Baseball is upon us! Sing it from the rooftops! Here is your weekly splash of joy!

What is your favorite ever baseball card?

From Brilliant Reader James: This beautiful Lou Brock card was the final card that my best friend and I needed to complete the 1976 Topps collection. I was nine years old. After collecting 659 of the 660 cards in the set, we spent weeks buying packs and discarding the doubles into a huge shopping bag. We had 22 Wilbur Woods. Finally, we traded over 800 doubles to some kids down the street for the Brock card.

From Brilliant Reader Dan: August 11, 1987 — My aunt gives me a baseball card collecting kit for my 10th birthday. Mike Greenwell arrives and instantly becomes my favorite player. The 100 copies of this card do NOT pay for my college education as I expected.

From Brilliant Reader Michael: I am an O's fan, but my favorite card of all-time is still my Frank Thomas 1990 Topps #1 draft pick card. I was 6 years old when I pulled this card in a regular old pack of 1990 Topps cards. A few years later, my buddy and I would get the Beckett every month, and fill notebooks handwriting the current prices of all our cards — most were like $1.25, $3.60, occasionally we'd have a $10 or more and that was a big deal. I will never forget seeing that Frank Thomas card worth $1,100 coming off back-to-back MVPs. It became my most prized possession.

Fridays are Clubhouse days around here. The Clubhouse is where the conversation opens up — where we go a little deeper, wander down a few side roads, have friendly arguments, chat over the weekend, and share some joy. Today, we’re going to ramble for a while about opening day and unveil the first class of the Baseball Fun Hall of Fame … plus whatever else comes to mind.

Wait, the Baseball Fun Hall of Fame? You betcha! I mentioned it in Wednesday’s essays ranking all 30 teams in order of fun, and then put up a survey asking you to name the most fun player at every position. More than a thousand of you filled it out! Crazy. So now I’m going to name the inaugural class of the Baseball Fun Hall of Fame, which will also be the most fun team ever put together.

Here we go!

I should add that this will be my team … and the only consideration is fun. Did I take your suggestions under advisement? Absolutely! Will I still have Duane Kuiper in the first class?

If you’re a Clubhouse member, come on down — the door’s open below.

If you’re a free reader, thank you as always for being here. If you ever feel like joining us on Fridays — not for more, exactly, but to be a bigger part of our world — well, now that the baseball season is upon us, there couldn’t be a better time.

Introducing the Fun Baseball Hall of Fame

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