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If card bloggers existed in 1977 ... and were 11


My daughter started sixth grade today. I keep telling her it's going to be all right. She doesn't believe me. Fifth grade left her a little gun shy. And I say, it's always like that. Fifth grade is painful and sixth grade is fun.

At least that's the way it was for me. And then I throw the punchline at her: "It was fun because of baseball cards."

That always gets an eye roll. But for me, that's what put sixth grade over the top. We had a lively teacher, we did all kinds of interesting activities. Contests. Auctions. Class elections. Free periods. For some reason, we were always sitting on top of our desks. I can't even remember using a text book in sixth grade, although I'm sure we did.

On top of that, just about the entire class collected baseball cards. In fact, in 1977, it seemed like the whole world collected baseball cards. There was my friend down the street. And his friend. There was my other friend down the other street. And his reluctant sister. There were my brothers. And their friends.


For me, sixth grade was what the card blogging community is now. A group of people who love cards, trade cards and talk cards. My sixth-grade class was 32 years before its time!


I wish I could remember all of the kids in the class who collected cards. Some, like me, were diehard collectors. We didn't have a lot of cards, but we were into them more than anyone else.

Others seemed to have unlimited resources and brought stacks of 1977 Topps to school. I couldn't have been more jealous.

Still others collected simply because it was the thing to do. Everyone else in the class was doing it, and they didn't want to miss out.


My good friend Mario was the Yankees fan. Another friend, David, was an Oakland A's fan. He was the one who convinced me that cutting up the 4-player rookie cards into mini-cards was a good idea.

There was Randy and Nancy, both Yankees fans. There was Tanya, the smartest girl in class and a great athlete. She was a Reds fan. There was Gina, who sat next to me. She only collected because everyone else did.


When school ended for the day, my brother and I would go to our friend Jeff's house. His family had moved from Kansas, and he was a big Royals fan. We would receive overinflated reports from him about how Tom Poquette was going to be the next Royals star.

It's funny when you look back now. The Royals, Reds and Pirates were the teams to beat. Generally, if a kid wasn't a Yankees fan, he was a Reds or A's or Royals fan.


Our teacher, seeing how many students were into cards that year, would fashion contests around getting a pack of cards. Those were awfully popular contests.

But there was friction over the cards, too. Much like the friction you see in the blogging world from time to time ...


There were allegations of card stealing. We had those flip-top desks in sixth grade and if you brought cards to school, you had to stash them carefully, because it was nothing for a kid to sneak into class and open up one of those desks. Some cards disappeared from my stack.


As you can see, these cards are well-worn specimens. I haven't upgraded more than a handful of 1977 cards. So all of these cards are the same ones that I swapped and talked about endlessly with my sixth-grade classmates.

In fact, each of the cards I just showed has a specific sixth-grade memory attached to it. And, like the 1975 Topps set, I may upgrade them all one day, but I'll never dispose of the original '77 cards.

They will always remind me of Mario and David and Tanya. Nancy, Randy and Gina. I have no idea what ever became of any kid in my sixth grade class. But I think of them a lot, especially when I'm trading with fellow bloggers.

I remember more from that grade than just about any grade before high school. As weird as it seems to say, I have baseball cards to thank for that.

So, if my daughter was willing to sit still for all of that -- which she isn't -- that's what I'd tell her about sixth grade. Don't worry. Everything is going to be just fine.

Comments

SpastikMooss said…
Man, I wish 6th grade had been that fun for me. Most of my friends think middle school/high school were hell, and though I generally disagree and think those times were awesome, 6th grade was the most brutal by far. Still fun, but sooo awkward. I definitely collected then (this was 1997-98 for me, so mostly mid 90's stuff), but no one around me really did besides my little brothers.

Also, just wanted to say that this was a truly awesome post. I love reading all the card bloggers because you all keep it interesting, but this particular post was pretty damn good. So just thought you should know haha.
bailorg said…
Funny, for me it was between 5th and 6th grade that kids seemed to STOP bringing cards to school.

And yes, for me middle school, i.e. 6-8th grade was far worse than elementary school and and high school.
Dinged Corners said…
Sweet. Did you grow up in Oz?
Matt Runyon said…
I collected just about the whole set of 1977 Topps in 5th/6th grade. I was dumb enough to bring them to school for show & tell and had them ripped off. My father felt bad for me and bought me a set through the mail (probably from Renata Galasso or Larry Fritch cards).

I loved those "turn back the clock" cards. I wish Topps would have done a subset like that every year.
Anthony K. said…
Man, I STILL remember collecting with some guys back in 6th grade.

It turned recess into the stock market.

Hell, my 6th grade teacher was a HUGE Eagles fan and growing up in Texas, as a Cowboys fan (I was brainwashed then) we razzed him all the time.

I still remember getting the "Sports Nut of the Year" award that year.

6th grade was great.
dayf said…
6th grade was horrible for me. Like, THIS year horrible. (shudder) 3rd grade was my baseball card halcyon days...
This is why your blog ranks up near the top in my book. You "turned back the clock" on my memories of collecting. Thanks for another great read.
Tony said…
I remeber collecting these as a kid as well. I think I was in grade 4 at the time. Although being in Canada we had OPC instead. I remember some kids going on top of the hill at recess and played "Scrambles" where they would shoot off cards into the
air and the poor suckers on the ground (me included) would scramble to try and get some free cards. Flipping for cards was called "Wallies" and I remember my teacher taking away everyone's cards, but she counted each kids cards, and we got that same number back, but not always the same cards.
Anonymous said…
No one will ever read this, but *that* year for me was 1980, and most of the action went down on the looong bus ride to school. All kinds of shady dealings..."Well, I don't have the cards on me, see, but if I can have that Reggie Jackson NOW, I'll bring you a Steve Carlton, a Jim Rice and that Yankees team card you need tomorrow..."

Guess how that usually turned out.