I always dreamed of having at least one child who followed me into this hobby, and thankfully that has come true.
Having a 10-year-old boy who understands this hobby as best as he can for his age is pretty awesome. It’s gives me someone with whom I can sit and crack a blaster with, talk about the ups and downs of the hobby, and truthfully, gives me a new appreciation for the collecting experience.
There is one side effect though: It’s the gray area that exists when making a decision to give cards as a gift.
For the last year and a half I have noticed myself buying cool potential PC pieces and some sealed blasters under the premise that they are for him to be given as a gift, only when the time comes to give it, I’ve found I’ve bought too much and complicated the situation.
It’s sort of began in the summer of 2019 when I started picking up certified autographs of Oakland A’s players for my son. He’s a fan of the green and gold and I had this vision of getting autos of the top 5-10 stars and giving them to him for either his birthday or for Christmas, which are about seven weeks apart.
Well, those A’s autographs are STILL sitting in a box because I keep finding other things to buy for him, namely blasters of products I know he likes — last year it was holiday versions of a Topps baseball and Hoops basketball, and this year it’s a Mega Box of Prizm Draft Picks basketball and a blaster of Topps Gallery baseball.
But here’s the thing. It doesn’t stop there. In the last month I also acquired the original artwork used for the 2020 Topps Gallery Matt Chapman card, a fantastic collectible in my opinion. Chapman is my son’s favorite player.
I bought this the same day that I purchased my Clayton Kershaw from 2019; the idea was this Chapman would be his Christmas gift for 2020.
But here we are two weeks before the big holiday and the Chappy is sitting in a drawer — and the A’s autographs are still in the aforementioned box — because I purchased the 2020 products for him.
All of this made me start thinking about this habit I’ve got: Did I really buy them for him, or did I acquire them for me only under the guise that they were for him?
I can honestly say that my intent was and still is to give the Chapman and the A’s autographs to him but I also realize I complicated things by purchasing the sealed product for him.
I’ve still got a week and a half to change my mind and still give him the A’s items as his gift. But part of me knows that much of his hobby enjoyment in this time also includes opening packs, and the blaster and mega box might give him more joy.
Do any other parent collectors deal with dilemmas like this?
cardboardicons.com 
My first Topps Now card of 2019… and it’s a Walk Off Winner from my birthday
Posted in Commentary with tags baseball, birthday, Boston Red Sox, Matt Chapman, Oakland A's, Pedro Martinez on May 22, 2019 by Cardboard IconsWhen I was a kid, my parents always asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday. I was never a party kind of person. All I needed was family and baseball, so in my teens I started asking my mother and father if we could go to an A’s game.
We didn’t go every year, but one of my favorite baseball birthday memories was when I was about to turn 19. My father took me and two friends to a May 1, 1999, contest between the Boston Red Sox and the Oakland A’s. As it turned out, Pedro Martinez was on the mound for the BoSox and he wound up dominating Oakland to the tune of 13 strikeouts over just 7 innings en route to his career 89th career victory. Needless to say I, being a Red Sox fan, was happy. And in the context of baseball history, that dominating start really summed up 1999 Pedro, damn near untouchable.
I’ve gone to many other games around my birthday, and as it turned out, this year, my 39th birthday, wound up probably being my second favorite, even eclipsing that one from a half a lifetime ago. (My top favorite is still this trip to Fenway in 2010.)
This year my son’s Little League participated in three different “Youth Sports League” days/night in the area. The league participated in San Francisco Giants and San Jose Giants events, as well as one of the several hosted by the Oakland A’s. This year, the League chose the night that happened to be Friday Fireworks Night, which just so happened to be my birthday.
We tailgated with the League President and other families. The kids played Wiffle Ball, I played catch with my kids, and I tweeted out a picture of my son wearing my personal Mark McGwire jersey, the one I wore during my high school days.
The tweet received a lot of attention, including an epic comment from the Oakland A’s organization itself. The response from the team was a gif of McGwire bashing elbows at home plate following a walk-off home run in Game 3 of the 1988 World Series — the gif really hit home because I remember staying up late to watch that game with my mom, who lovingly bashed elbows with be after the homer.
As for this day, my kids, their mother, and I sat in the left field bleachers, which is not a typical spot for me. I sat here on this day because I didn’t want the sun to be in anyone’s face. As it turned out, it was fate.
My daughter wore a Matt Chapman jersey I got as a stadium giveaway last year, just as she has done every time we’ve gone to a game since I acquired the garment. And every time he comes to the plate or makes a play in the field, I point him out so that she and my son can draw a connection to Chapman, who is the face of the franchise.
On this night we watched Chapman smash a single into left field past shortstop Francisco Lindor’s glove, and later make it to second base on a following play. This turned out to be significant for me because I managed to purchase the ball that Chapman struck for the single, and later photo-matched it thanks to a bobble by Jose Ramirez, which was captured by a photograph. In the photo you can see the mud that exists on the ball which was authenticated and sold by the ball club.
And then several innings and hours later, as fans who were there for fireworks grew restless, sat Chapman in the 12th inning slugged his first career walk-off homerun, which happened to land in the general area where we were sitting. If you look closely at the television broadcast you can see my family just a few rows away,
The walk-off homer wound of being chronicled by Topps the very next day on a Topps Now card, which of course I had to purchase. And that card of course just arrived this week to act as a keepsake for what has to be one of my top best baseball-related birthday memories I have had to date.
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