This is a baseball card that I never owned. Somehow, this one never showed up in a five-cent package of cards when I was 11 years old. The 1965 Topps baseball card series is my favorite for several reasons : the Red Sox line-up of heroes of that time, the design, the Time-Machine switch that it flips in my life. After I lost or sold most of the cards from my youth, I decided in my 30’s to try to reassemble at least my favorite cards. In a moment of idiocy when I was about 20 years old, I had glued some of my best remaining cards to a sheet of poster board to display in my room.

I’ve been a casual collector of cards over time, so the most fun was locating in card shops many of the cards I had enjoyed having in the 1960’s. I never spent much money on the effort. Finding players whom I liked but who were not superstars was a kick. In the card industry there’s a name for such guys: Commons. Some cards I liked just for the picture, especially the “action” shots. I never cared for what we called “face cards”—a ballplayer’s big face filling the whole front of the card, and often not even wearing a team cap. These reminded me of mug shots on wanted posters at the post office.

In my not-so-scientific search for replacement cards, the one vintage card I haven’t picked up is the 1965 Yaz. He’s the one that got away, the one I never had in hand when it was worth a penny, and I’m too far down the road to fork over $191.85 just to close some nostalgic gap. I’d rather send a check to Yaz’s favorite charity, the Jimmy Fund, which helps kids with cancer. I’ve been thinking about the card, though, this weekend as the Red Sox swept the Yankees. I’m starting to feel better about the 2011 Red Sox.  

Here’s a link to a guy who has a blog about baseball cards, specifically the 1965 Topps series. You never know what you are going to find on the web. It’s all out there.