I could cite several factors that led to my beginnings as a card collector.
- In the summer of 1974, I was playing baseball in the backyard with my brother and a couple of boys in the neighborhood. We played with a tennis ball because regular baseballs broke windows and dented siding (or so we were told). It's possible we were playing ball the previous summer but I'm not sure.
- I was a reader. Loved books and magazines and those Peanuts comic books you could get on loan from the library. I liked stories. I don't recall reading specifically about baseball at that time, I think that came later.
- The 1974 Topps design is ideal for a young collector for focusing on the individual photos. It's not loud like 1972 or 1975. It's not dull like 1970 or 1973. It has fun flags and cartoons on the back.
But those are secondary reasons. The main reason I became a card collector is because of two people.
My mom and Tommy John are where it all started.
My mom, probably because she saw us playing ball in the yard every day, came home from the grocery store one day with cello packs of 1974 Topps. And the first card that I pulled out if the first cello pack was the Dodgers' Tommy John.
I loved this card and I became a Dodger fan instantly. Becoming the definition of a card collector would start a little later, the next year. But the seeds were planted in the summer of '74.
I've written about this card at least three dozen times on the blog, I won't get into all the details again, the archives are on the sidebar. But Tommy John passed away Saturday at age 83 and I need to reference it at least one more time.
It is amazing how much Tommy John has been in my life, even if there was probably not one moment in which he knew who I was.
But John was there at the very beginning of my formation as a fan. He was a Dodgers player, so I followed him closely and it was easy to do because the Dodgers were good and they were in the playoffs and the World Series in the late 1970s. He was Comeback Player of the Year in 1976 after a revolutionary surgery that was all the news and then he won 20 games in 1977.
This was a triumphant card in 1978 with that 20-7 record on the back for '77.
Then John became a free agent, left for the hated Yankees, played against the Dodgers in the 1981 World Series and was famously removed in the fourth inning of Game 6, allowing the Dodgers to break the game open (I was gleeful).
John then proceeded to have one of the longest careers in major league baseball. I pulled cards out of packs with him as a Dodger, Yankee, Angel, Athletic and Yankee again. It was 1989, I was 24 for crying out loud, and there he was in a pack of cards!
John remained in the public eye as a broadcaster for the Yankees and the Twins during the 1990s and his name was always in the news because of the increasing number of pitchers who would receive "Tommy John Surgery," from major leaguers down to high school kids.
Then something bizarre happened: Tommy John moved into the city where I live.
He lived there from 2011-15. I stumbled across him in the post office in 2014 and wrote about it. Then, after he moved away to California, a campaign started to get him elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. I found myself arranging to interview him, and then, one morning in 2021 (two years after my mom passed), at a table that sits behind me now, I called Tommy John and spoke to him about his career, the famous surgery, the Hall of Fame, his favorite teammates, a variety of topics, for about 20 minutes.
The guy on the first baseball card I ever pulled as an 8-year-old. I interviewed him.
There were other opportunities later to talk to him but I declined, because there just wasn't much new to talk about from a journalistic standpoint and I realized that John had been repeating many of the same replies that he had been using for years. He'd been interviewed so many times. That happens. (His quote about his dad telling him he'll always be "Tommy John from Terre Haute" whether he makes the majors or not, has been told to me, countless journalists and was in his farewell speech at Yankee Stadium the other day).
John had been ill for awhile and it was fairly certain he wouldn't be around for his election to the Hall of Fame, whenever that will be. He seemed OK with that -- I know he was done talking about it. But I know it would have been nice for his wife and all those people who organized the Hall campaign to see him inducted.
Tommy John was never my favorite player. Even when he pitched for the Dodgers, I preferred Don Sutton, even Rick Rhoden or Doug Rau. But, as a good card collector, I've enjoyed accumulating his cards. TCDB says I have 86 of them. Here is the team breakdown:
Dodgers - 38
Yankees - 28
Angels - 13
White Sox - 5
A's - 2
I don't have any of John's few Indians cards, but I do have five of his White Sox cards, including these four (plus the 1971 Kellogg's).
Here are some of his Dodgers cards that I don't think I've shown previously:
Yeah, I can't believe I haven't shown his 1973 Topps card before either. It's his first card in an actual Dodger uniform as the 1972 one doesn't count because he's still a White Sox player in the photo.
Anyway, I'm writing this because Tommy John has been a big part of my collecting life and a fairly significant part of my professional life, too. John and the surgery he elected to have changed baseball forever. And, in a different way, he changed my life forever, too.
It's funny what one little baseball card can do.
Rest in Peace, Tommy from Terre Haute.
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