I come from a generation that made a big deal about thank you letters.
I get why they did, but I didn't like writing them. Every year after Christmas, my mom got on me and my brother to write thank you's to grandmothers or aunts or whoever for sending whatever. I think sometimes I pulled out some paper and pen and scrawled a few lines, but I don't remember doing it that often so it's possible I just plain skipped it most of the time.
Ever since then I've been a bit hesitant with thank you's. I'm all right saying it in person -- you have to do it a lot and I think it's a little easier to say it than to write it, at least for me. That seems odd, since I am a writer.
I have a lot to be thankful for, of course, and in the hobby, especially. I don't have a high-paying job or grew up in a well-to-do family and never actively pursued a lucrative career. So it's amazing to me that I have the collection that I do. I owe a lot of it to you.
So here's my thank you letter to those who have helped make the hobby a place that I go to every day and find joy in every day. This is what I'm thankful for.
To the internet:
Where would my collection and hobby be without the internet? It would be a lot smaller and I would be a lot dumber.
Online life has been everything for my collection. It created something called a blog and social media, connecting me with collectors across the nation and around the world. It gave me people who were interested in what I had to share about my collection and thoughts on the hobby. It gave me a paying writing job, it gave me cards I could never dream of owning from people miles away who sent fancy cards just because. It made me realize that people appreciate enthusiasm -- for whatever it is. They like to see people happy about a particular pursuit, invested in that pursuit and celebrating it. That's what I do, I guess -- without really thinking about it -- and people have responded most generously.
If the internet didn't exist, my hobby would be very much like what it was before the 1990s. I would buy cards at whatever store whenever I discovered them and be happy with what I pulled from packs and collect by my lonesome, conversing with myself. I bet senility would come a lot sooner, too.
To online shopping:
Just about everything after "the internet" is going to be a sub-category of that. As awful as online life can be, the trade-off is worth it, to me. Being able to shop online for cards changed everything about my collection. I could target childhood cards that I had wanted for decades. Some of those cards and sets had vanished from memory only to pop-up on a brightly-lit screen for only a few dollars! I now own sets that I remember desperately wanting as I read a Baseball Digest or Sporting News while lying on my bed as a youngster.
There are so many online purchasing options now when it comes to cards that I forget about half of them all the time. Weirdly I feel guilty when I do that, like if I don't shop there, the business will disappear. I think that comes from when I was young and places to find cards were few and far between. When you spotted one, you were a loyal customer.
Online shopping is the one aspect that would blow the mind of pre-internet me the most.
To hobby information:
I have always craved information about my hobby and baseball. A long time ago I subscribed to publications like the TCMA Advertiser, along with the usual Baseball Digest, Baseball Magazine, Sports Illustrated publications. When the internet came along and I connected with blogs, they were overflowing with info about the latest cards, sets and what was available and what was to come and when. There were release dates, and info on short-prints, etc. Later that info migrated to Twitter and it was a collector's one-stop shop for hobby information, through Beckett or various breakers or just regular collectors.
Today, hobby info isn't as easy to find, even online. Social media has fractured and the hobby has gotten uglier with selfish actors infiltrating former sites. Business reporting in general has gone to pot. Topps is mostly to blame on the collecting end. It's the biggest card outlet in the land. If it had created a competent and informative web site, like back in 2006, and kept it maintained, it could have been the information source for so many collectors instead of a source of criticism and suspicion.
Sorry, that wasn't being thankful, so ...
To Topps:
Topps has been my go-to for cards ever since I knew what they were. It formed my idea for what cards should be -- what they should look like, how they should be presented, everything. Nearly 50 years later, Topps cards make more sense to me than cards from any other company -- by far. Topps designs, as modern as they are now, seem right. The company's older designs in particular -- anything pre-mid '90s -- are like coming home on a winter's night to a warmly lit house with pasta in the oven and cocoa on the stove.
The hobby has been blessed with lots of other card companies over the years -- it's nice to have choices -- and those companies have produced some of my favorite cards, but collectively they cannot match what Topps means deep down in my collecting soul. Donruss, Fleer and Upper Deck tried really hard but they could never match, say, that 1975 Topps Bake McBride card with the rookie cup.
To my hobby friends:
Admittedly, I'm not in the hobby to make friends, I'm in it to get cards and discuss cards. But the hobby doesn't exist without people and when you interact, you find people you like. You get them, they get you (I think).
Most of my connections are online. We converse through the blog comments or comments on other social media or through email. I'm comfortable with that. Once in awhile I get to see those virtual friends in person and it's been a fun talking the hobby and life with people like Angus and Greg. Each of them have bestowed me with all kinds of cards -- I don't know where they find them all -- and I am always appreciative, a.k.a thankful.
But anyone who can tell me the card numbers of random cards from the 1982 Topps set or why league leader cards need to kick off sets every year or anyone who will listen to (or read about) me on why Ken Landreaux has always been one of my favorite unsung players is definitely a hobby friend.
To the bloggers who have stayed:
Card blogging is on life support. That's tough for me to write. I have been a diehard defender of card blogs and their vibrancy for years and every time I read that "card blogging is dead" I am there with a BUT! rejoinder.
But it's just not the same as in the 2006-12 heyday. I am reminded of 2020 when card blogging enjoyed a brief boom because covid kept everyone inside. That's actually an indictment of card blogging -- "I have nothing else to do, I guess I'll blog." -- people have decided they have better things to do.
Lately I've even seen some of the diehards disappear or fade out (what happened to Wrigley Wax?). So I appreciate the folks who still believe in the longer-form chronicling of their hobby, folks like Johnny's Trading Spot and Baseball Cards Come to Life and Nachos Grande. People seem busier than ever (do you notice how fast people walk compared with even 10-15 years ago? -- I was practically bowled over in the drug store walk-in area by someone coming in today). But I'll take someone updating their blog just once a week if it means I get to read about cards. Nothing gets across your love for the hobby more than writing a good amount of words -- you don't get that from Twitter/X, for sure.
And that brings me back to those thank you letters I hated to write. Mom knew that the written word would convey appreciation better than anything else.
So I'm doing that now. Thanks to everyone who made my hobby and collection better. I mean it. You have my (written) word.
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