First let me introduce myself. My name is Ryan and I am new to the Orioles Nation staff. From time to time I will be writing about pictures of men on little pieces of cardboard here on the site. That’s right, baseball cards.
I’m pretty sure that if you were a young boy growing up in America with a drugstore near your home that you probably at one time or another purchased a pack of baseball cards. I would guess that 95 percent of those boys only have a passing interest in the cards and don’t turn it into a hobby.
As these young boys grow up they start to spend their money elsewhere and totally lose interest in these little slabs of cardboard. I am part of the other 5 percent of those boys that turn collecting pictures of men into a hobby, maybe even an obsession. Furthermore, out of that 5 percent of baseball card collectors, there is another talented group of hobbyists that enjoy writing and blogging about their collections and the state of the hobby. The blogging community has boomed in the last 5 years into a brotherhood and some might even say a fraternity.
So, why am I here? As I stated above, I have have a very large collection of baseball cards. My collection centers around my favorite team (and probably yours too!), which is why I have been asked to write for this website.
My mission will be to help educate a readers about former and present Orioles through the use my baseball card collection. I want to be able to raise some good questions (that hopefully I can answer!), teach about the history of baseball cards, and even evoke some memories of some reader’s cardboard memories!
So without further ado I want to start off with one of my favorite cards of all time:
I basically grew up in the heyday of the Iron Man since I was born just about 6 weeks after the 1983 World Series ended and was 17 when he retired. Cal Ripken was always my favorite player and I’m glad I got the pleasure of seeing him play (more on that in the future).
This particular card is from the 1982 Topps Traded set. I purchased it in an eBay auction a couple of years after his retirement because I had a job and was able pay for it myself. You may not be able to tell that it is slightly off-center but the 4 corners are still pretty sharp. I think today is the first time I have touched the actual card since it has been encased in the lucite screw down holder since I bought it!
Since 1982 was Cal’s true rookie season (he won the Rookie of the Year award), this card is not his “true” rookie card. The “Topps Traded” series was issued later in the fall and featured rookies and players that had been traded during the season as an addendum to the main set that was released near the beginning of the season. I personally like this “first year” card better because it features Cal in a classic batting stance pose on picture day in spring training. It even has Cal’s full minor league stats on the back and even tells that he hit a Home Run in the first at-bat of the season. This card has become one of Cal’s most iconic cards of all time and I am very glad to have it as part of my collection.
