On baseball cards and the Cincinnati Reds

Or: "Why we remember Keefe Cato"

When I was eight years old, like many of you, I became consumed with collecting baseball cards. Buying packs, trading with my friends and my brother, trying to collect every single Reds card. Now, finally, that childhood pastime is paying dividends.

These days, I’m low-key obsessed with the Immaculate Grid. I mean, it’s not like I’m thinking about it all day long like a weirdo, but one of my brothers and I compete against each other daily. It’s good clean fun!

What we’ve discovered is that our childhood obsession with baseball cards has been a fantastic asset in trying to complete the grid everyday. If we need a player who played for both the Mets and White Sox, somehow a 1986 Topps card of Tom Seaver in a ChiSox uni magically pops into our head. Need some combination of Houston, Cincinnati, and Los Angeles? Rafael Landestoy, obviously!

I’m probably from one of the last generations to collect cards for fun instead of profit. It’s a great thing that the hobby is hot once again, and I still purchase cards occasionally, but I don’t have much interest in trying to secure a card and get it professionally graded. If that’s your thing, enjoy!

I do wonder, however, about baseball fans of a certain age for whom cards were never an obsession. The kids these days, with their rock and roll music and their Tik-Toks, can follow the game and learn about the stars of the game via highlights scrolling by on their apps. Frankly, that’s far superior to the old days, when you had to depend on 6:00 news highlights and a weekly edition of The Sporting News. But if you grew up in the 1990s or before, how did you get to know the players if you didn’t collect cards?

I can close my eyes and picture some of my favorites…

1987 Topps Eric Davis. I loved this series; the wooden border was amazing for some reason. And this was the summer that Davis became a superstar, so this was a hot commodity on the middle school trading circuit.

1983 Topps Johnny Bench. This was the summer I really became a baseball fan. I never got to see Bench play, but all of the adults in my life thought he was the greatest player ever. Bench’s final season was 1983, so pulling this one from a wax pack was a big thrill.

1987 Topps Barry Larkin. Rookie card of my favorite player (pre-Adam Dunn era). Classic road unis. At this time, we still weren’t entirely sure he was going to be better than Kurt Stillwell.

1987 Kahn's Kal Daniels. Remember these Kahn’s sets you’d get as a giveaway at Riverfront Stadium. Paper thin, but we loved ‘em.

1986 Sportflics Dave Parker. This was the height of technology in the mid-80s. You looked at the card from one angle and it showed an action shot; from another angle, it was a portrait. What a time to be alive.

1984 Topps Team Leaders. Ron Oester led the team with a .264 batting average in 1983. That team was not good, you may be surprised to learn.

1983 Topps Dave Concepcion. I remember walking around the county fair with my grandmother when she spotted this card laying on the ground. It had been trod upon by no fewer than 2,500 feet, but she picked it up and exclaimed, “Davey!” She smoothed it out, and brought it home because one of the things she did with her grandsons was collect cards. I’ll write about her one of these days. An absolute legend.

1985 Topps Keefe Cato. Coolest name in Reds history? Maybe; we pronounced it Keefy Cato in the neighborhood. Worst airbrushing job in Topps history? No, but it’s pretty bad. Cato’s rookie card!

1988 Topps Terry McGriff. I still don’t know how this guy didn’t become a star. Maybe because he looked like he was 12-years-old.

1986 Donruss Paul O’Neill. A rated rookie!

1999 Bowman Adam Dunn. I own this one, Dunn’s rookie card. Notice that he’s smiling. This is before he was beaten down by the dumb criticisms from the fan base, writers, and broadcasters. Most undervalued Reds player of all time.

2000 Fleer Focus Ken Griffey, Jr. I mean, what a card. What a moment in Reds history.

2002 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects Joey Votto. Votto’s rookie card. I own this one as well. Perhaps I should get it graded. (I’m not going to get it graded.)

I could literally do this all day, but I won’t.

If you have never collected cards, why not start now? You don’t need to dive into the Gem-Mint-10 end of the pool to get into the hobby. Go on eBay and find some cheap cards of your favorite players from your childhood.

If you were a collector as a kid, I wanna hear about your favorites.

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What’s Chad Watching?

Three new movies recently, including two in the theater. Godzilla Minus One was the surprise of the year. It was getting good buzz and I wanted to go to the movies, so we gave it a shot. And it was really good! The first Godzilla movie I’ve ever enjoyed, if I’m being honest (and I am). Who knew a Japanese movie could do so well in America based solely on word of mouth. Recommended.

I went to see The Boy and the Heron with my son because he loves anime and Japanese culture. I love Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away was excellent), but this isn’t exactly my wheelhouse. It was, however, beautiful, and the dubbed version we saw featured an all-star cast (Christian Bale, Dave Bautista, Gemma Chan, Willem Dafoe, Mark Hamill, Robert Pattinson, and Florence Pugh). I will absolutely watch this one again.

Leave the World Behind is a Netflix movie from Sam Esmail (“Mr. Robot”) starring Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke, and Kevin Bacon. A superb case, obviously, but most of them played characters that were insufferable and cliched. The script was also muddled at times, but the plot — “A family’s getaway to a luxurious rental home takes an ominous turn when a cyberattack knocks out their devices — and two strangers appear at their door.” — was intriguing enough to make it worth a watch.

Roadblock was a meh film noir that I watched because I had 73 minutes of free time.

Meanwhile, I probably watched Boyz n the Hood more than any movie in the 1990s other than Tombstone and Pulp Fiction, but it had been a while. Still as powerful as it was the first time I saw it. Highly recommended if you somehow haven’t caught this one yet.