3 Card Manny - Episode 2 - An Obsession Crosses the Line
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by Erik Kombol as Manny Stiles
We continue the stroll down Memory Lane. It's a windy little street cobbled with trading cards and tales of antiquity (anything pre-internet age is antique).
Today we will use a classic writing technique and foreshadow the end of the story.
The Only one thing you need to know about The Game - Wally Joyner was my guy. I made deals for Joyner cards everywhere I went and I never traded a card I liked to pick up a Joyner card. I always traded junk for Wally world - or as it turns out, I actually traded away some good cards I didn't like for ones I did like that ended up being sentimental junk - an QUITE a fascinating collection....
Back to the Story
In 1990, the baseball card industry was feeling it's own backlash of it's bursting it's own bubble. The market was so oversaturated with limited edition sets that were in endless supply. Franchising was soaring of other collectables (remember pogs?), biting into trading cards' share of the overall Allowance Flow. In 1990, Wally Joyner suffered a knee injury and missed half the season. In 1990, I was old enough to drive but without license. In 1990, I was deeper into The Game than ever before.
I was addicted to baseball cards and more addicted to trading them. I walked all around town looking to make deals. I rode my bike 15 miles to another town every Sunday to trade with a dealer at a flea market.
His name was Moe. Moe Drakjhkjsdghshgdgjhsdjoinski-something or other... So we called him "Moe". This guy was a baseball card collector/guru from the original heyday. He was the kid who smashed his bike NOT his baseball cards. Moe had boxes and boxes of commons from 1950's Topps AND Bowman sets. He had commons throughout the 60's (How did I never see Don Mossi's cards before I saw it on AmrchairGM.com?) the 70's and he was also the rare collector that was up on The Game like kids were... few traders with strong 50's and 60's cards dealt with the new stuff too. Moe was a once-a-week savant in The Game.
Moe didn't just deal and trade. He KNEW the cards. Me and my buddies would go to scour for hidden treasures and we'd read the info or the backs of them. Moe would quote the info right along with us. I'll never forget his phone number (I called it to no avail) because he would say "The last 4 digits is the year of the first World Series - 1903".
Moe also had a severe weakness - Pete Rose. Moe had to have had the World's Largest Pete Rose Baseball card collection on Earth at that point. He had a wooden case that housed over 5,000 Rose cards, separated by year and card. He literally had hundreds of each card. He had over 100 of Pete Rose's rookie card, which at the time was top-tiered card amongst collectors on the serious scale. Moe knew Pete personally and had met Pete Rose early on in his career and had shared personal stories and exploits of when Pete's years in Philly. Moe is probably dead now. I'm sure having the value sink out of his life's pursuit (collecting Pete Rose crap) killed him...
But I got into the investing aspect of baseball cards. You could spin value on a monthly basis by the price guides. I would hunt for stuff I knew was rising, buy it and then spin it the next month for something else. It's when I started the Manny Stiles philosophy of investing - "sell higher than you buy".
I knew how to hunt out value and which risky ventures to take. I had to haggle my Dad into buying a two 1985 Topps Mark McGwire rookie cards in 1987 for $18 each which we sold a few months later at $80 each - I later sold several more I already had for $100 per.
After Jose Canseco shoved me at a 1988 card show, I dumped my stock of his cards (good timing!). I had almost as many Bonds' cards as Wally Joyner's... they came into the league together. I had a healthy supply of 1987 Fleer Kevin Seitzer cards and pages of Bo Jackson baseball and football rookies. When the panic over the Gregg Jeffries fiasco hit, I had started getting $8 a piece for them... some places had that card as high as $14 - today you could get 30 of 'em for a buck, I bet!!!
I was heavy into Griffey from the get go. When Griffey's Upper Deck rookie hit the shelves, I had a page full of them within a month. My personally designed glass display case in my room looked better than most baseball card shop's finest ensemble. It glistened and gleamed like a collection that knew how finely polished it truly was...
I was pouring all of my time and money into my "hobby". And it was so much fun, yet it wasn't enough for me! I wanted and NEEDED more! I became obsessed to the point where I started to steal to fuel my passion.
I started stealing money to buy boxes of cards, to buy more cards I wanted, to buy sets. I started stealing more money (and then got caught stealing the money but lied about how much I stole and gave back what was "thought" to be missing), meanwhile I continued to steal from other places.
Then I stooped to stealing cards. I shoplifted, I once discretely swapped an extra '85 Fleer Update set of my own for a 1984 Fleer Update of a dealers (clearly not a fair trade) and then I just started boldly taking stuff from people - I didn't even feel bad! I was even-ing the score for all the kids and closet-cleaning Moms that got ransacked, afterall! But I never ripped off Moe. Moe was the only dealer I trusted... he was Pete Rose's friend!
Sure, I got a bunch of Dave Stewart rookies at "common" price and then traded them back to him a month later when they jumped to $2 a piece in 1988. Or when I bought 25 Scott Fletcher rookie cards at 4 cents each then traded them back after Scott Fletcher signed an unfathomable contract for the day (THREE!!! Million dollars?!??!?!?!) and his rookie card jumped to a buck!
Kevin Mitchell, Cory Snyder, Eric Davis, Benito Santiago, Jose Canseco... I made money on all those dudes. It's no wonder I became a stock broker years later...
But one day I woke up feeling the guilt, and more or less feeling the need to get a car to drive now that I was 17. So I gave up The Game. Cold turkey. I stopped buying cards, stopped stealing and stopped obsessing over meaningless things (for a short while...)
I sold all my cards in chunks, a book and box at a time (no dealer would buy the whole lot). I'm not really sure how much I totalled in all the sales but it was well over $3000 and it was all sold at a serious discount. I spent $2000 of it getting a wrecked '85 Chevette into driving condition and effectively used my first car to act as a fine "getting laid repellant" for several years.
I still have a giant box of common cards from 1977-1990 that I'm going to laminate as wallpaper in my son's bedroom (he'll know more about Jose Oquendo than ANY of his friends!!!), I still have my glass display case (away in storage in Pennsylvania) and I still have my book of Wally Joyner cards (next episode)!
Funny thing is, the prices were higher when I sold everything than they are now and I never added an other Joyner card to my collection - I only have him as a California Angel!
3 Card Manny
I chuck out three cards and you gawk!
A little somethin-somethin I call "the elevator game"
Two cards get on an elevator and have a conversation - you provide alternatives in comments!
Ok, a couple more...
Now for the Fun® Part!
Who the (Rick) Hell(ing) was I ?
I show you the baseball card, you tell me who it is!
Last Episode's answer was indeed Shawn Abner - former #1 overall pick by the Mets and intregal part of that Kevin McReynolds trade.
Now for this episode's card:
