Editorial: Baseball cards have more value than you think

By PATRICK GORDON | Managing Editor
January 28, 8:00 p.m.
@Philabaseball

Some of the fondest memories of my childhood involve sitting in the living room and watching my father come through the front door after work smiling with a plastic bag in his hand.

Normally, I'd scamper behind and follow him as he made his way to the kitchen where he would sit the bag on the table and pull out each item individually.

Eventually, usually between the Marlboro cigarettes and a loaf of bread, he would pull out some packs of baseball cards.

He would smile while giving them to me and I'd be set for a couple hours. 

I remember tearing through dozens of packs during the summer of 1987, searching for cards of players like Cecil Fielder, Benito Santiago, and Wally Backman (I loved the image on his '87 card).

To this day, the '87 set still holds a special place in my heart. The cards are worth very little because they were over produced, but the memories are worth everything. 

Fast-forward to today and I'm less than a month away from becoming a father. 

I still collect baseball cards and memorabilia, so I'm in tune with the collecting community and knew today was the scheduled release of Topps 2014. I have a baseball card store up the block from my house, so I stopped in to pick up a few packs.

As I looked at the box of packs I had a flashback to my childhood - the sitting in the living room and watching my father walk in with some surprise packs of cards.

I picked up a few packs and thought to myself how the roles have reversed. 

My son may not be here yet, but the fact I'll eventually be able to come home with a smile and a bag of baseball cards is awesome. 

In the big scheme of things baseball cards are trivial and their value often inflated, but I'll happily pay a few dollars at the local card store every week if I can share in similar memories with my son.

I'll pass on the Marlboro's though, that's not my style.    

- The Philadelphia Baseball Review is the top baseball news blog in Philadelphia, providing news coverage and analysis of the 2014 Phillies and baseball in the Philadelphia-region.