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mchenrycards
Featured Contributor, Vintage Corner, Senior Membe
If I say the name Mike Berkus, most of us here would only shrug our shoulders and scroll right past as the name means nothing. I would venture a guess that only us hobby old timers would remember who Mike is and the importance that he played on the phenomenal growth of the world of sports cards.
Mike Berkus was the co- founder of the National Sports Collectors Convention with the first show being held in Los Angeles in 1980. Most hobby die-hards will point to the National as the avenue in which hobby growth started as a National show made the hobby "legitimate". Before Mike and his co-founders came along, baseball card collecting was thought of as only something little boys did and gave up after discovering girls. It was this first show and the media attention that they drew that shed the white hot spotlight on our hobby and fostered an era of change that we will probably never see again.
Mike was a hobby visionary had the stones to step out and be the driving force that this hobby needed to become what is was in the '90's and what it is today. When I think about the hobby before the first National, I remember small, localized card shows or swap meets as they were called then, with no price guides and real bartering between two people who wanted to move their "dups" for cards they needed for their own sets. If the dealers made a few bucks along the way, well that was just icing on the cake. The thrill was to ind those cards you needed for your set by trading with others.
I say all of this because I was sad to read that Mike had passed away today due to brain cancer. My heart goes out to his family and our hobby has lost a true pioneer. Next time you attend a National and walk through those gates, remember that that show and the phenomenal growth of this hobby of ours can be directly traced back to the mind of Mike Berkus, a man who hand his hand on the rudder as our hobby found it's way through those rough, early years of legitimacy.
RIP Mike! You will be missed.
Mike Berkus was the co- founder of the National Sports Collectors Convention with the first show being held in Los Angeles in 1980. Most hobby die-hards will point to the National as the avenue in which hobby growth started as a National show made the hobby "legitimate". Before Mike and his co-founders came along, baseball card collecting was thought of as only something little boys did and gave up after discovering girls. It was this first show and the media attention that they drew that shed the white hot spotlight on our hobby and fostered an era of change that we will probably never see again.
Mike was a hobby visionary had the stones to step out and be the driving force that this hobby needed to become what is was in the '90's and what it is today. When I think about the hobby before the first National, I remember small, localized card shows or swap meets as they were called then, with no price guides and real bartering between two people who wanted to move their "dups" for cards they needed for their own sets. If the dealers made a few bucks along the way, well that was just icing on the cake. The thrill was to ind those cards you needed for your set by trading with others.
I say all of this because I was sad to read that Mike had passed away today due to brain cancer. My heart goes out to his family and our hobby has lost a true pioneer. Next time you attend a National and walk through those gates, remember that that show and the phenomenal growth of this hobby of ours can be directly traced back to the mind of Mike Berkus, a man who hand his hand on the rudder as our hobby found it's way through those rough, early years of legitimacy.
RIP Mike! You will be missed.
