for a few stories, YouTube style.

I was working on a diary (that’s how long ago) on this subject. I never had the time to finish it and ended up scraping it. Found the opening, nice story so I put that up.

I’ve been a sports memorabilia collector, off and on, since I was in grade school. I even worked part-time in a small card shop when I was in jr. high and shared tables at card shows. I built a decent collection with the money I earned on my paper route and detasseling in the summer.(anyone who grew up in the corn belt knows what detasseling is, worst job ever) When I moved out of my parents house my Dad asked what to do with my baseball cards because he was turning my room into a den. He said “do you want me to toss them or give them away” NOOOOO!!!!! Having not gone through them in a while, hence the off and on line, I picked up a price guide. My Dad was suprised when I told him my little childhood collection, at that time, was worth more than my car. Granted it wasn’t a nice car. Funny part is the bulk of my collection is sitting in my parents basement right now. When I moved out of state it became a causality of the need for space when packing.

I never collected for money so I would trade or sell something to get the players I wanted, I must have over 1000 different Ozzie Smith cards. Still love the thrill of opening a pack of cards. Best pack I ever bought was from a set of Sports Illustrated cards that had an autograph of a past great, most HOFers, in every pack. Not cheap but I bought one, my autograph was Bob Gibson. How cool is that? Found the Lou Brock from the same set at a card show a few months later, bought it right away. At that same show I picked up an autograph minor league card of a young and talented pitching prospect, Rick Ankiel. I almost tore it up after the meltdown, thank god I didn’t.

Just one more story that I think moboiler will like. My younger brother was a cheerleader (insert joke here) at Purdue. For Christmas one year he gives me a Purdue basketball that he had left with the athletic directors office to be autographed by Gene Keady. The next year he gets me a players autograph on a Purdue football, because of NCAA rules players have to personalize the auto and can’t just sign their name so I now have football with my name on it signed by Drew Brees. Of course he got the same autographed balls for himself also.

I’ve have many more stories but this post is long enough and I think everyone can see why I chucked my diary, it may have been longer than War and Peace.

but I do have autograph baseball cards of Ray Lankford and Willie Mcgee that I treasure.

My prized pieces are 3 framed autographed pictures. One of Ozzie Smith, one of Mike Shannon and one of the mang himself Albert Pujols.

I also have a authentic “jersey card” of Jim Edmonds. It’s one of those “special cards” you can get in packs of baseball cards.

i don’t really go out of my way to collect stuff but i’ve been given a couple of cool things, in addition to the scorecards:

i showed up to work one day last year to find a white cardinals seat cushion sitting on my desk chair. upon flipping it over i noticed the back said “kmart 25th anniversary, 1962-1987”. having read about the infamous seat cushion night at busch in ‘87 on the ol’ redbird nation, i googled to see if the one on my chair was indeed one of the survivors… and sure enough, it was. that revelation made me absolutely giddy, but i had no idea who gave it to me or the even stranger part, how it got there (after all, i work in a small town on the eastern shore of maryland). turns out a guy here had gotten it at a garage sale in virginia some years ago and it had been sitting in a pile of stuff in his garage. since he knew i was a huge cardinals fan, he gave it to me, not knowing its legend. so that one’s pretty cool.

the only other thing i have worth mentioning is a ticket stub from the ‘66 all-star game at old busch. my grandmother took my mom, aunt, and uncle to the game… and somehow my aunt (who was probably about 12 years old at the time) had the wherewithal to keep her stub in a box for all these years. when i went to visit her last summer, she brought it up out of the blue and gave it to me.

An interesting turn of events removed my favorite item from my possession, but it’s ok; part of the reason it’s my favorite item is because of the story that goes with it.

Early in 2007 I had gone to Eckstein’s book signing and also got my picture taken with him at that time. It turned out to be a good picture for two people who aren’t always photogenic, I must say. While searching the internet for a frame I found one that said “God’s Little All-Star” and featured baseballs. That frame made me think of one and only one person: David Eckstein.

The frame amused me, but I didn’t like it so I did what I always do when I think I can improve something – I make it myself. Seven dollars later, I had an attractive and amusing picture frame. I started thinking that the frame would be improved by a signature.

At the end of the 07 season, word got to me that Eck was moving out of his apartment and he had offered to sign any items left for him in the housing office. As it just so happened, a client of mine worked in the office where Eck lived and I was able to get the frame, a baseball, and a thank-you note (red toddler handprints on a Thank You 22 jersey) into the pile.

A couple days later I was given the baseball (autographed) and told that Eck loved the thank-you note, but there was um… er… an issue with the frame. It didn’t come back. Apparently he construed my thank you note as an indication that the frame was his to keep. The office lady checked his apartment after he left, thinking she might find it in there, but he actually took it with him. Apparently if a fan gives him something he takes it and proudly displays it.

In summary, the most squeaky clean player in all of MLB stole my picture frame and all I got was an autographed baseball and an amusing story out of the deal.

my husband saw his very first mlb game on june 15, 1966- he’s been a cardinal fan ever since. he kept the ticket and program- Bob Gibson’s first win.
we spent a butt load of money getting it properly matted and framed and it’s hanging in a prominent place in our house.

he found one of the buttons on ebay from the Viva El Birdos season from which this blog got it’s name. we got it about the time the play offs started in 2006.

my memorabilia memories are mostly just amusing. the most recent was a foul ball from last year hti by yadier molina that bounced around the seats and ended up landing literally in my wife’s (then fiance’s) purse. she gave a mean look to the nearby man who started to make a grab for the ball but then thought better of it. we also managed to get two yadier molina bobbleheads which we proudly display.
even more amusing (at least to me) are two pieces of memorabilia that are still in my parents’s house. one is an old autographed photo of a player whose name i can’t even remember, in a rather cheap wooden frame. there’s a little sign on it that says “former cardinals utilityman (name here)”. my parents bought it years ago at some school auction, probably because they were the only bidders and got lucky. there is also a t-shirt floating around their basement from the mid-nineties which says “the fab four” at the top and had caricature drawings of (possibly?) ray lankford, brian jordan, ron gant, and bernard gilkey (however, i have failed to find a year that all four played for the cardinals on baseball-reference.com, so i think gilkey must actually be somebody else). it was pre-mcgwire, however, and serves to remind me how spoiled the mv3 era made me.
as for baseball cards, my older brother was heavily into them for a while when we were pretty young, along with a friend of ours. i spent hours at said friend’s house with my brother bored to tears because their obsession was over my head and i wasn’t particularly interested at the time anyway. however i do remember the best card my brother ever pulled from a pack; it was an art card (a painting or drawing as opposed to a photo) of, i believe, ken griffey jr. and mickey mantle, autographed by junior (can’t remember if the signature was real however). he ended up trading it to the earlier-mentioned friend for a package deal that included an ozzie smith rookie card. fun times.