Starting to sort

Let's start sorting!

Ok, so school let out last week, and as of Thursday I am a free man (minus the million home and family things on my plate). But that gave me time to go to the basement and start a good sorting of my chaotic basement stash.

While there were many places I could start, I dipped into my Goodwill find from a few weeks ago and sorted through the 1988 Topps. I forgot how fun/cumbersome sorting can be. So many names from my childhood popped up, but so many cards to sort. 

I don't know how many of you sort, but here's my plan:

1. Sort them all into piles of 100s (i.e. cards 1-99, 100-199, 200-299, etc.)

2. Then go through each pile and sort by 10s (1-10, 11-20, etc.)

3. Sort them in order 

It takes time. It is 792 cards to sort this way. I muddled through it and came about 250 cards short of a set. But ... I am fairly certain those are in my large pile of childhood cards.

But, before I get I to those 88s, I need to sort through all my stuff. 

As a child, I had many ways of sorting, but my favorite was: 

1. Checklists

2. Record breakers

3. All stars

4. Turn back the clock cards

5. Teams sorted in order of how I liked them (Brewers always first). The team card was followed by the manager card then the players ranked how I liked them (Robin Yount always first)

This was a great system for a 10 year old. For a 41 year old wanting to catalog, this is a pain. I have thousands of cards in a mashup of epic proportions.

So, the new plan is to start by sorting them by brand. Then, I will divide into years, then subsets. Then I will finally catalog and determine if I am close to finishing any sets.

Yes, this may take more than the summer, but I am also hoping to pay things forward a bit. Many Twitter friends have helped me find my love for collecting, so all dupes are getting piled up and divvied to those Twitter friends. Some will also be trade fodder as I work on my next project: finishing the 89 Topps set.

I better now wrap this up.and start sorting again.

Nostalgia

I was able to stumble across this card, which brought back memories. 

It probably isn't for the same reasons as most of us have nostalgic cards, however.

Before teaching, I had a lengthy career as a sports journalist. I covered mostly high school sports in that time.

Not many would know this, but Todd Frohwirth was a darn good basketball player growing up, and he became a darn good basketball coach. I was courtside for two of his trips to the state tournament with a girls team from Mukwonago, WI. 

Fro was an awesome guy. He didn't really like attention and always deflected to his players. He was funny and always made me laugh. 

His son, Tyler, has a nearly identical pitching motion and is in the Marlins' organization. He is also a great guy with whom I have had the pleasure of talking with.

Sadly, Fro died about a year ago after a battle with cancer. I talked to several of his former players and Tyler. They all couldn't stop talking about how great a guy Fro was.

I offered Tyler any and all of his dad's cards, but like any baseball playing son he replied with "I've got them all."