Summertime
Many a song has been written about the blissful summertime adventures of adolescence. Three favorites of mine that come to mind are All Summer Long by Kid Rock, Stone in Love by Journey, and Bob Seger's amazing number Night Moves.
If you're familiar these classics, you know that each look back at romantic encounters, with Kid Rock specifically recalling one during the summer of '89. And while the other two mention the word summer in the lyrics, I think it's more as a metaphor for those carefree days of their teenage-years.
I'm not here to reminisce about my own sexual encounters during those days in the mid-late 1980s (even if I wanted to, there wasn't much to brag about), but about baseball and a couple of cool cards that arrived in yesterday's mail.
I saw the Topps Chrome Summertime in the Park inserts and just knew I needed this Acuna. Like a song about summertime escapades, it reminds me of my youth. Many a summer day was spent down at the ballpark. Practice in the morning, which included players from different teams in city league; then team practice in late afternoon/early evening. Except on game nights. Later in the summer, it turned to All-Star practices and then traveling to any number of towns for tournaments. And I can't go without mentioning a bit of irony. We had two All-Star teams- an "A" team and a "B" team. The sponsor of our "A" team, the one I played for during a few of those summers, is the same company I've now spent the last 35.5 years working for. FYI, I preferred playing rather than working for them. Anyway, once the baseball season was done, our family would take a week or two for vacation- which usually meant more time at the ballpark. The Kingdome, Candlestick, Dodger Stadium, Anaheim Stadium and Jack Murphy.
I really have nothing for this Fried card. It has nothing to do with the theme of this post, other than arriving in Friday's mail. Heck, we didn't even really have inserts as we know them today, when I was a kid so I can't even say it reminds me of my childhood. Deal with it (see what I did there?).
And just a reminder to you young-uns who might be foolin' around this upcoming summer: use protection. (The Summertime Acuna was shipped in this, further safeguarding what was already nicely protected)
It is interesting that the inserts now are so prevalent whereas when we were collecting 40 years ago there were simply a subset or two within the set itself (the Father and Son, Super Veterans, Turn Back the Clock, cards, for example). That's much more my speed that "Call to the Hall" or the Summertime thing or any of the other gazillion insert sets. But they are good additions for your collection and that's all that matters.
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DeleteYeah, I hear ya. It used to be much easier on the pocketbook, and on time spent chasing stuff down. There have been times during my collecting journey when all I wanted were the base cards. Then I think what happens when I get all of them? Would I basically be stuck just picking up the current year base cards for flagship? This is my primary hobby so I need stuff to chase after to keep boredom from setting in.
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