’Pen Pal
Being a pack rat must be an inherited quality, because I've been one since I can remember. Collecting just for the fun of it
You never know when you're going to need something, is the traditional pack rat creed. Being a collector of sports memorabilia, specifically baseball stuff, was a natural for me.
As a baseball player, I began collecting caps in the early 1960s. High school and college caps with an assortment of professional lids thrown in, were the beginning of my desire, almost a need, to collect. In 1975, the collecting, some would say craziness, really began when I started to purchase baseball statues and figurines.
In 1986, one of my high school players, Eric Kadooka, currently the baseball coach at Punahou, gave me a box of 1986 Topps baseball cards, and the Topps rookie cards of Cal Ripken and Dwight Gooden. After that, I not only had to collect caps and statues. I had to have cards. I was obsessed with the search for the popular players and the collation of sets.
Of course, the older players began to creep into the collection. The Mick, Willie, Hank, and Ted were the major ones. Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Ted Williams were a few of the greatest players of all time, so they aroused my sense of nostalgia, and became my heroes again.
I began collecting autographed baseballs, pictures, books, equipment and bats as well. I searched for card deals, places where I could purchase cases of cards so I could get the hot prospects and the volume of cards needed to handle collate sets. I did not seek profit from anything I did. I just wanted to collect!
After six years of this, the price of cards, and the other types of memorabilia, began to skyrocket. What started out as a kid's hobby now became an adult one. New companies came out with cards and the prices continued to climb. In effect, the hobby became way too expensive for the normal, every day fan to continue to pursue. The dollar sign began to control the motives of dealers.
To the baseball purist, and I consider myself one, this was unacceptable, so I began a protest, a boycott of sorts, that continues today. I have not purchased a baseball card since 1992, and I won't until the hobby returns to what it was meant to be: a kid's way to remember their heroes.
There have been reports of dealers paying kids to stand in line for autographs, because a star player is more likely to sign for a kid than for an adult. Now that's just not right.
I still ask players to sign baseballs or pictures we've taken together, but I will not purchase these items. Once in a while, I may attend a show to have a special player sign something.
Last year, for example, Pete Rose was in town and since he's the utility player on my all-time team, I had to get a picture signed.
I have never cared about the monetary value of the items I have, but I do care about the fact that the person who signed for me was kind enough to do so.
He was good enough to help me remember baseball history, and that's the important thing. It's personal, as every collection should be.
Pal Eldredge is a baseball commentator for KFVE
and former varsity baseball coach at Punahou School.
His column runs Mondays during the Major League Baseball season.
Star-Bulletin sports can be reached at 529-4785 or: sports@starbulletin.com