a modern-day equivalent to the Cooper "smile card." It wasn't easy. Most modern cards are based on the action of the game. So there aren't a lot of smiling portrait cards.
And I don't have a lot of Upper Deck's cards from this year, so this is the best I came up with from UD:
It's a game-action shot, but Dukes is clearly enjoying the moment. Would it cause a kid to root for Dukes for the rest of his career? I don't know. Dukes has had his issues. We know so much more about athletes now than when I was a kid. Every fault is magnified. And we put ballplayers on such a short leash. Plus, I have no idea how many kids collect baseball cards these days.
This is probably the best card I found from 2009 Topps, or from any of the 2009 products so far. It's clearly an enjoyable card of Guerrero. You can't help but smile looking at the card. And Guerrero is a likable guy.
So I hope if there is a kid out there who is collecting baseball cards for the first time this year, and he or she pulls the Guerrero card, that they enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the Cooper card in 1975.
Who knows? Maybe Guerrero will have a fan for life. All because of this card.
Is it possible to like a player forever based on his appearance on the first baseball card of his you ever saw?You bet your sweet hedge fund it is. Because that's the case with myself and Cecil Cooper. This was one of my favorite cards as a kid. Why? Well, because the guy is smiling, of course. I think it's time we come up with a name for the impact a card of a smiling player has on a kid. Perhaps the Lucy effect?
I don't know what it is, but kids are naturally drawn to cards like this. Or at least I was. I had no idea who Cecil Cooper was when I first obtained this card. But I followed his career from that point. I rooted for him to become a regular for the Red Sox, and then when he was traded to the Brewers, I cheered him on when he hit .352 in 1980. He was always one of my favorite non-Dodgers, and I still like Coop to this day. And it's all because of the 1975 card.
But in a way I hesitated featuring this card in Cardboard Appreciation. I feel myself posting about a lot of cards from my childhood. That's understandable, I guess. And a lot of bloggers like the vintage cards. But there are other bloggers who only relate to the modern cards, and I feel like I'm leaving them out with these posts.
So I went through my 2009 cards and tried to find a modern-day equivalent to the Cooper "smile card." It wasn't easy. Most modern cards are based on the action of the game. So there aren't a lot of smiling portrait cards.
And I don't have a lot of Upper Deck's cards from this year, so this is the best I came up with from UD:
It's a game-action shot, but Dukes is clearly enjoying the moment. Would it cause a kid to root for Dukes for the rest of his career? I don't know. Dukes has had his issues. We know so much more about athletes now than when I was a kid. Every fault is magnified. And we put ballplayers on such a short leash. Plus, I have no idea how many kids collect baseball cards these days.
This is probably the best card I found from 2009 Topps, or from any of the 2009 products so far. It's clearly an enjoyable card of Guerrero. You can't help but smile looking at the card. And Guerrero is a likable guy.So I hope if there is a kid out there who is collecting baseball cards for the first time this year, and he or she pulls the Guerrero card, that they enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the Cooper card in 1975.
Who knows? Maybe Guerrero will have a fan for life. All because of this card.
Comments
When you mentioned that you didn't know if kids collected cards or not, it reminded of something Ross Gload said to me last year. I asked him to sign and he said "For you kids sure...since kids don't collect cards anymore".
Yep. 1981 Carlton Fisk.