New York Post - USA (2020-11-15)

New York Post, Sunday, November 15, 2020

nypost.com

I

T FEElS like the right time to tell

this story, but then it is always

good to tell a story about fathers,

sons and baseball, isn’t it?

This begins on Easter Sunday

2010, when Derek Hogue told his fa-

ther, Michael, about something he’d

just purchased. The two had always

shared a passion for baseball any-

way, and its history. Derek had al-

ways had an affinity for 1950s base-

ball and the available paraphernalia

of the time: baseball cards, photos,

programs.

That day, though, he bought a Cy

Young baseball card at auction. And

something clicked.

“It had a magical feeling for me,”

Derek says.

We all have our own baseball card

stories, right? Some of us — hand

up here — used to make weekly pil-

grimages the instant we got our al-

lowances to Carl’s Candy Store,

where we’d snap up a pack of

Topps.

Sometimes, if our grades were

good or we’d behaved well for a

week, there’d be one of those three-

tiered packs, the one where you

could see three of the cards, so you

already knew you had a Reggie or a

Seaver or a Pete Rose before dig-

ging for deeper treasures once you

opened the rest.

We’d flip for them. We’d scale

for them. We’d trade them. We’d

put them in the spokes of our bi-

cycle. Say what you will about

baseball, but this is all a unique

part of the game’s appeal: an in-

stant way for kids to learn about

history in a hurry.

Of course, most of these stories

end with parents moving to Florida,

emptying the attic and absently

chucking those cards in a Dump-

ster. Goodbye to dozens of Rick

Dempseys and Biff Pocorobas and

Buzz Capras (and the odd Johnny

Bench and Rod Carew).

But baseball cards, vintage ones,

also provide a remarkable service to

the game because they offer slices

of actual history you can hold in

your hand (usually with a plastic

case serving as a buffer). Derek’s Cy

Young was part of a fabled line of

baseball cards known as the T206

collection, produced between

1909-11.

The most famous of these bears

the image of Honus Wagner. Wayne

Gretzky famously bought one of

these cards for $500,000 over 30

years ago. In October, another Wag-

ner card sold to a private collector

for $3.25 million (according to base-

ball-reference.com, Wagner made a

total of $134,550 in his 21-year Hall

of Fame career).

“That one,” Derek laughs, “is a lit-

tle out of my price range.”

But the Cy Young he was able to

afford unlocked a new world for

him, and for his father, a black-and-

white world of yesterday in which

so much of baseball’s appeal can be

explained.

“It was almost like a treasure

hunt,” Derek says. “It’s a different

kind of. Different kind if experience,

you get a feel for the uniform, the

way they look. These are just beau-

tiful portraits, the interesting hair-

styles of 100 years ago, everything

down to the last detail of what the

game looked like over 100 years ago.

“My first thought was, I couldn’t

believe how small they were. I felt

like I was holding an historical arti-

fact. It had a certain feeling to it.”

Derek was able to feed his passion

by contributing to the second edi-

tion of the book, “The T206 Collec-

tion: the Players

and their Stories,”

which is as enjoy-

able for fans of the

game’s history as

for aficionados of

vintage card col-

lecting. It is also

worth your while,

if this interests

you, to check out

the website

t206society.com.

For Derek,

who is 34 and

lives in Tor-

rance, Calif., it is

a refreshing re-

minder that not

all of collecting

— whether it’s

baseball cards,

stamps, coins

— is about

hoping for fu-

ture financial

windfall. Per-

haps the Wag-

ner collectors

can feel that way, or the lucky few

who own the famous 1952 Mickey

Mantle Topps 311 card, the other

part of the holy grail of baseball

cards.

Sometimes it is simply the own-

ing of a slice of history, the appeal

of the cards themselves, which is

enough. The charge you got tearing

open a pack of 10 Topps 1976 cards

is the same feeling when you hold a

Cy Young or a Ty Cobb in your

hands.

“If you love baseball form of art,

it’s a form of art,” he says.

It is also what keeps baseball

unique. You don’t often hear folks

ruminate about a 1935 Bronk Nagur-

ski card, or a ’51 Dolph Schayes.

Baseball still has that. Baseball will

always have that.

Richard Siegelman: I’m skeptical

of Steve Cohen’s three- to five-

year timeline for a Mets

championship, because fellow

billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov

promised “a Nets championship

within five years or else I’ll

punish myself by getting

married” — and broke both

promises.

Vac: Luckily for Mets fans, it

appears Cohen and his wife,

Alex, are happily married and

perfectly giddy about their new

toy.

Frank Bifulco: I’m against the

Mets signing Trevor Bauer. Why?

I’m not convinced he’s a true No.

1 ace. Might be more of a solid

No. 2, especially in N.Y. He

pitched against the NL and AL

Central all year this year. How

would deGrom, Syndergaard or

even Stroman look if they only

pitched against the Centrals?

Vac: He opened my eyes with

how helpless he made the Braves

look in the playoffs — terrific

team, big stage, big moment,

and he rose to it.

@PaloozaMitch: What a

character Paul Hornung was. I

remember reading Jerry

Kramer’s book “Instant Replay”

in high school. May he rest in

peace.

@MikeVacc:Much like Joe

Namath after him, he was the

ultimate have-it-all football hero.

Men wanted to be him. Women

wanted to be with him. What a

life.

George Corchia: Man’s it’s been a

rough football season for the

locals. I just saw this on the sports

scroll: Bye Week 21, Jets 17.

Vac: Come on: You were all

thinking it. Someone had to say it.

EVERY SUNDAY MIKE VACCARO RESPONDS TO READERS’ QUESTIONS AT [email protected] AND @MIKEVACC ON TWITTER

Mike Vaccaro

[email protected]

OPEN MIKE

card game

Collecting keepsakes

an MLB fan tradition

I THOUGHT one

interesting takeaway

from the Mets’ media

blitz Tuesday was

Sandy Alderson saying

that Luis Rojas (below)

is likely going to

manage this year,

pending the hiring of an

operations chief. But a

few minutes earlier

Steve Cohen had also

said this: “I don’t like

people learning on the

job on my dime.”

➤First-world problems

from a binge-watch-y

era: Had three

episodes of HBO’s “The

Undoing” stacked up,

ripped through all

three in one sitting ...

and then had to wait

four days for the next

episode. That’s so 1988

“L.A. Law” right there.

➤When I saw that the

White Sox hired Tony

La Russa, I figured it

had to be because Pop

Fisher turned the job

down first.

➤Let’s just say that

Bryson DeChambeau

isn’t a sporting prophet

on the level of Namath

or Messier just yet.

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