Baseball Cards: Collecting With Your Kids

I’m a father of two school age children who enjoys music, movies & technology. Originally from New Jersey, I been searching for good New York Style pizza here in Ohio and sadly, I’m yet to find it. I love the kind of racing where horses make left turns but not the kind where cars do. I think Jim Henson was a genius. My favorite color is blue. I believe it’s important to laugh every day and that everything happens for a reason. Read my blog at www.abusydadottwo.com and follow me on Twitter at @abusydadoftwo.

Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m 39 and I still collect baseball cards. Go ahead and chuckle to yourself. I’ll wait. Ok, let me explain. Ever since I was a kid I collected sports cards. It started with football cards but since more kids my age were collecting baseball cards, I switched. Back then, packs of cards were 35 cents each and the only way to build a set was to either 1) buy a whole bunch of packs or 2) trade with other kids – in person. There was no Internet; no eBay. Things have changed over the years. Cards cost a whole lot more and well, we do have the Internet to help us locate the hard to find cards. But one thing that hasn’t changed is the enjoyment of collecting. My son is starting to find out just how much fun collecting baseball cards can be.

Every now and then, when I’d buy a pack or two at Target, he’d ask me to buy him a pack as well. He didn’t know what to do with the cards. He was just excited to get something from the store. He’d open his pack of cards, look at them (he had no idea who the players were) and then put them in a drawer. But, over the past year or so, and mostly over the past couple of months, a transformation has started in my son. He’s become much more interested in the cards themselves. He’s excited to buy them with his own money. He’s recognizing some of the players on the cards. He’s becoming a baseball card collector.

When the 2012 Topps cards were released in early February I suggested we build the set together. He jumped at the chance! In order to truly make this a team effort (and so that he’d have something invested in the project), we pooled our money and bought a couple of boxes at our area hobby shop. He couldn’t wait to get home; to start opening the cards. This is where the magic happens. Together we ripped open the box and pack-by-pack we tore into the fresh cards. We sorted the cards by number and started to create the set. The pictures on some cards prompted discussions about the action taking place in the photo. “Do you think he was safe?” my son would ask about a card featuring a close play. “What do you think happened to him?” he would ask about a pitcher walking off the field, “Did he have a good outing or a bad one?” By reading the statistics on the backs of the cards, my son would learn which players had great 2011 seasons and which missed the mark. Eventually (and with a little help from the Internet) we would complete the set – twice.

Despite the fact that the price of baseball cards today far exceeds the price when I was a kid, baseball card collecting is still a great way to bond with your children. It’s a fun way for dads (or moms) to share a hobby with their child and to learn about the great sport of baseball and its vast history. My son and I built a set but there are so many other ways to collect: collect a certain player, only players from your hometown, players with the same birthday as you, or players from a certain team. The choices are endless. For our next project, my son has found a set from 2011 that he wants to complete. This one will be tougher but I know that together we’ll get it done. Eventually, as he gets older, he’ll move on to other things and baseball card collecting will take a back seat. But we’ll always be able to look back on our time together collecting – a bond between father & son.