⚾Holliday Memories⚾

Decades from now, card collectors might look back with fondness to Jackson Holliday's promotion, just like we currently look back on our childhood.

Each “2024 Happy Hobby Newsletter” pack has 11 different sports cards, including one insert, and one chalky, tasteless stick of gum!

All card images come courtesy of BuySportsCards.com.

⚾JUMBO CARD 1 – REDEMPTION CARDS

One of our Happy Hobbyists, Scott Hedrick, shares an awesomely personal story about how card collecting affected him recently.

I owe baseball cards big time... No really, I do. And this is more than just a hearty thanks for filling most of my life with an enjoyable distraction when I’m not busy with my husbandly and fatherly duties. I truly owe the hobby of sports-card collecting a piece of my heart because it’s the chief reason I now have a wonderful and fulfilling relationship with my only sibling, my kid brother.

If you’ll kindly indulge me, I’ll explain.

See, for the first 13 years of my brother’s life, he and I were extremely close, despite our 4-year gap in age. A large part of this was because our parents would buy us cards, and we would collect them together.

Series 1

My first packs, far as I can recall, came in 1985. From that point on, I remember my mom picking up a few packs for us every single time she was in a grocery or convenience store. Then, a little later, accompanying my brother and father to the wonderland that a store completely devoted to sports cards could be to a kid of that time.

We never bought singles (man, what prices we could’ve gotten on vintage if we had!), it was always packs, with the rare complete box sprinkled in on special occasions.

My brother and I were best friends who would open packs together, trade them amongst ourselves, and put them in our binders that were separated by sport, and collated by player. This was as close to obsession as kids could get. We lived for it.

Getting Called Up

But shortly after the time I finally got my drivers license, I abandoned him, and I abandoned the cards that I had so deeply loved, to pursue the typical things a senior in high school is wont to pursue. I started spending most of my time with my friends, and I stopped asking for cards for Christmas and birthdays.

Sadly, the binders and boxes eventually found a home in the back of the closet, and my brother and I grew apart. Soon enough he was in high school himself, and then college. By this time, I didn’t see much of my brother, as it was his turn to spend most of his time with his friends. Oh, he wasn’t a bad brother by any means, he was just living the life of a college guy, and didn’t come into town much at all. This was how it remained for 7 or 8 years.

Series 2

Fast forward to 2009, when I curiously clicked a suggested YouTube video of Baseball Card Exchange showing what they had brought to that year’s National. I was nearing 30 with no kids, had a little disposable income, and you can see where this is going. One visit to BBCE’s website, and I was hooked (again).

At the time, my wife worked every Saturday, so I would hold my own little “bust night” every Friday. I was a voracious ripper with a special interest in the sets which held nostalgia for me from my childhood, along with the ones that were just out of our price range back then.

The Repack

I mentioned what I was doing on one phone call to my brother and invited him to come open some packs with me. It took some time and convincing (about a year), but I finally got him to attend one night. Well, the maiden item on the chopping block for him that first night was a vending box of 1982 Topps baseball, of course, home to Cal Ripken Jr.’s iconic rookie card!

We methodically went through his box, but about two-thirds through, we still didn’t have a Cal.

My brother seemed intrigued, but I could tell the cards weren’t quite as exciting to him, at first blush, as they were to me. So, during a bathroom break, I concocted a scheme to ensure this true love of our youth would come back around to reignite his passion once again, as it had mine.

I reached into the rather large box of top-loaded cards I had amassed by this time and retrieved one of the Cal rookies I had pulled in the last year. I quickly placed it into the middle of his remaining cards, and sat back with self-satisfaction, as i waited for him to return.

That medicine did the trick! He pulled it, and stood up and shouted! We celebrated, and went on to have an absolutely awesome night. From that point on, my brother would come down from time to time on Fridays to open cards and have a blast together.

This culminated in him finally moving back into town a year or so later, and us even going a couple years where we barely missed a Friday! Thankfully, we had become best friends once again -- all thanks to this hobby.

Update Series

Fast forward to October of 2022, when we, rather unexpectedly, lost our beloved mother. We were a small family, and he and I were devastated. So, in those first few days, we turned to what we knew would make us feel a little better.

For the first seven nights after, we opened cards together. We stayed up all night, laughed a lot, cried a lot, and opened cards. Just the two of us.

I learned a lot that I didn’t know about my little brother those nights. I learned that despite us seemingly not having much in common, we are both people with a whole lot of love in our hearts.

Redemption

Still to the present day, my kid brother Chris and I get together regularly and open packs and boxes of cards, and we act like we’re those same two excited little kids in my parents’ house 30 years ago.

Although our responsibilities to wives and kids have whittled down the times we are able to get together for cards, we never go longer than a month or two without meeting up to bust what we’ve collected in the meantime. We also speak to or see each other every single day, and we have Sunday family dinners at his place. I’ll never again take my brother or this hobby for granted.

Yep, I owe baseball cards, big time.

🎧CARD 2 – PODCAST: CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

We’ve got a podcast now! That’s right, you can hear the Happy Hobby Sports Cards podcast on Apple and Spotify, as well as through your Substack app!

While the content is mostly me reading this newsletter, I also add random things I think of or that got cut out or stuff I thought make a better listening story, than a reading one.

⚾CARD 3 – NUMBERED CARD: 4

Number of professional sports drafts where Dave Winfield was chosen, including the ABA, MLB, NBA and NFL Drafts! I hit a Winfield autograph card in my 2024 Topps Heritage hobby box!

⚾CARD 4 – PATRICK’S PICKS: WELCOME TO THE SHOW, JACKSON HOLLIDAY!

Sports card-collecting veteran Patrick Imhoff, one of our Happy Hobbyists, shares card advice!

In case you missed it, Orioles SS Jackson Holliday made his much-anticipated MLB debut on April 10, less than two weeks into the season. While most thought he should have started the season with the big-league team, he is here now, and it is time to look at his available cards. As of now, there are two main options to get his card: Bowman Draft cards and Topps Now.

2022 Bowman Draft 1st Jackson Holliday (BDC-168): This was part of the 2022 Bowman Draft set which included Hobby Jumbo boxes, Super Jumbo boxes, and Hobby Lite boxes. If you want a guaranteed thing, though, eBay has your answer. A quick search yields a price of roughly $75 to purchase a Bowman Draft 1st Chrome Refractor. The same card in card in chrome only (non-refractor) or paper can be found for much cheaper depending on your collecting preferences.

If ripping packs is more your thing, I recommend the Bowman Draft Lite box for about $85 on eBay. That price results in five black-and-white RayWave refractors (one of which could be Holliday), plus regular refractors and other #’d cards, as well as the opportunity for other future stars’ Bowman 1st cards, such as Termarr Johnson, Elijah Green, Brooks Lee, and Jace Jung, to name a few. While there are no guarantees you will hit Holliday, you may be sitting on the next great sleeper, and opening packs is just more fun.

2024 Topps Now Jackson Holliday: As for Topps Now (check out the Topps website daily for new additions), Holliday’s debut card (No. 61 from 4/10) has already hit the street and sold out almost instantly. They are already available on eBay for preorder for about $8 each.

Editor’s Note: If you just want the base version of a Topps Now card, you can often get them cheaper on eBay in preorder because dealers/flippers are buying large lots, hoping to pull numbered and autographed versions from Topps Now.

Based on the past, we can also expect Topps Now to release a card for his first hit and first home run, as well as any other major achievement. Keep an eye on the Orioles box scores so you do not miss out, his cards will sell out fast, as the Topps Now sets are usually limited in numbers and only available for a day or so.

Whatever option you take, including just waiting for his Topps Series 2 card (he should be in there with the coveted gold parallel rookie /2024), I wish you a #HappyHobby!

⚾CARD 5 – NUMBERED CARD: 228

Dollars it will cost you to buy one unopened wax pack from each Topps Baseball set from the ‘80s on BBCExchange.com and eBay.

• 1980 - $99 (Rickey Henderson hunt!)

• 1981 - $34

• 1982 - $30 (Cal Ripken Jr. hunt!)

• 1983 - $25 (Wade Boggs, Tony Gwynn and Ryne Sandberg hunt!)

• 1984 - $10 (Don Mattingly and Darryl Strawberry hunt!)

• 1985 - $13 (Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire and Kirby Puckett hunt!)

• 1986 - $7

• 1987 - $5 (Barry Bonds and Bo Jackson hunt!)

• 1988 - $3

• 1989 - $2

⚾CARD 6 – RANKINGS: TOP 5 MODERN CARD TOPPS DESIGNS BETWEEN 1975 and 1999

With the release of 2024 Topps Heritage (honoring the classic 1975 Topps baseball card design), I wanted to share my favorite baseball card set designs from the 20th century!

1. 1975 Topps: I just got reminded about how wonderful this set was.

2. 1984 Topps: While it carried over the double-picture format from 1983, the lines and vertical team names just look too sweet to ignore. We just wish the rookies from 1983 and 1985 trickled into this set to balance them all out.

3. 1972 Topps: I don’t normally like designs that are so obviously from a certain era, kind of like 1994 Topps. The ’72 design, which looks like we stepped back in time to some hippy’s card collection in their travelin’ van. And I hate the ‘70s. The colors. Most of the music and TV. But dang, if this ’72 Topps isn’t awesome!

4. 1978 Topps: This is probably based more on the fact that I fell in love with cards when this set came out. I was seven years old, and finally starting to understand sports – and man, those Yankees cards are so beautiful, especially with the awesome All-Star logo!

5. 1987 Topps: You either love the woodgrain look (1987) or you hate the woodgrain look (1962), but I apparently have mixed emotions about it!

⚾CARD 7 – CARDS THAT MAKE US HAPPY: 1992 BOWMAN MARIANO RIVERA RC #302

Speaking of things that look quite dated and from a very specific era, how about this sweet rookie card of the greatest relief pitcher to ever toe the slab!?!

Rivera looks like he’s ready to pick your daughter up for their dinner date at his dad’s country club. “Hello, Mrs. Vanderschmelgen, you look lovely this evening!”

This Panamanian kid became a dominant closer on a dominant dynasty in the greatest media market in the world. He was loved by everyone – even teams he destroyed – and he became the first ever unanimous first-ballot Hall-of-Famer.

“Why, thank you, Mr. Gonos, have you lost weight lately?”

⚾CARD 8 – INSERT: ON THIS DAY IN BASEBALL…

This is a guest piece from Dan Herman, who has a great Substack of his own, where he rips boxes and talks about what he pulled.

On this day in baseball (on the day of this post, April 18) in 2005, Ryan Langerhans, hitting for the Atlanta Braves, not far from his hometown of Round Rock TX, hit a 12th inning home run off Astros pitcher Dan Wheeler, giving the Braves a 1-0 lead that held up for the victory.

The homer, the first of his 33-HR career, followed a blistering shutout between Tim Hudson and someone named Roger Clemens. The team Leverage Index, combined with the strong pitching duel, makes this one of the more memorable games in recent MLB history. Pictured here is a 1999 Bowman Chrome refractor card of this Baby Brave.

⚾CARD 9 – CARD GIVEAWAY OF THE WEEK!

With this being a newsletter/podcast for card collectors with a limited budget, I decided that since I only do these every other week, I’m going to start giving away one cool card per issue!

For this card, I went to a local card shop in San Antonio a couple weeks ago, and rather than buy one amazing card, I ended up buying a bunch of really cool $5-$10 cards. That’s what we’ll be giving away weekly to a different subscriber each week.

(Also, don’t forget that we’re still doing our 1962 Topps Yogi Berra PSA 5 giveaway when we hit 500 subscribers.)

This Legends Relic Topps Triple Threads card was just too cool to pass up, so I’m passing  it on to one of you! I’ve always been a huge fan of Morgan, one of the best hitting second basemen in MLB history. He’s a 10-time All-Star and a two-time NL MVP – and the card is numbered to 12 of 18! (Twelve was his number when he broke into the majors!)

⚾🏀🏈CARD 10 – POLL⚾🏀🏈

🏀CARD 11 – THIS WEEK’S “HAPPY HOBBY” MOMENT!

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Have a #HappyHobby!

Podcast Music: "I dunno" by grapes - 2008 - Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (3.0)