Sharing your mistakes with someone you love

 

So, as I mentioned a few days ago, I opened a blaster of 2022 Chrome in Cooperstown last week.

That five minutes in my hotel room was easily the low point of the entire trip -- well, maybe it was a little better than listening to three cronies talk loudly through my dinner Friday night. (Wife: Nothing can be that funny).

 

I wasn't going to write about it, but something happened in which the cards became quite useful.

 

My brother and sister-in-law visited a few days ago and my nephew came along. He's the one I've mentioned a couple of times as collecting baseball cards, which is an extreme rarity in this family.

 

Many years have passed since I first discovered he collected and there were signs that maybe he isn't anymore. But I took a shot since he was under my roof and asked if he still collected. He did. I asked the follow-up question that I never get to ask: "Want to see my card room?"

 

And so there we were, me and my 15-year-old nephew, already quite taller than me, in my card room. Nobody, aside from my wife and daughter and a couple of workers, has seen my card room. And none of them was interested in a tour.

 

That's right: I got to give a tour of the card room. In person!

 

My nephew's first reaction: "Wow, you have a lot."

 

I said, "I've been doing this for 40 years."

 

He said that nobody he knew collected baseball cards. A few, he said, collect nonsports, what I assume was Pokemon and such, but he couldn't tell me what it was. But he did say he liked collecting, when he had time.

 

I looked around for some cards to give him. He's an Orioles fan, like his dad. They don't make a lot of Orioles cards these days -- thanks a lot, Topps. But I reached for my Chrome stack and found a shiny Ryan Mountcastle insert. With some more digging, I found a handful more. And now it's on! I get to send cards to my nephew again.

So I'm glad I blew a gift card on that Chrome box. Otherwise, not much to talk about.

Like I said earlier, there were no Dodgers but a weird flood of White Sox. OK, it wasn't 14, it was just four. But it sure felt like 14.

There was a card or two I could send to fellow traders. Otherwise, the best of the rest:

 

 Some other notables:

Besides Riley and Harper, there were a few other playoff participants, but this box was also a reminder that I can't be opening cards when my team is in the postseason. Too many gross reminders come out of the box. That Cronenworth dude is really annoying.

There's been a lot of noise about all of Chrome's faults this year. I don't get into that, but it's been pretty useless for me for like the last seven years.

But if I can take those mistakes I make and build a young person's collection, then it isn't quite as painful.

We both came back into the living room after the card tour and my nephew said to his dad, "I think Uncle Greg has you beat." (My brother's cards have sat in boxes for years).

Yup.