"Got it, got it…NEED IT!"

The Topps Baseball Trading Card Company.

I was a huge investor in this fine corporation,
helping to support them for many years…
one nickel at a time.

More than a financial commitment, 
Topps filled up about 90% of my brain and time throughout the ‘50’s and ‘60’s.

I love baseball.
(Especially my New York Yankees!)

So these “packs” of 5 photographs of major league players…
plus one thin slab of pink, molar-cracking, several year-old bubble gum…
was my obsession.

Topps also contributed to the early development of my financial acumen
5 cents was one pack.
$1 equaled 20 packs.

Any amount of money that might come into my possession...
was immediately converted into packs of cards.

It seemed that nearly every day,
I would go to Frank's Candy Store and buy one or two packs.
(Often with pennies).

Now, one could easily buy the entire set of each year’s cards all at once…
and be assured of getting every single card.
BUT...
that would eliminate the thrill of discovering
what was inside the next wax paper-covered pack.

There in the midst of Reno Bertoias and Elmer Valos might be …
Whitey Ford or (be still my heart) “The Mick”!

As I would shuffle through each pack’s cards,
usually with a friend looking over my shoulder,
I’d chant the mantra repeated by all boys of my age …

“Got it, got it…NEED IT!”.

Arriving home, I’d immediately record my new possessions on my “checklist card”.
The “got it/doubles’” would be relegated to future trading
or used in “competitions” to amass additional cards.

“Trading” was an art.

Every 8-,9-,10 year-old was a mini-General Manager,
using knowledge and salesmanship to concoct trades
of several lesser player cards… for one superstar.

NOTE: My superior “persuasive skills" may have been a foreshadowing of my advertising career.

When I think about my days of card trading,
I do recall one truly tragic day.

I packed some my most valuable cards in a brown paper bag...
and headed to “the Cage”...
a chain-link enclosed concrete playground in my Bronx neighborhood,
where sports contests of every kind took place.
I was to meet with the neighborhood’s “major players” in the baseball card world...
to engage in some blockbuster trades.

My strategy:
Trade with Brooklyn Dodger and New York Giant fans.
I’d give up some prime Dodgers or Giants...
for my longed-for New York Yankee cards.

It worked.
I scored some nearly impossible-to-find cards I had been lusting after.

After hours of stressful trading,
we traders unwound by playing some hoops.
I left the day's activities happy...
off to meet my family for dinner.

Then, just as we were about to eat…
OH MY GOD!!!!!
I realized I left my paper bag full of treasured cards at the Cage!!!!

My Dad and Mom and sister and I all headed back to the scene of the crime,
flashlights in hand, to search in the dark.
We all looked everywhere…
but, alas…no brown paper bag…no cards.
My sympathetic family did all they could to comfort me.
But I was inconsolable.

To this day, this memory brings tears to my eyes.

Besides trading, cards could also be amassed in another way…
through contests of skills.

The main event was “Pitching cards”.

Rivals would line up behind a designated line…
and with an adroit flick of the wrist…
“pitch’ their card through the air,
trying to get it as close as they could to a waiting wall.
The kid who got his card closest to the wall, would win all other pitched cards.

A “leaner” – a card standing balanced against the wall, was the ultimate.
However…a “leaner" could be knocked down or “topped”...
(a second leaner, covering up the first one).

The legendary Larry Weinschenker was the “Cy Young” of card pitching.
"Leaner "after "leaner " in the P.S. 91 schoolyard…
he amassed himself a “fortune” of cards.
Luckily he was a Dodger fan…so trading was on the table.

There were other competitions somewhat less “active”…

There was Flipping …
Kid One flipping a rotating card from his hand...
having it land on “heads” (the player photo)..
or “tails” (the text and stats).
Kid Two, deftly flipping his own card...
trying to match heads to heads or tails to tails.
This continued until eventually there was a match.
And to the victor...
a reward of all flipped cards.

And then there was the “artistic” Colors.
Players taking turns stacking their respective cards atop each other…
until there was a match of the card’s “highlight color” .
(Each name bar had a different colored background).
You should know…
there were many heated arguments about shades of green or blue!

Finally there was the "unofficial"game I made up!
"Faces".
I played as a kid and continued as an adult (?)...
with my roommate,
my girlfriend (who became my wife),
and later in life, with my own kids.

I’d line up 10 or so different cards, face up…
and then contort my own face to “imitate” one of the players…
and see if the others could guess who I was.
Yeah, I was a weird kid.
I must say, my wife perfected "the 'Nellie Fox' chaw of tobacco in the mouth".

I spent hour after hour with my cards, etching every face into my memory
(That proved to be extremely valuable when getting autographs…
outside the Stadium. I was the “go-to” kid, who could identify even
the lesser players in their street clothes).

I read every stat listed…for every year of the player’s career.
The younger players had Minor League stats.
I assiduously studied the “text” highlighting achievements from the past year.

My favorite feature was the small “ illustrated cartoons”
with some random fact about the player…

”Chuck loves meatballs and spaghetti”...
or “Randy has a twin sister” ...
or “Pete has a substance abuse problem”
(I made up that last one 😏)

As each new season approached...
I couldn’t wait to see the new design
Sometimes a full-face portrait.
Sometimes an action shot.
Vertical.
Horizontal.
Team cards.
“Special cards”…with multiple stars posing together.
I remember a Willie, Mickey and the Duke all on one card!!!

I had lots of 'em…going back to a few from 1954!!

Then, as you probably know,
several years ago the world of baseball cards changed dramatically.
It became a money-making endeavor.
Adults, more than kids, would “auction off” their vintage cards for outrageous sums.
A Mickey Mantle rookie card sold for $525,000.

Of course, the most valuable cards were offered in “mint condition”.
My cards were NOT in “mint condition”!!
I played with them.
I carried them around with me.
I slept with a Yogi Berra card under my pillow.

Almost any adult guy you talk to...
will bemoan the fact that his mom threw out all his old valuable baseball cards.
My story is worse.
Right before the card market became real, when I was in my 30’s,
I went through all my cards from years of collecting.
So as not to take up too much room (in my closet-starved NY apartment)…
I PERSONALLY threw out all my “doubles”, keeping just one of each.
Finance was never my strong suit.

I still have a huge boxful of "used" cards.
All organized by team, player, year.
AND…
I’ll bet I could pull out any one at random…
and without reading the name…
most probably, identify the player.

As evidence to my life as The Forever Kid…
While I was working at Grey Advertising,
coming full cycle,
I was assigned a new account to work on…

The Topps Trading Card Company.

“Got it!”

Would love to hear your baseball card memories.