Growing up

I love baseball, I love hockey, I like basketball, I tolerate soccer, I appreciate football, and I loathe Nascar. Imagine driving in circles for hours on end. To what end ?

Baseball is a chess like sport, move, counter move, while hockey is a contact sport, based on bump and grind like approach. Basketball is a sport I was never any good at, probably because my height topped out at 5 feet 11 inches tall, you have to at least be over 6 feet to excel at it.

I grew up in a east end district of Toronto, which bordered Leaside, in the sixties , and seventies and collected all manner of sports cards.  Hockey Cards, then gravitating to baseball cards, still do collect baseball cards, special ones.  I play fantasy baseball, love the game, on a level that approaches worship, but not quite.

I collected cards from various series, but namely Topps was sold at my neighborhood store. My mother would entrust me with the duty of walking to the store to buy mike, and pick up something nice for dessert.   I would be free to spend 25 cents on cards with the change.  I would but as many packs of cards as I could. They sold them originally for a nickel, then a dime. No more cards in the pack, but they doubled the price. Rats...

I collected them, obsessed over them, and kept them safely in my desk drawers in my third story room.  Then one day my parent announced we are moving to Scarborough, a million mile away in my mind, but nonetheless, it happened, my mother packed my things but tossed out all my cards, hockey cards, and my precious baseball cards. Rats..

Over the years I spent some time replacing all my 1971 Topps baseball cards, enough that I could say Well Done.