A Good Saturday

I went to the local baseball card shop, Houston Sports Connection, in an attempt to sell a Jason Castro signed jersey I got last year. No dice.  Instead, I decided to buy a box of 1990 Fleer baseball cards they had there...for $12.  You read that right.  For only $12 I got the revive the age-old beauty of opening up packs of cards.  36 packs, to be exact.  With 15 cards and one team sticker in each pack.  I'm not math major, but that's 540 baseball cards for $12.  Contrast that with a box today, where you get maybe 80 cards for $20-$30.  That's a bargain.

The very first pack I opened had a Craig Biggio. 

It was already a good buy.  Who else was in there?  Randy Johnson, Cal Ripken, Ken Griffey Jr. and Sr., Jay Buhner, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, etc...  This is bringing back some great memories of biking down to the local card shop, only about 3 miles away.  Those were the days.

While I am on the topic of baseball cards, nothing will ever top the 1987 Topps set.  

Look at that faux-wood border!  There's something about cardboard baseball cards that makes them stand out.  I did really like the premier Upper Deck set in 1989,

but unfortunately the brought in the age of the more flashy cards.  Now everything is bright and shiny.  That's a rant for another day.

There is something great, cathartic, about looking through baseball cards.  They are a window to another world.  If they are old enough, they are a window to your past.  They bring back happier times, before I cared about taxes, jobs, email, smart phones, terrorism, police being ambushed, gay marriage, presidential elections, philosophy, and so many other stupid things.  Baseball cards are simple.  They tell a story.  They are our childhood.  They are art.  They are beautiful.