A Tale of International Intrigue and Neglect

I recently decided I would sell some of my baseball and hockey cards. I’d been planning on selling some of them since I started collecting way back in the late 80s, but never really got around to it. A trade or two here, an Ebay sale there, but nothing really too serious.

What spurred me on now was a combination of organizing and ambition.

My cards were in complete disarray. One shelving unit filled with boxes and binders of cards. So I set upon the task of organizing them. I wanted to keep my Expos cards (still collecting them) some rookies which might be more valuable later, and a few former Expos whom I particularly liked. Everything else I sorted into cards I would sell as singles (anything worth more than a quarter) and cards I would package in a team lot (20 cards of your favourite team for a low low price of…). It took quite a long time, but when I was finally finished, I had about $2,000 worth of cards and sports memorabilia (according to Beckett price guides). I packed everything up and brought it to a Flea market, and took in around $100.

It inspired me to take my business idea even more seriously (the ambition part). I bought more and more stuff to sell, so that I spent the money I took in and a little more, in an effort to try and make it self sustaining.

Minako raised wise objections several times to my spending. I was takings risks when I didn’t need to, I should wait and be patient, wait until I actually MAKE some money before I spend it. She has been very helpful at tempering my reckless enthusiasm with some practicality, but the understanding is only now setting in.

See, I eventually wanted to move into sport memorabilia from outside North America. Hockey was where I would start, since there is a growing interest in European Hockey cards. People want Euro cards featuring players from the NHL who played there during the strike. I spent hours and hours searching the internet for suppliers of hockey cards from Russia, Sweden, Germany, the Czech Republic and Switzerland, and I found sources for almost all of them. All I needed was the money.

Last weekend, I sat my Grandparents down and asked them to invest $2000 in my business. I had already calculated how I would spend it before I asked (this many wax boxes from Sweden, this many from Germany, this many sets from Russia, etc.) But they declined, for the time being anyway. They said they’d let me know.

It deflated my balloon a little bit, but it made me think about why I wanted to do this in the first place. It certainly isn’t going to make me a lot of money. If it is self-sustaining, I’ll be happy. It is a lot of fun, tracking things down, and it’s exciting taking a risk of certain cards, hoping they will sell for more than what I paid for them (Minako says this is like gambling, but I think it’s more like the stock market…)

But it’s also about pride. I want to be the guy that find the Swedish cards for a good price, the guy who finds the Mcfarlane chase figures hiding on a shelf at Walmart when no one else can, the guy people come to when they want to expand their collection of Jarmoir Jagr cards to include stuff from the Czech Republic and Russia. Pride.

And in my pursuit of pride, my apartment-cleaning project has suffered, my writing has suffered, and possibly my correspondence has suffered as well. I spend too much time looking at things to buy, searching for distributors, trying to figure out how to put a web site together, and drooling over my wonderful plans.

Really, this is supposed to be my hobby. The thing I do during my free time, when I’m not doing the more important stuff (like writing, cleaning, and corresponding).

So I’ve scaled my plans back a little. Instead of trying to launch a marvelous website in the next few months, I’m selling stuff on Ebay (visit my Ebay Store and get 10% off by mentioning my blog!!!!) and scaling back my massive purchasing plan. I have contacts at least in those European countries right?

So even though the window of interest is closing (NHL players won’t be playing in Europe next year since the strike is over) I think I can still creep my way to making a go of it.

And in the meantime, I’ll spend more time on my novel.

The Teachings of Mr. Ed

The other day, Minako asked me how I did in my last game. I play in a recreational slo-pitch league (aka a beer league, so named because over half the guys drink beer throughout the game).

I said ok, but there were things I wish I could have done better or differently. I swung at too many first pitches, wasn’t patient enough at the plate, let my hands get ahead of my hips, and as a result, grounded out weakly in most of my at bats.

I’m hard on myself. I’ve always been hard on myself.

Mr. Ed saw that and decided to help me out. Not by telling me to enjoy that game, but by teaching me how to play.

Every summer, my family went to a Pentecostal Camp in Debert. It was two weeks long, and often my parents did not stay the entire time, but I did (at least until I got a job) and so did my brother. Aside from the possibility of making out with some girls we’d never met before (which he did far more than I, for which I was extremely jealous) the highlight of camp was ball.

Every afternoon (except Sunday, because sports was apparently too much like work, and we shouldn’t work on Sundays) we went down to the ball field, picked teams, and played until it was suppertime. Nobody kept score. There were often more than the required 10 players. But it was still fun.

Mr. Ed was a regular at camp and at the ballfield. He was older, probably in his forties or fifties, but he still managed to keep up with everybody. He saw me being hard on myself, and gave me advice.

-When you hit a ground ball, don’t watch it, run for all your worth. It slows you down when you watch it. And don’t give up if you think you’re out. Major League players throw balls away all the time, how much more than will amateur church camp players?

-Pay attention to where players hit when they are up. Most players have a favourite place they tend to hit the ball too, and if you can adjust, you may have a better chance at getting to the ball quicker.

-When Playing the outfield, play back a step or two farther than you think you need to be. It’s easier to run in on a ball than back.

-When you are hitting, never swing at the first pitch unless you are absolutely positive you can hit it hard where you want to hit it. The pitcher is just as likely to throw a strike as a ball, and if you get a ball, you get some more breathing room. If you are impatient and swing at a pitch you can’t handle, you will likely ground out on a weak dribbler to the pitcher. If the pitcher isn’t throwing strikes, take the walk. A walk is as good as a hit.

-Don’t try to smash a ball over everybody’s head every time you are up. You will pop out more often than you accomplish that feat. Instead, try to hit a grounder or a line drive out of the infield. Those are the kind of hits that will get you on base more often.

-Don’t give up. Not on a pitch, not on an at bat, not on a ball that goes through your legs, not on a ball that goes over your head. Keep going, hard, and it might just turn out your way, especially if the other guy thinks you are going to give up.

Lots of people didn’t listen to Mr. Ed when he doled out his advice. They looked at his dentures, his pastel tank tops and his thick wooden bat and decided that his advice was irrelevant. I listened, and learned that baseball isn’t just a game of athletic ability (although I wish I had a little more than that). It’s a game of patience, awareness, perseverance and, maybe, luck.