Cardboard Heros

Michey Mantle lived in a shoe box in my closet when I was a kid. He shared it with Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Duke Snider and Jackie Robinson. They were the cardboard heros of my childhood. I used to imagine that they would come alive at night when I was sleep and play an all star game on the carpet next to my bed. For all I know maybe they did. I was a pretty hard sleeper in those days.

Baseball cards have been a constant in my life time and in fact for generations. I bought my first card from herman's Smoke Shop in Norwalk, Connecticut in 1953. I'm not sure but I think a pack of cards cost 10 cents and included a rock hard square of bubble gum whose flavor lasted less then 40 seconds.

Herman's sold tobacco products, candy, gum, Coke and Pepsi in bottles and baseball cards. Oddly enough the guy running Herman's Smoke Shop was named Herman. He was a friendly guy who used to point out which packs of cards had the best players inside them. I don't know how he knew but he was usually right. Following his advice I once got a Mickey Mantle in a pack of 1954 Topps and a Ted Williams in the next pack. That was years before kids even cared about the value of a card. In those days we traded them, flipped them or attached them to the fenders of our bikes with clothes pins to make it sound like a motor bike.

Baseball cards are still appealing to me though they cost as much as 3 bucks a pack now and don't come with bubble gum anymore. Herman's Smoke Shop is long gone and I live three thousand miles away anyway so it wouldn't be practicle even if Herman was still there. Now I buy my cards at a store that sells nothing but sports collectables. The guy who runs it is nice enough but he never tells me which packs have the best cards and I don't even think his name is Herman.