The best baseball cards are the ones you look at when you’re supposed to be in church. At least, that’s the impression I got when I first laid eyes upon Stadium Club in 1991.
I was always in church as a kid, one of the prerequisites of attending one in which the pastor was also your uncle. I was present for three services per week, something my parents insisted on even at the expense of getting regular playing time in the local Little League. Allie Reynolds would commiserate, I am sure.
Stadium Club
One of those recurring services overlapped with the evening meeting time for our scouting group. There were usually 7 or 8 of us present and we met in a cramped classroom that doubled as the pastor’s office. One rainy night the usual pattern of merit badges and endless recitations scout duties was interrupted. Russell, a scout leader that we universally refused to call “Brother Russell,” burst into the meeting a few minutes late. He set down a wet jacket and waved off the opening pledges with the breathless announcement that there was big news. We gathered around, noticing that he had not been wearing the jacket in the storm but had rather been using it to shield some sort of box from the weather.
Russell explained that he had just been to one of the recently opened half dozen baseball card shops in our city. He had made his visit in order to pick up the latest monthly price guide and made his entrance just as a delivery arrived from Topps. There was a new set being issued and the first cases were just arriving. Russell had watched as fellow patrons began to rip packs and was blown away by what he saw. He purchased an entire box and hurried towards our meeting.
“Guys,” he told us, “you have never seen cards like these.” With that he unfurled the jacket to reveal a Series 1 box of 1991 Topps Stadium Club. An immediate chorus of scouts shouting “I call the gum” was followed by silent confusion when we were informed there wasn’t any. Topps cards without gum?
He bypassed the question, turning over a pack with almost trembling hands. “These cards are made from gold” he said slowly as he began to peel back the semi-transparent plastic wrapping. I don’t know who saw what first, but there was an audible collective intake of breath when we saw the cards come out of the pack. I didn’t see any gold, but I did think my eyes were deceiving me as the first thing I saw a 1985 Howard Johnson rookie card slide out of the wrapper.
It wasn’t actually a HoJo rookie that I saw, but a rather unexpected picture of one. A Howard Johnson card had been the first pull of the night and it featured a picture of his rookie card on the back. A card within a card? Card-ception. There were even hidden easter eggs within the card itself. Johnson’s position at #86 in the checklist was anything but random chance for such an integral part of the champion ’86 Mets team for which he had become a star.
The card was flipped over to reveal the front. This was next-level good photography. There was the promised gold on the front, residing in foil stamping along the logo and a blue stripe containing the player name. The font was small yet in all caps, more akin to the purity stamp of gold bullion than what should be on the front of a baseball card.
Death
Were you not warned of death in the title?
That evening’s scout meeting felt especially packed as we had above average attendance and it was a very small room. My brother and I were both squeezed in there, as were Russell and another thoroughly confused scout leader. All the regulars were sitting atop randomly assembled office furniture. One of those regulars was our cousin. That cousin had brought William, a new friend who had just moved to his street and didn’t know anyone else after a multistate move. William was all in favor of these cards and as someone making his rookie visit to our little group he received the contents of the Howard Johnson pack. We had all partaken of the Tree of Knowledge of Stadium Club and a predilection for collecting premium cards had taken root.
Class ended and we said our farewells. We all agreed to tell our parents that instead of looking at baseball cards we had practiced our scouting pledges. William traveled back with the cousin who had invited him to church with the understanding that he would join us again next Wednesday.
William wasn’t there the next week. Or the next. Or any other.
He was dead.
A few days after making acquaintances he had left his house to explore the new neighborhood on his bike. The street he lived on appeared to be a cul-de-sac that the developer had later decided to connect with another road, essentially forming an L-shaped road with a very wide spot at the turn. A box truck delivering furniture was making a U-turn in this section. William was following behind the truck, trying to race it up the street after it had finished dropping off its payload. Not quite familiar with the oddly shaped road, the truck driver needed to back up in order to complete his reversing maneuver. Neither the BMX or the 9-year-old occupying the blind spot survived the collision.
Studies repeatedly show highly emotional moments being more memorable than less dramatic ones. I am convinced that I would not have the same affinity for early Stadium Club cards had they not been such an integral part of this story – they would have otherwise just been part of that blurry early-’90s background of ubiquitous baseball cards.
Last week we again experienced something like this. A few days ago I took my son to the funeral of one of his classmates. They had known each other since kindergarten and her passing had come as a surprise. This was a friend, not a random acquaintance. I wonder what memories he will have about her decades later.
Happier Cards
Sometimes looking at happy things helps. After the funeral took my son to his favorite pizza place and we spent the afternoon browsing a Lego store. You came here to read about baseball cards, so let’s roll out the cardboard equivalent of Lego bricks and a slice of pie.
Howard Johnson didn’t just have an impactful Stadium Club debut. He also had a run of generally good junk wax cards. His 1987 Topps #267 stands out as my favorite. The front has to be one of the better visual compositions of this set, though the back is where things really get interesting. Topps provides the reader with two random facts below the standard batting line.
First, and assumed to be the more important news due to a larger font size, we learn that HoJo was the co-winner of a rib eating contest. Co-winner? Was this a team event that paired him with someone else? If so, who? If a solo affair, who else tied for first place? Was it another baseball player (and is it mentioned on their card)? I need to know this.
Secondly, the “On This Date” portion tells us about Butch Metzger getting some wins as a reliever. Below that, in very small type, is an editor’s note! We are informed that Metzger’s 12th win set a Major League record. I haven’t previously noticed anything like an editor’s note on a baseball card. I wonder if there are any more editorial additions in the ’87 set.
My Howard Johnson Refractor
I’m a set collector, so I was planning on getting a Howard Johnson card for my ’93 Finest project no matter what. That doesn’t mean it isn’t an appreciated card. The photo selection works well with this design and the orange and blue uniform elements pop when given the refractor treatment. The front and back photos alternate between home and away uniforms. From a card manufacturer perspective, this would mean sourcing images from multiple games and potentially incurring additional expense. Visually, it is an appreciated touch appearing on many cards in the checklist.
I previously wrote about this particular card and how PSA deemed my copy to be undersized. Johnson’s refractors are one of several in the checklist that have trouble getting graded due to above average problems with being cut to the proper size. Those that are graded seem to trade at a premium so I had avoided adding one until my set was nearly complete.
Knowing that I was less than 10 cards away from my goal, another refractor collector who I had previously done business with reached out to say he had a raw one available. I added it to my collection and experienced the joy of PSA mailing it right back to me. SGC eventually took a look at it and assigned a full size grade of 8 out of 10.
