Cardboard Insights

Every February for the past 26 years I look forward to a simple tradition. The opening of a new Topps baseball card pack. What will the new design look like? How good will the photography be? It's simply fun and for me the opening of that pack is the opening of the baseball season. This year as I opened my first pack I came upon Randy Johnson's card. It's a beautiful card of him lunging and throwing in one motion to first base after what I'm assuming is a bunt attempt. A difficult maneuver for a 6'11 person at age 45. Then I realized this is the last regular baseball card Randy Johnson will ever have. I flip to the back and in small print is a career that began in 1988. The numerous statistics in red indicate he led the league in that category and there are amazingly 28 of them. Anybody can go to the internet and look up a player's career statistics, but in this age of technology and instant communication a baseball card still holds tremendous insight into the quality of a player's career. To hold 20 some odd years of work in your hand crystallizes a career. As I looked at the card I realized Randy Johnson was a rarity. A player of enormous talent who dominated hitters for prolonged stretches in overpowering ways. Of course I knew he was a great pitcher, a Hall of Fame pitcher in fact, but seeing his entire career as the numbers bounce off each other on the back of that baseball card I realized I may never see a pitcher like him again. Did I realize he was a once in a lifetime player as I watched him? Not really. It's odd how players you grow up with or players you watch currently often seem very good, but it isn't until they retire and you reflect on their historical standing in the game does their true greatness come out. A baseball card helps this process happen. Randy Johnson is the greatest left handed pitcher ever. Did I comprehend that until I looked at that one final card of his? Surprisingly I didn't. A baseball card while small, fragile and for the young, is still enormously insightful and entertaining. I guess I was luckier to get that Randy Johnson card than I originally thought.