A couple things before I start the big show: 1. I like to be a good commenter on the blogs and leave a comment when something sparks my interest. Lately I have been unable to comment on some blogs via my laptop. This is only from my laptop, not any other computer, like the one at work, so I know it's some sort of settings issue on my laptop. But it only comes into play on three blogs that I know of. Those are: Johnny's Trading Spot , Nine Pockets and Uncle Charlie's Shoebox . I know this is something I have to fix (like I have the time) but I'm mentioning the specific blogs just in case they've wondered where I was in the commenting section. 2. RIP, Mr. Baseball. Bob Uecker, who lived to age 90, is one of those baseball guys who lasted through multiple generations. First he was a player, then a broadcaster, then a pitchman and guest host, then an actor, then a movie star. Whether you knew him first as a ballplayer or his famed Lite Beer commercials or from Majo...
I was thinking about writing this post within the next month or so, ideally around when I found the first cards of the season. But it's going to be far too busy then and I'm not good at planning posts in advance, so you're reading it now. This year marks the 50th anniversary of me in the hobby, buying baseball cards. In the spring and summer of 1975 I made periodic trips to whatever nearby store sold cards and greedily purchased them. The instances were relatively rare -- I wasn't going to the store every week. I had a meager allowance and had to save up in order to buy a few packs. The occasions were so seldom, I can sort of remember all of them: 1. Walking to a drug store several blocks away in Binghamton, N.Y. (this happened maybe three separate times) 2. Walking to a corner store -- we didn't know the name of it, we called it "the green store". This is where my 1975 mini cards came from, in cello packs, the kind you see above. It was closer than th...