Butch Finally Got A Mickey Mantle Card

Well, baseball season is just around the corner…hopefully, that is…if the players and owners can reach an agreement before the season starts. Like most baby boomers who played sports here in Montgomery County, I participated in the only three sports that our school offered…basketball, baseball, and track. While basketball was the most popular for the fans in our county, and deservedly so, I always preferred baseball…the first team sport I played beginning at the age of 8. The next year the Milwaukee Braves won the 1957 World Series, and they became my favorite team, with stars such as Eddie Mathews, Warren Spahn, Hank Aaron, Del Crandall, and Lew Burdette. I imitated each of the player’s batting or pitching styles. Beginning around 1960, I watched the “game of the week,” with Dizzy Dean and PeeWee Reese describing the action. My Dad bought me a Milwaukee Braves baseball hat and a Lew Burdette autographed baseball glove, and they were my prized possessions!

Of course, like millions of other boys, I also began collecting baseball cards. The most desired brand was Topps, which cost a nickel and contained approximately ten cards and a stick of gum. Other popular brands were Fleer and Bazooka, but cards could also be found on Post cereal boxes, Jello boxes, and even Kahn’s hot dog packages, just to mention a few. But the Topps cards were by far the best and most popular. Each time I visited Arthur Friend’s drug store, I forked over a nickel for a pack of Topps cards…and then sat on the bench out front to see if I had received a star player, while chewing my gum and slugging down a cold bottle of Choc-cola on a hot summer day.

Within a few years, I had a nice collection containing many of the most popular players. One summer, my cousin Ronnie Baker gave my brother and me THREE full shoe boxes containing his baseball card collection…cards from the early to mid-1950s…WOW! I hid my best cards in a secret place under a floorboard in our bedroom. No one was going to steal my favorite players. One afternoon, I was determined to obtain an elusive Mickey Mantle card, and I purchased an entire box of Topps…twenty packs, which cost me a dollar of hard earned money…but no luck…Mickey was not to be found!

In 1961, Eugene “Beaner” Hampton invited my Dad and my brother and me to go with him and his son, Bill, to attend a Cubs game at Chicago’s Wrigley Field. The Cubs were playing the Milwaukee Braves in an afternoon game. I was thrilled to death! When we took our seat in the upper deck, I looked out over the beautiful ball field, and the first person I saw was my idol, Eddie Mathews, the Braves third baseman. We took our baseball mitts, hoping to catch a foul ball, and Cubs catcher Don Zimmer did foul one in our direction, but the person next to me caught the ball…DRATS! Oh well, I was in heaven that afternoon…a day in my life that I will always treasure.

Like most boys who enter their teenage years, baseball card collecting started to lose its appeal, as a cute girl in my class seemed to be much more interesting. I still loved the game of baseball, playing each summer and pitching for the good ol’ Darlington Indians. But my Topps collection gathered dust on the top of my dresser, and then ended up in the closet. And yes, unfortunately, like many boys, after I graduated from high school and college and was married, most of my baseball cards disappeared…likely discarded without a second thought. Many of those cards are worth hundreds of dollars today.

People buy and sell baseball cards at shows and conventions and on the Internet. You can buy baseball cards today, but certainly not for a nickel. The price of old and new baseball cards has escalated to ridiculous levels, much like the salaries of today’s players. But in an old cigar box, I still have many of the star players’ cards from the late 1950s and early 1960s…and yes, I finally bought a Mickey Mantle card online. I could sell the cards for quite a bit of money, but I won’t. They are a part of my childhood. When I get those cards out and look through them every once in a while, I feel like a kid again…sitting on a bench in front of Friend’s drug store, chewing bubble gum, sipping a Choc-cola, and opening my pack of Topps…and I hope God has another Wrigley Field in Heaven.

John “Butch” Dale is a retired teacher and County Sheriff. He has also been the librarian at Darlington the past 32 years, and is a well-known artist and author of local history.