Welcome Back

Here we go!

I am a longtime sports writer who got out a couple years ago to teach. I love the switch but miss writing. So ... why not use the stuff laying in my basement as inspiration?

This summer will be a deep excursion into the dark depths of my south central Wisconsin basement. While cleaning out said basement last summer, I unearthed thousands of cardboard treasures. Baseball cards! Football cards! Basketball cards! Hockey cards! Batman cards? Desert Storm cards?

To say I was addicted to card collecting in my youth would be an understatement. The mid-1980s saw a boom in sports cards, and I was right in the midst of it. I started bugging my mom to buy those wax packs in 1986, and I'll always remember Topps' black-top cards of that year. I'm not sure why, but Milwaukee pitcher Jaime Cocanower was a card that always stood out.

It was 1987 that saw my love for card collecting explode. We all know 1987. That wood-grain look of the Topps set - perhaps the greatest set of my generation. Those cards were like a drug to me. I couldn't walk into a store without heading right for the baseball card aisle. K-Mart. Target. Walgreens. Even the gas stations had the cards then. If grandpa needed me to run to the store, it always included an extra dollar so I could buy two packs of those 1987 gems.

This love continued into the early '90s. Cardboard treasure upon cardboard treasure found its way to my Milwaukee homes. Boxes, binders, top loaders, penny sleeves, shoe boxes ... anything that would hold baseball cards held them in my room. I would spend hours each week sorting them. I never found the right way, so I always kept sorting them.

This era of baseball cards wasn't very lucrative. Most of my "big" cards nowadays top out around $4 or $5. But I didn't care. It was fun, my friends all collected and it kept me occupied when there were nothing else to do.

Eventually, I got a job upon turning 16, and then I realized that spending MY money wasn't as fun. The hobby dwindled. Mom's money was great for baseball cards, but my money wasn't as fun for the hobby. Plus, companies like Upper Deck started charging more than $1 for a pack. I had girls to impress, and they certainly weren't impressed by my 1985 Billy Swift USA Baseball card.

The cards moved from one home to another, eventually hiding in a closet at my mom's place. Well, she cleaned and said it was time to take up space in my own home - which is where they sat for years and years. But last summer's dig unearthed these cards and piqued my interest again. Plus, I needed to get them from the plastic tub that had three dead baby mice at the bottom. So out onto a banquet table they went - and eventually a second as I sorted them.

Being a school teacher has granted me a great item for this summer: time! My goal this summer is to go through all these cards. My goal is to get them all cataloged on www.tradingcarddb.com  and seeing just what I have. My goal is to get deeper into the collecting world, trading cards and completing a couple sets along the way.

My goal on this blog is simple: share the fun with fellow collectors and dive back into my journalistic roots. I may have left the journalism field, but the desire to write is still there. This blog may ramble at times, but I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy sharing some of my experiences with you.