What Margo Found in the Attic

Margo was rooting through the attic when she found something that I honestly thought I’d sold or lost many years ago: my collection of Cleveland Indians baseball cards.

Many, many years ago — the last year in the collection is 1987 to give you an idea how long ago this was — I decided to try and collect every Topps Cleveland Indians card ever printed. Of course, I had no money then, so I couldn’t afford the expensive stuff. There are no 1952 Topps in here. Still, looking back, I actually did pretty well. There are some fun cards in here: some Herb Scores, some Bob Lemons, some Early Wynns, a Tommy John rookie card, a Ray Fosse rookie card, lots of things like that. There’s a 1958 Minnie Miñoso! The’re a Rocco Colavito card!

The album had not been opened in so long that the plastic pages stuck together; they made the most satisfying crinkling sound as I pulled them apart. And each turn of the page offered a new delight.

Check out that autographed boyhood Gaylord Perry card in the top right-hand corner! How did I get that? What a treat.

Then I got to the final page of the album. There, as expected, were a whole bunch of Cory Snyder cards. No, seriously, a whole bunch. There was:

• A 1986 Commemorative Set Rookie Cory Snyder

• A 1987 Collector’s Edition All-Star Cory Snyder

• A 1987 Bend and Peel 1987 Fleer Sticker Cory Snyder

• A 1987 Action Superstars Cory Snyder

• An unindentifiable Cory Snyder card with “Photos by Rob Broder” on the back

• A 1987 Sportflics Cory Snyder, which changes poses depending on the angle

• A 1987 Fleer’s Hottest Stars Cory Snyder

• A 1987 Toys R Us (!) collectors edition rookie card

There were a similar number of Joe Carter cards back there.

Exactly how I remembered it. I believed with every fiber of my being that those two guys would lead Cleveland baseball back to glory.

And then suddenly, out of nowhere, there were these two cards:

Um. Yeah. That’s right. I found not one but TWO Sandy Koufax cards — a 1961 Topps and a 1966 Topps!

Those of you who have been around here for a while might remember that I’ve been in the market for a Sandy Koufax card to just carry around. Right now, I carry around a 1982 Donruss Duane Kuiper card wherever I go, and I’ve long thought, “It would be funny to carry a Koufax card around too. That way, I could say to people: Here are my two favorite players. Sandy Koufax. And Duane Kuiper.”

Apparently, the 22-year-old me knew that someday, 36 years into the future, I would be an ancient sportswriter, and I probably would feel overwhelmed — don’t we all feel overwhelmed — and need a burst of sunshine. So, he spent five or ten or twenty bucks he didn’t have to buy a couple of decent-condition Sandy Koufax cards. Then he hid them in the back of a Cleveland baseball card album in the hope that someday they would be randomly discovered and bring great joy.

It was actually kind of genius. And I totally fell for it. And I’m so happy.