During that decade-plus, Gibson established himself as one of the most dominant pitchers in the National League and helped his St. Louis Cardinals to two World Series championships (1964 and 1967) and to a near-miss in another (1968).

He also owned a career record of 206-130 with a 2.82 ERA in more than 3000 innings pitched. Along the way, he had struck out more than 2500 batters and walked another 1000+.

All of which is to say that Bob Gibson had a lot of mileage on his powerful right arm as he turned the corner on his 30s and started thinking about what his 40s could bring. You might expect a dude in that situation to be pretty keen on taking care of himself — you know, staying in shape, watching out for twinges that might indicate danger, and making sure to warm up and stay warm.

Against that backdrop, it’s not at all surprising to find Mr. Gibson in his red-red Cardinals warm-up jacket on the front of his 1972 Topps card.

Now, you might argue that Gibson was only 35 when that picture was snapped, and you’re probably right.

But nearly everything I said about a 36-year-old power pitcher goes for a 35-year-old power pitcher, too, if only slightly less urgently.

And besides, isn’t this a beautiful card?

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Gibson looks perfectly at home in 1972 (or 1971 if you want to get technical about the picture, again) with sideburns that would make Ginger Baker green with envy.

And that jacket is complemented nicely by the Cards’ home whites underneath the “StL” cap on his head. Then, of course, there is the psychedelic “CARDINALS” starburst against a blue background that looks like an extension of the cool blue sky above Gibson’s head.

The whole off-kilter vibe of the early 1970s comes through like gangbusters, too, courtesy of the off-kilter camera angle that makes you feel like Gibson is standing on the side of a mountain.

It’s an awesome card of an awesome player would begin a fairly rapid decline in 1973.

That year, he’d make only 25 starts and finish 12-10, but post a still-great 2.77 ERA.

In 1974, though, when he topped 30 starts for the last time (with 33), Gibson slid to 11-13, 3.83. Then, after a 3-10, 5.04 campaign in 1975, Gibson was done.

But not in 1972. That spring, he was just getting warmed up for one last great season — 19-11, 2.46 ERA, 208 strikeouts, and a ninth-place finish in the National League Cy Young Award vote.

It was a great performance that makes his gorgeous 1972 Topps card all the more gorgeous, and a perfect choice for this Day 28 of my 2019 Spring Training Baseball Card Challenge.

In case you haven’t been following along, this is the day I’m supposed to talk about a card showing a player in his warm-up jacket.

Consider the challenge met for today, thanks to Bob Gibson, who specialized in meeting challenges all through his playing career. Even if that meant taking the bump a million times during the World Series or turning up his game one more time at age 36.

All he needed was a little warm-up time.

Check out the entire series of 2019 Spring Training Challenge posts here.

Of course, that’s no mean feat, and only a couple dozen guys will be able to pull off the trick by the end of the year. Heck, plenty of players never win a World Series, and some high-profile names never even made it to the Fall Classic before hanging up their spikes.

But the two ends of the baseball season are inextricably linked — you go to Spring Training when it’s still freaking winter so that you have a chance to still be playing when it’s cold again, with another winter just around the corner.

And if you’re like most teams, and most players, and you fall short of your goal in October,  you’re left chomping at the bit to get to your next spring camp. Because, you know, next time around will be different.

Given this bond between beginning and end, between preparation and success, it’s only fitting that I end my 2019 Spring Training Baseball Card Challenge, here on Day 46, with a look at a World Series baseball card.

Now, there are plenty of cards to choose from, as Topps issued cards commemorating the Fall Classic for a couple of decades.

So how do you choose just one?

The answer is, you rely on personal experiences and personal tastes, like just about everything else in this hobby.

So …

The first World Series card I remember owning was the 1981 Topps beauty that shows Tug McGraw with triumphant fists in the air after the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Kansas City Royals in the 1980 Series. It’s a great card that always reminds me of collecting — I think I pulled it from one of my first packs, and I can almost taste the gum whenever I see a copy.

It was really hard to resist choosing old Tug in this slot.

But there is another contender that really tweaks my hobby sensibilities, and it’s a multi-parter — the 1975 Topps subset celebrating the Oakland A’s five-game victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1974 World Series.

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This baby has a lot going for it …

• The ALCS and NLCS each get a card of their own.
• Each World Series game gets a dedicated card.
• The last card in the subset is a Series capper.
• The border colors are outrageous and awesome — yellow, purple, and pink everywhere.
• The photos are awesome (if grainy).
• The Dodgers lost the Series handily.
• I owned the subset early on in my collecting career (bought as a “team set” for a couple bucks).

So, yeah, that’s a preponderance of goodness that I cannot ignore, and my choice will come from this subset. But which card in particular?

Well, the Game 1 card (#461) features an awesome shot of Reggie Jackson at bat, but I’ve given Reggie plenty of love on this site over the years.

The Game 2 card shows happy Dodgers in the dugout after their only victory in that October showdown. Pass.

Rollie Fingers is dealing on Game 3, and the card is a solid contender.

Same for the Game 5 card, with Joe Rudi rounding third after hitting a homer while Ron Cey looks on.

But for my money, nothing beats the Game 4 card, where a batter is following through on a monster swing that looks like it did something good. I mean, you can see that Steve Yeager is left just hanging there behind the plate, waiting with his glove extended for a pitch that never made it to him.

And the batter?

Oh, that’s just A’s starter Ken Holtzman, who pitched six innings in that game, gave up two runs, struck out seven … and hit a home run in the bottom of the third inning off Dodgers starter Andy Messersmith to put Oakland up, 1-0.

Holtzman also won the game, with Fingers picking up the save, setting up the A’s for a Series victory the next night.

And did I mention the card is laid out in a sweeping horizontal format?

Yeah, it’s a winner, just like Ken Holtzman was in 1974.

He closed the loop, from Spring Training stiffness to World Series glory, and he’s the perfect guy to close out this series with.

Enjoy the season!

Check out the entire series of 2019 Spring Training Challenge posts here.

You know the story by now … 74 undigested peanut-butter-and-‘nanner sammiches in his gut … a drug store in his bedroom … embarrassing bathroom scene right there at the end.

But no matter how much “evidence” has been presented over the years, there are plenty of The King’s fans who never really believed he died on that fateful day.

Reports started surfacing not long after his purported death that he was still roaming this earth, and not as a ghost, but as a real, live everyman.

Folks ran into Elvis in greasy-spoon diners across the South.

He’d be spied shopping at a Piggly Wiggly or picking up toilet paper (amen!) at a Winn-Dixie.

Or, very often, he’d be barreling down some long, lonesome highway in this 18-wheeler.

No, Elvis didn’t die on that fateful porcelain-encased night at Graceland … he just pulled back from the limelight, took the money he’d made over 20 years as an American icon, and decided to just live for once!

And the funny thing was, these stories weren’t all just stories. Sure, you might discount your neighbor Carl’s insistence that he ran into The Pelvis in the alley behind the local watering hole late one night as nothing but drunken ramblings, but some of the the accounts were backed up by evidence.

Photographic evidence.

That’s right — every once in awhile, the King-seer in question would have the wherewithal to pull out his or her Polarioid or Kodak flash and snap a picture of Elvis in his natural habitat of the moment. In case you’ve never seen one of those shots, they most often looked about like this:

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Now, I know what you’re thinking here … that’s just a picture of the 1977 Topps Chuck Hartenstein baseball card. And you’re right, officially speaking. But I’m telling you, this is what post-dead (and nearly-dead, for that matter) Elvis looked like through at least the late 1980s.

And consider a couple of pieces of supporting evidence …

First, here is what Hartenstein looked like on his most recent card before 1977, on his 1970s Topps issue:

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Do you really think that’s the same guy?

Second, 1970 was the last time Hartenstein played in the Major Leagues until he showed up with the expansion Blue Jays for the 1977 season. Sure, there were some minor league stops in there, but then weren’t those just the sort of places — minor league stadiums, ratty team buses — you might have found Living Dead Elvis in subsequent years.  Hmmm …

And, third, Hartenstein’s last game came on July 26, 1977 in Toronto, against the Texas Rangers. That was just a few weeks before Elvis supposedly winked out.

So, is it a coincidence that the two disappeared at almost exactly the same time, or is Hartenstein’s Canadian exit somehow tied to the mystery surrounding the death of Elvis Aron (misspelled “Aaron” on his grave!!) Presley.

Look, I’m not saying Elvis and Chuck Hartenstein were or are the same person.

I’m just saying that Elvis and Chuck Hartenstein were or are the same person, maybe.

And that there’s a chance it’s Elvis, not Hartenstein on Chuck’s 1977  Topps baseball card (and his 1977 O-Pee-Chee card, for that matter).

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Who knows? Maybe it was just one last chance for Elvis to wink at his admiring fans before riding off into the sunset.

(This has been Day 45 of my 2019 Spring Training Baseball Card Challenge, wherein I examine a silly card. And, you have to admit, Elvis looked pretty darn silly on these “Chuck Hartenstein” baseball cards!)

Check out the entire series of 2019 Spring Training Challenge posts here.

They’re one of the prime drivers for the friendships we form, the social tribes — in the vernacular of today’s whippersnappers — we build.

I mean, have you ever had friends you met at work? Unless your name is “Albert Belle,” chances are pretty good. And somewhere among that group, I’ll bet there are at least a few folks who would have never come into your circle were it not for things you did together in the job place.

And if you’ve ever lost a job or a loved one or a pair of glasses, you know it’s the people around you going through the same emotions, or who have gone through the same emotions, who help you survive the grieving process.

But it’s not just negative or tough situations that help bring people together … nope, good stuff can do it, too.

Like baseball cards.

I mean, here we are, two people who don’t know each other (probably) sharing some digital space for a few minutes and having the same sorts of nostalgic thoughts — about baseball, about collecting, about fathers and sons or other relationships, about the good times we’ve had in the hobby, and the good times we hope lie ahead.

We have a shared past, shared hopes and dreams, whether or not we ever meet each other.

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And I’ll bet that most of us who partake of the cardboard arts have other shared experiences, too, from similar memories of our school days to anticipation of the new baseball season.

And cartoons.

I mean, if you’re reading this, chances are you grew up at least partially in the 1970s or 1980s … or at least the 1960s or 1990s. And in any of those cases, you likely know a thing or two about Saturday morning cartoons, Sunday funnies, maybe even comic books.

It’s one of the reasons, I think, why those little cartoons on the backs of some old baseball cards appealed to us so much as kids, and why they continue to pull at us today.

It’s also why I knew I had to include a card based specifically on the merits of its cartoon quality here on Day 44 of my 2019 Spring Training Baseball Card Challenge. Toons are one of the basic building blocks of a classic card collection, after all.

But which card, among the hundreds or thousands of possibilities, would make the cut here?

It was a tough call, let me tell you. But in the end, I came back to our true north for the day — shared experiences.

Page through (or thumb through if you’re going the stacks route) just about any Topps issue from 1954 through 1982, and you’ll see the dilemma — but not if you linger in 1973. Because there, on card #551, Topps presents us with a cartoon that stops the whole search train on the spot.

The front of the card features Mike Kilkenny, then of the Cleveland Indians and formerly of the Detroit Tigers, Oakland A’s, and San Diego Padres. Kilkenny is gazing into (or at a spot near) the camera, not looking too amused from his set-position pose, but looking very 70s chic with his brake-shoe sideburns. A sparsely populated Indians dugout peeps in behind him, and a few fans mill around in the blue stadium seats looming into the darkness above that.

It’s a fine card of a journeyman pitcher (23-18, 4.43 RA, 4 saves over five Major League season).

But flip the thing over and, holy cow!

Right at the very top of the vertical card back is a drawing of a young player in a baseball uniform, a large sack slung over one shoulder, and a trio of baseball-card-shaped golden *things* in his other hand. The caption confirms what you suspected at first glance:

Mike carries his baseball cards in his duffle bag.

Forget holy cow … holy crap!

This guy was one of us … a collector who couldn’t stand to be away from his precious cardboard for even as long as it took to do his business at the stadium. Nope, they went along with him. How could you not love him for that?

How could you not love this card for telling us about it?

You couldn’t not love either one, that’s how.

We have shared experiences, Mike and me, and you, too. And here’s one more for you …

Mike Kilkenny passed away on June 28, 2018, at the age of 73. I somehow missed the news, and I’m sure I’m not alone in that. And it’s all the sadder to learn about now, because Mike Kilkenny wasn’t “just” a baseball player … he was part of the vast cardboard brotherhood that ties us all together.

Check out the entire series of 2019 Spring Training Challenge posts here.

No one is immune to those ravages, but some of us are more susceptible and impressionable than others.

Like children, for instance.

And baseball fans.

Both groups are often searching for information about things they don’t yet know well, and both are often looking for sunny forecasts. Tell them (us) what they (we) want to hear, and you probably have a receptive ear.

And when you have young baseball fans, the effects can be compounded. That reality played out on a personal level for me in the summer of 1983, just as my friends and I were starting to get into baseball cards.

One day, one of those guys and I arranged a “play date” — we lived in the country, so getting back and forth between each other’s houses was sometimes an ordeal, and required planning. After a few hours running around in his yard, looking for and finding plenty of adventures, his mom called us in for lunch.

While we downed our bologna sandwiches, potato chips, and grape pop, the afternoon rains set in. Soon thereafter, so did the sleepiness, and we decided it would be much more fun to find something to do inside for the afternoon.

Luckily, he had accumulated a few baseball cards that spring, and so had I — and I just so happened to have brought some along with me. (Truth be told, we were all always looking for an opportunity for a pop-up trading session).

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I probably had a couple hundred cards in a small box I lugged along that day, and I’m guessing he had maybe 500-600 in his collection. Our options were limited, in other words, but we didn’t really know that at the time. We were too busy devouring every glimpse of a “new” card or unknown player, and every morsel of information on card backs.

By that point, I had already spent many hours reading through all my card backs, inadvertently memorizing stats and facts. I knew my buddy had done much the same because, in an earlier get-together, he had recited some glowing bit of Topps text about Barry Foote that I had only recently come across myself. My friend made out like it was his own original thought, and I let him have it — but I knew the truth.

On this day, my trade partner was looking through my box of cards to see if there was anything of interest to him when his eyes went wide and his body tensed. I knew he’d found some cardboard gold.

“Not much here,” he said, poker face stiff and flushed. “I might be able to give you something for this Dave Laroche … I guess.”

He pushed the card forward just a smidge from the rest of the stack, and I could see it was a 1983 Topps Super Veteran card. I had opened enough packs that spring to know that the Super Veterans included guys I knew pretty well, like Pete Rose, Reggie Jackson, and Steve Carlton, but also a few players who were mysterious to me as recently as January of that year– Kent Tekulve, Jim Kaat, Ted Simmons.

And Dave LaRoche.

I still didn’t know much about LaRoche as the days grew hot, but I did know — thanks to that Topps card — that he had been around since 1970, which was basically forever. And, from the card back, I knew he was 10th on the all-time saves list, with 125. And that he had some All-Star and postseason credentials to his name.

Oh, and he sort of looked like my friend.

LaRoche, then, was a star. At least in our eyes. No wonder my bud wanted that card!

But that was just fine with me, because I had spied the perfect return as I thumbed through my friend’s cards — a 1983 Donruss Storm Davis.

I didn’t know it was Davis’ rookie card, and I only vaguely knew what a rookie card was, anyway.

I didn’t know Davis was a pretty good prospect for a good Baltimore Orioles team.

Nope, what I knew was that he looked like a real ballplayer on the front of that card … and that his name was, “Storm.”

That was plenty, and the deal was swung.

Looking back, neither one of us really got the better end of that trade, but both of us won because we got to spend time with new cardboard, we got to learn about new (to us) players, and we were able to strengthen out friendship.

What more could you ask from a rainy summer afternoon?

(This look at “a card I traded away” checks in at Day 43 in my 2019 Spring Training Baseball Card Challenge.)

Check out the entire series of 2019 Spring Training Challenge posts here.

See, today I’m supposed to write about a single card that I bought, but …

As I sit here and rack my brain trying to come up with a suitable swath of cardboard, I’m realizing something about myself as a collector. Namely, I haven’t been much of a “singles” buyer over the years.

Now, don’t get me wrong here — I’ve had a few collecting projects over the years. I made good stabs at Pete Rose and Mike Schmidt base-card runs. I’ve chipped in a couple of cards in singles-fashion to complete a set here or there.

And like just about everyone in every walk of life, I’ve had my dalliances with impulse buys, too.

But there are problems with most of those.

I’ve already written extensively about Pete and Schmitty here on the old blog over the years.

And I honestly don’t remember which individual cards I slid in to finish specific sets.

And I sure don’t remember all my impulse buys.

Luckily, though, I do remember some of those spur-of-the-moment purchases. And as I sit here on a cold and snowy night in March of 2019 after a long day of work, I’m longing for the heat and freedom of a childhood summer.

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Which makes me think particularly about the summer of 1984, and all the times my parents and I spent tooling around in our old blue Dodge pickup, traipsing from antique store to antique store, flea market to flea market.

And it was on one of those sweaty trips that we found ourselves at the monthly flea market held at the Indiana State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis. It was a monstrous show, swallowing up three whole buildings, including the Agriculture and Horticulture building.

That place is a huge, cavernous three-lobed beast that feels like an old basketball field house when you’re in it, and you can practically taste the history dripping down the walls (along with the summer humidity).

On this particular day, we had finished winding our way through one side of the show and had just entered the wedge-shaped center section when I spied a guy with a pretty sparse booth near the women’s restroom. Basically, the set-up was just a few tables and maybe a bookshelf, but I could see even from a distance that he had the gold I was seeking — baseball cards!

So I high-tailed it across the floor, Mom and Dad chasing after me, and started picking my way through his wares. Mostly, it was mundane newer stuff — unopened 1984 Topps wax packs, some 1983 Fleer singles, maybe a team set or two.

But there in the center of one of the tables was a ginormous 1984 Topps Keith Hernandez card — the one with all the pale blue “METS” and accents, the Mets pinstripes … and Hernandez’s rump in center frame.

I’d seen that card plenty in the scores of packs I had already opened that spring and summer, but this version was freaking enormous.

“Those are the new Super cards,” the guy said. “Not many of them made. Going to be real collector’s items.”

“Wow!” I said. My poker face always has been stellar.

“And Keith Hernandez is a Hall of Famer, I’ll tell you that. He’s going to lead the Mets to the World Series.” The guy had a live one.

“How much?” I blurted.

“Well,” the dealer said, rubbing a scraggly chin. “I could let it go for 40 cents.”

“I’ll take it!”

And I did.

Still got it, too, so I suppose it wasn’t too bad of a buy even if most of what that dealer said to sell me on old Keith never rally panned out.

Check out the entire series of 2019 Spring Training Challenge posts here.

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But beneath all that sparkling newness, there is always a swirling undercurrent of finality trying to sweep men away into that vast darkness of a post-playing-career world. It’s here that stories of struggle and frailty and determination and grit and, ultimately for everyone, acceptance grow.

Because Spring Training is for the rookies and the young, yes, but it’s also for the game’s old men trying to put together one last run, break camp and head north with the Big Team one last time.

Today, on Day 41 of my 2019 Spring Training Baseball Card Challenge, I’m celebrating those guys who are fighting one last time against the pulls of time … in cardboard.

And, while he may not have gone to Spring Training in my lifetime (though he may have … not sure) no one was better at looking old on baseball cards — on some of my baseball cards — than Minnie Minoso.

Sure, Phil Niekro and Gaylord Perry looked like grandpas on the mound forever, and Harmon Killebrew was famously white-haired on his 1975 Topps issue, but none of them brought the weight of time to their baseball cards like Minoso did on his 1977 Topps Record Breaker card.

Those lines on his brow speak of a lifetime’s worth of stress, not surprising considering he was 50 years old when the photo was snapped, and 51 when the card came out.

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Those heavy eyes, gazing off into the distance at a world that’s maybe better than ours, tell of the struggles he has seen in his life and career. As a black man who came to the Major Leagues with the Cleveland Indians just two years after Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby broke the color barrier, his path had to have been a rough one.

The hunched shoulders speak of a physical burden born of years on the road, chasing his baseball dreams, and catching most of them … and of the years he’s been away from the game, settling into an uneasy retirement as best he could.

And, yes, I realize that this card exists only because of a publicity stunt perpetrated by the Chicago White Sox and Minoso himself. He would play in four different decades, and then five, the first man to do it!

And he would do it as a member of the Southsiders, by golly.

Retirement couldn’t stop him, either.

See, Minoso hung up his spikes in 1964 at the age of 38, but Bill Veeck brought him back for three games in 1976 at 50 to make him a four-decade guy.

Four years later, as the 1980s dawned, Minnie was back for yet another go — two games, two at-bats, two outs.

Ten years after that, Minoso was scheduled to make a minor league appearance with the Miami Miracle to become a six-decade professional, but Major League Baseball kiboshed the idea, robbing us of the chance to see a 64-year-old man on a baseball card as an active player.

It was an opportunity lost for all of us, because Minnie Minoso carried the torch for all us old men who thought — think — that if things break just right, maybe … just maybe … there’s still a chance.

Check out the entire series of 2019 Spring Training Challenge posts here.

If you’re anything like me, the list includes …

Palm trees and blue skies.

Warm-up jackets and warming temperatures.

Your favorite team trying to knock the rust off a long winter.

Old players in new places.

Old players in old places, trying to comeback.

Superstars trying to hold onto their perch.

All of these and plenty more are likely to flood your brain every time talk turns to the spring camps. But maybe more than anything, the overarching theme of spring in general and Spring Training in particular is renewal and new beginnings.

And nothing says “new beginnings” more than all the young guys around MLB trying to make their marks and crack a Big League roster. Card collectors are luckier than most in this regard because we’ve often had an early preview, courtesy of our cardboard, of the young dudes who might someday be diamond kings (or Diamond Kings) but who today are just a few strands of peach fuzz removed from home cooking.

With that thought percolating in my mind I knew I had to include a card of one of these young-looking players when I set out my 2019 Spring Training Baseball Card Challenge, so I’m here on Day 40 to discuss just such a pasteboard.

To figure out which specific card I wanted to profile, I went all the way back to the beginning … of my own hobby days, which means roughly 1983. In the spring of that year, I was just starting to eye the dusty stacks of 1981 and 1982 baseball cards I had stashed in a dark corner of my room, thinking they might be something worth thumbing through after all. By that fall, I’d be all-in, but not before a summer of discovery.

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At about the same time I was debating my cardboard future, one of those would-be Major Leaguers was trying his darnedest to crack the vaunted Los Angeles Dodgers rotation. Even though L.A. had finished second in the old National League West to Dale Murphy and his Atlanta Braves in 1982, they were still the Dodgers, after all. And they still had Fernando Valenzuela, Jerry Reuss, Bob Welch, and Burt Hooton for the rotation, joined by 24-year-old Alejandro Pena.

So it wasn’t too surprising that another 24-year-old, Orel Hershiser, found the going tough that spring and eventually found himself back in Triple-A with the Albuquerque Dukes. It was his second go-round in the mountains after climbing the Dodgers farm system one rung a year from 1979 through 1982.

Within a couple of seasons, of course, everyone would know about the “late-blooming” Hershiser, who led the Dodgers into the National League Championship Series with an incredible 19-3 record and 2.03 ERA in 1985.

The folks who were really paying attention before that, though — and most Dodgers fans — already knew Orel was on his way, finally. After an eight-game stint in the L.A. bullpen at the end of 1983, he went 11-8, 2.66 in ’84 to land third in NL Rookie of the Year voting (behind Dwight Gooden and Juan Samuel).

And, though, he didn’t garner an MLB card until his breakout summer of 1985, Hershiser did land a couple of minor league issues on his way up.

In 1982, he was card number 4 in the TCMA Albuquerque Dukes set. It’s a card any Hershiser collector would love to own, but the shot is far enough away, and grainy enough, that it’s hard to get a good look at the Bulldog.

In 1983, though, his return engagement in the same set gives us our first cardboard look at the choirboy who carved up Major League hitters for the better part of two decades — despite his late start.

There on card number 3, Hershiser kneels in the grass with a minor league outfield wall behind him. He has his mitted left hand on his knee, his right hand gripping a ball and hanging over his thigh. And young Orel peers out from under his read and yellow Dukes hat with the Richie Cunningham mug that he would carry into his forties and on to a 204-150 record.

Exactly how old does Hershiser look on his 1983 TCMA card?

You’ll have to make that determination for yourself, but younger than 24 in my eyes.

And much younger than I’ve felt in a long time.

But no matter how old he looks, he also looks … timeless.

Check out the entire series of 2019 Spring Training Challenge posts here.

The answer to that question depends on how you define “old,” of course, and there’s a good chance the answer is incremental.

For instance, I clearly remember hauling in a 1980 Topps Tony Scott card as part of a trade with a friend at school in the spring of 1983. I had never owned any card issued prior to 1981, so that thing was ancient (and priceless) to me.

Not long after, though, my family and I began frequenting antique shops, flea markets, and even card shows, and I started to get a taste of what old cards really were.

In particular, they were cards that neither I nor my friends could have ever pulled from a pack at the store. They were cards that our dads might have pulled from packs. They were cards that featured dusty photos, archaic drawings or paintings, crude designs, defunct teams.

I had a new standard.

My first step backward from Mr. Scott was a 1971 Topps Boots Day card I found in a ten-cent box at one of those flea markets in the summer of 1983. It was pretty old, issued right before I was born, and it looked like it came from another century. Boots probably was my first old card, but he was really more just “dated” at that point — some of my friends older siblings could have easily pulled him from a pack and handed him down.

I didn’t have to wait long, though, to get hold of a couple cards that checked all the boxes for my definition of “old” and passed the sibling test in just about every case.

At one of those same monthly flea markets that same summer, I ran across a bona fide baseball card dealer who had cards in cases, cards in sleeves, cards in 700-count boxes, cards in wax, cello, and rack packs. He had everything, it seemed, including a small box of “old” cards that were bargain priced for one reason or another.

I had to have one.

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But as I shuffled through the box, it quickly became apparent that I had to have two …

First was a horizontally-oriented card that looked like an old wood-grained TV set and featured a young player identified as KALINE in a batting stance with a huge light tower over his right shoulder.

The guy wanted five bucks for it, but I pulled out my trusty pocket price guide and showed my dad that a 1955 Bowman Al Kaline card was worth considerably more — I don’t remember for sure how much — $10, $15, $20?

Whatever it was, Dad agreed it seemed like a good enough deal. (Only later on did I realize that the photo being detached from the card back actually dinged the value. Oh well.)

The other card didn’t look like anything I could find in my price guide or anything I had seen before. It was in the standard vertical format and started with a big red SENATORS pennant at the top, complete with team logo. Underneath was a photo of an old, old man who looked like he should be coaching Rocky or something.

The color shot seemed not quite real, and I thought it might even be a painting.

And underneath, in alternating red and blue letters, the guy’s impossible name clinched the deal for me: COOKIE LAVAGETTO. He was identified as “MANAGER * WASHINGTON.”

The back of the card was all cartoon, detailing Cookie’s careers as a player and a manager, and mentioning long-ago, unheard of years like “1947” and “1939.”

Here was the old card I’d been looking for, and at just a buck, it was going to be mine. And it was.

As the years passed, I pulled plenty of manager cards from packs and accumulated probably hundreds more as I grew my collection as fast as humanly possible. But none ever quite compared to that first memorable one of the guy named “Cookie.”

Dude just looked like a manager, even if his time in the dugout would end after the 1961 season with a career record of 271-384 … and even if he was only 46 years old in the picture on that 1960 Topps card of his.

Doesn’t matter … Cookie is always the one I think of first when I hear, or type, “manager card.”

So, when I laid out my 2019 Spring Training Baseball Card Challenge and slotted a manager card here on Day 39, there could really only be one choice.

Check out the entire series of 2019 Spring Training Challenge posts here.

See, my natural inclination is to turn the old virtual three-ring binder right to the pages with Cincinnati Reds cards and just go to town. But I’ve written plenty about the Reds on this site already and will probably write about them plenty more.

So … you know, balance.

But even back in the beginning of this thing, I knew Day 38 — today — would be a present a special challenge. Today is the day I’m going to look at a card that features a drawing or painting, and there was really only one set that would do — 1976 Linnett Superstars.

Now, they weren’t necessarily the first cards I thought of — I probably loosely had 1953 Topps or 1951 Bowman in mind as I wrote down the challenge.

And the first cards showing artwork I can remember owning were some of the early Donruss Diamond Kings cards.

All great stuff, but a little mundane, and none of them quite trip my nostalgia switch like the Linnetts.

The first time I saw those oversize beauties with the colorful borders was on a trip to our more-or-less local antique/junk shop in the summer of 1984. That was the magical season when I finally latched onto baseball, and baseball cards, for good after years of flirting. It was the summer I knew I was done-for, all-in.

I think we all have a summer like that rattling around in our memories, and when you look back, it’s easy to see the magic of so many moments baking into your heart and soul for the long haul. At the time, we were just having fun, awed by it all.

So anyway, I walked around the end of one dusty aisle of shelves and cases in this dingy old shop, and there were the Linnetts, shining up from their home nestled among stacks of old Life magazines and someone’s long-lost collection of alabaster thimbles.

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The cards were huge …

They were colorful, each with a red, back, blue, green, or white border ..

They were black-and-white — the player images, that is …

They were drawings, for gosh sake …

And … they commemorated the 1975 World Series.

Even at that early point in my fandom, thanks to my dad’s limited knowledge of recent baseball history, I was aware that the 1975 Reds were The Big Red Machine.

And therein lies my problem with The Challenge. Basically, I have no choice but to look at a Linnett card here, but I’m trying to avoid talking about yet another Reds card!

Luckily, though, the Linnetts didn’t focus on just the Reds. In fact, I’d find out later that they were sold in larger perforated sheets, allowing you to collect the Los Angeles Dodgers, Boston Red Sox, or the Reds all in one fell swoop.

So, the Linnetts didn’t really celebrate just the 1975 World Series, but that’s the lasting impression 12-year-old me carried forward from that long-ago day. And I had forgotten there were any Dodgers involved at all until I started putting this piece together.

Doesn’t matter, though.

Because I can pick a dude who was there when the Reds won their first “Machine” Fall Classic without picking an actual Red. So, who am I picking?

There are plenty of good candidates, but I’m going with Luis Tiant.

Tiant was not dominant in 1975 at 34 years of age, but he did win 18 games. And then, in the World Series against the Reds, El Tiante went 2-0 and got a no-decision in that amazing Game 6 — the one where Carlton Fisk waved a ball around the foul pole and into diamond lore.

Then, in 1976, Tiant went 21-12, 3.06 for his last really great season. All in all, Luis went 229-172, with a 3.30 ERA and more than 66 WAR. That leaves him as something like the 52nd best starting pitcher ever and better than some well-known Hall of Famers.

And yet Tiant still sits outside of Cooperstown.

But his card (#108) in the Lineett set is awesome — if bald (receding, at least) — in its green borders. More than good enough for this Challenge.

(And, yes — my dad bought those Linnetts from the junk store for me. Thanks, Dad!)

Check out the entire series of 2019 Spring Training Challenge posts here.