Mario and me

I hope that when you were a kid you traded cards with other kids. I have no knowledge about whether this still takes place. Boys, to the one person in my house that cares about such things, are still "weird." So my contact with that demographic and what they may or may not collect is zero.

But 30 years ago, it was the thing to do. I had a number of trading partners. But by far the best was my good friend Mario. Whenever I think of the sets from 1975, 76 or 77, I almost always think of him. He was a crazy baseball fan just like me. If I remember correctly, he liked the Yankees. Everyone has a flaw, don't they?

As I get older, I remember fewer and fewer details about being a kid. So I'm going to mention what I remember about Mario here:

-- He came from an Italian family. His parents either were born in Italy or moved from Italy as children. His mother was a great cook.
-- He sported the glasses that you would see on kids who grew up in the 1970s, thick lenses with dark frames.
-- He was super smart, one of the smartest kids in the class.
-- Other kids probably pegged him as a nerd, but he didn't even seem to recognize or acknowledge that. He was an extremely happy and eccentric kid. He would break out into song wherever he was in the strangest of situations. I distinctly remember him singing a popular Captain and Tennille song -- the remake of Smokey Robinson's "Shop Around" -- over and over again when we were in 6th grade. I remember the teacher telling him to stop it.
-- We finished in third place in a class-wide cake contest. Ours was the best homemade cake. Of course, Mario's mom helped with that.

The first card trade I ever made was with Mario. It was an exchange of 1975 Topps regular cards and '75 Topps minis.

But the cards I associate the most with Mario are the 1976 Topps cards. If I remember right, we seemed to be the only kids in class to be collecting those cards. We would stash our small stacks under the table where we sat and look at them when the teacher wasn't around.

I thought of all this because reader Eric sent me some 1976 cards for my set. I am getting very close to completing the set, which is quite popular on the blogs. I'm a mere 55 cards away for the base set and 20 from the traded set.

Eric sent me 38 cards, which I appreciate tremendously. I'm going to show a few of them here, accompanied with my usual mindless commentary:

George Hendrick was one of those players I admired growing up. He served as interim batting coach for the Dodgers back in 2003.

The card is distinctive for a few reasons, but the best one isn't the windbreaker or the seemingly homemade golf visor George is wearing.

The best aspect is you can see Oscar Gamble and his Afro in the background over Hendrick's left shoulder. I love the '70s.

One of these days I'm going to do an "All-Tight Head-Shot Team." Seriously, I am. This card already has a spot on the team.

When we were kids, we thought Willie McCovey was the oldest guy around. Part of that reason was he never seemed to be moving on his cards. On his 1975 card he's just standing there, with his arms at his sides. On this card and his '77 card it's a simple head shot. In 1978, he's resting the bat on his shoulder. Willie, are you alive in there? Move or something!

"Rudolph, your nose, the glare ..." This is a card I thought I had already. I'd keep turning to Robinson's spot in the binder and react in surprise that I still didn't have the card. I don't know how you don't know whether you have a Brooks Robinson card or not. But that's spacey night owl for you.

Everytime I see a Ron Reed card, I remember a past issue of the old Baseball Cards magazine in which there was an article reviewing the autographing habits of major league players. The guy who wrote it did NOT like Reed.

One thing I noticed about this card ...

Is that a woman in the dugout? Does Keith Hernandez know about this?

The mad airbrusher strikes again. And he brought Mr. Alliteration, too.

I should have charged the other kids in school for my Yankee cards. All those brainwashed souls. I would've made a bundle. This card would have netted me a pile of cash.

I'll end it with one Steve Garvey's classic cards. Just a great shot. Is it his best? I don't know. I like the '74 quite a bit. But it's right up there.

Eric, thanks a lot. The 1976 set is a great one. Mario and I thought so.