My vintage card of the week: The 1983 Fleer Tony Gwynn rookie card. I appreciate all three of Tony’s rookie cards, but something about the Fleer just makes it stand out to me. I love the gray borders and the yellow and brown jersey and hat, and the prominent old-school Padres logo just makes the card pop. Gwynn was the best pure hitter of my baseball generation, and I still think he would’ve hit .400 in 1994 if the strike hadn’t robbed him of the opportunity.

My vintage card of the week: The 1957 Topps Frank Robinson rookie card. I think Frank might be the most underrated player in the history of the game, at least in terms of hobby interest. 2X MVP (the first and only player to win MVP in both leagues until Shohei came along). Triple Crown winner. ROY. 14X AS. 2 WS championships and a WS MVP. And counting stats? 586 HR; 1812 RBI; and 107.2 career WAR. The numbers are incredible. And his cultural legacy? He was the first Black manager in Major League Baseball. This 1957 Topps card is a great-looking card that deserves more love in the hobby.

My vintage card of the week: The 1980 Topps Rickey Henderson rookie card. The greatest leadoff hitter in the history of the game. The stolen bases. The average. The pop. The swagger that allows one to talk about himself in the third person. Dude was iconic. And this card is iconic. My favorite Rickey’ism came after someone in the locker room quoted the bible, referencing John 3:16, and Rickey replied: “Rickey don’t wanna hear ‘bout John hittin’ .316. Rickey’s hittin’ .330!”

My vintage card of the week: The 1965 Topps AL RBI Leaders card. Brooks is my guy, and I always loved this card because it showcases the fact that Brooks was not just a defensive magician with 16 gold gloves. He was also a clutch offensive performer for the Orioles throughout his career, and he won AL MVP in 1964. He hit .317 with 28 HR that year, and as shown on this card, he drove in a league-leading 118 runs. And for fans of the new-fangled stats, Brooks produced an .889 OPS and also led the AL with 8.1 WAR in ‘64. Everyone knows Mantle was an offensive juggernaut, but Brooks got the headline portrait on this card.

My uncle had reached out to me about a year ago and said, "I have some baseball cards and wanted to sell them." He knows nothing about these and had inherited them from a family member years ago. I figured maybe some 1970s cards or something similar...

Nope, it was about (70) cards from this 1933 Goudey set. Including the Babe Ruth #144. While not in the best condition, we sent many off to PSA and the Ruth came in at a grade of 1. Others were anywhere from 1s to PSA 4. Anyway we had a great time learning about these vintage baseball cards and sold most of them.

In the end he got to keep the money, which was what he wanted, and all I wanted was some of the cards as payment for selling them for him. Very cool collection! I still have a few of these in my PC including the Rogers Hornsby in a PSA 2.