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Lancemountain
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1976 Topps Card #95- Brooks Robinson
The 1976 Topps Brooks Robinson is and has always been my favorite baseball card. I once owned a copy in the early 80's; a hand-me-down version from an old brother (not sure which one) that has long since disappeared. Did it end up in the trash-a victim of my mother? Perhaps a long forgotten corner of the attic above the garage? Most likely though-the greedy grips of the neighborhood bully and older kid that picked through my cards before things like "value" soiled the pure and innocent love and joy of a piece of Topps cardboard that we all enjoyed in simpler times.
I'm the youngest born of 8, from Queens, New York to a splintered line of Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankee fans. The Yankees side are all Irish; the Dodgers side a boiling hellbroth of Welsh and Mixed Irish. Not a single ancestor in this country before the turn of the last century. My father worked in medical billing and by the time of the late 70's, Elmhurst, Queens was too far gone and decayed for us and we all left the only neighborhood we knew (except my mother who was from Nassau) and moved to North Jersey. A few years there and my father received a job offer he wouldn't refuse. We would move to West Chester, PA and he would start his new job that he would hold till the day he retired, over 20 years later.
I look at my nieces and my nephews-all children of the 90's and 00's. Cable, Satellite TV, internet, ESPN. Somehow it's hard for these kids to imagine a time, the time when I was a young kid, that you had only local access to watch. Like every other boy in America I loved baseball. I loved playing it and watching it and watching it I did. This was 1982 and Mike Schmidt was king of the TV. This youngest son of Yankees and Dodgers fans became a Phillies fan and the only one (still to this day) of the entire family. Fair play to my father-He took me to The Vet many a time to see my beloved Phils. Those were the days....yellow seats up top. Green astroturf, sodas in wax covered brown cups, jumbo-trons, The Phanatic.....
I had a lot of older brothers and like boys in the 60's and 70's they collected baseball cards. They grew out of them and by the time I was 6 or 7 I had "inherited" them- Topps cards from all over the 70's all jumbled in one of those old cardboard boxes you used to get from the pick-your-own orchards. I went through them 10,000 times-sorting them by color, year, team, position. I read every back, learned the names of players I'd never see live and learned the real names of players I only saw as initials in the box score in the morning paper. Cardboard in the 70's was different. It was thick and sturdy. I could wrap 40 cards with a rubber band and carry them to school. We would flip for cards, trade them. I can only imagine what they looked like then as I shuffled, stacked and organized them untold amount of times.
Who was Brooks Robinson? That was my question- the guy who may or not be better at third base then Mike Schmidt-AKA the best player to ever play baseball to me. Brooks Robinson? He plays in the AL I never heard of the guy, never saw him play. I'm ten. Mike Schmidt is like God. My father is teasing me that Mike Schmidt is no Brooks....Well as it happened I had a Brooks Robinson card. A 1976 Topps Brooks Robinson. Cards from the 70's are the best. Distinct colors and designs, you can pick them out in a second. The 76 set was always my favorite-great color combos and a cartoon character with a funky disco outline. And here was that guy Brooks. Funny name; and kinda cool. I knew a Brooke, she lived down the street. This guy had a girls name but it was different-it was plural. And he played third, where Mike Schmidt plays, the most elite of all positions in the field. And he looks like a boss, he's shading his eyes from the sun, a player that was just too cool. I didn't know it then of course but Brooks Robinson wasn't even playing baseball anymore. He was already retired and most likely already in the HOF.
I loved that card. I wouldn't trade that card. I loved Brooks Robinson and soon the early 80's became the late 80's and I discovered girls and Led Zeppelin and those cards are long lost. The one thing I never lost was the love of baseball and through high school and college and then grad school and life I had always held onto my Phillies and baseball. I returned to the hobby in 2006 by accident-a wayward eBay search and was shocked and confounded to see where cards had come. I'm certain I will never leave card collecting ever again-I love my pre war stuff- modern Phils patches and various chrome and of course my Mike Schmidt Collection. Mike Schmidt, the best third baseman ever.
Cards used to be simple and pure. It was American. Topps cards. Cardboard pieces with pictures of heros with their accomplishments listed on the backs. Playground rules applied-two cards for a single card from an older year. We all had our favorite sets. I loved looking through that peach box of cards that had belonged to my brothers and were then mine. I learned the game of baseball by reading those 70's baseball cards. I can picture myself sorting them on my bunk bed. I had a happy childhood. I loved to play sports, I had many and great older siblings and a great neighborhood of families that created a community that collectively raised everyones children. The one thing that connects those memories are those cards. My brothers, my father, that great street I grew up on, The Vet, summers down the shore, trading and flipping cards with friends, playing ball in the street. I was never lucky to have a Mike Schmidt card back then but I have since been able to rectify that. I have clear and vibrant memories of holding that 1976 Brooks Robinson card in my hands and admiring it. It brings me back to simpler times and a happy childhood. Things are too easy these days.
It is still my favorite card of all time I do not have a copy in my collection. I think I'm going to keep it that way.
eBay sample:
The 1976 Topps Brooks Robinson is and has always been my favorite baseball card. I once owned a copy in the early 80's; a hand-me-down version from an old brother (not sure which one) that has long since disappeared. Did it end up in the trash-a victim of my mother? Perhaps a long forgotten corner of the attic above the garage? Most likely though-the greedy grips of the neighborhood bully and older kid that picked through my cards before things like "value" soiled the pure and innocent love and joy of a piece of Topps cardboard that we all enjoyed in simpler times.
I'm the youngest born of 8, from Queens, New York to a splintered line of Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankee fans. The Yankees side are all Irish; the Dodgers side a boiling hellbroth of Welsh and Mixed Irish. Not a single ancestor in this country before the turn of the last century. My father worked in medical billing and by the time of the late 70's, Elmhurst, Queens was too far gone and decayed for us and we all left the only neighborhood we knew (except my mother who was from Nassau) and moved to North Jersey. A few years there and my father received a job offer he wouldn't refuse. We would move to West Chester, PA and he would start his new job that he would hold till the day he retired, over 20 years later.
I look at my nieces and my nephews-all children of the 90's and 00's. Cable, Satellite TV, internet, ESPN. Somehow it's hard for these kids to imagine a time, the time when I was a young kid, that you had only local access to watch. Like every other boy in America I loved baseball. I loved playing it and watching it and watching it I did. This was 1982 and Mike Schmidt was king of the TV. This youngest son of Yankees and Dodgers fans became a Phillies fan and the only one (still to this day) of the entire family. Fair play to my father-He took me to The Vet many a time to see my beloved Phils. Those were the days....yellow seats up top. Green astroturf, sodas in wax covered brown cups, jumbo-trons, The Phanatic.....
I had a lot of older brothers and like boys in the 60's and 70's they collected baseball cards. They grew out of them and by the time I was 6 or 7 I had "inherited" them- Topps cards from all over the 70's all jumbled in one of those old cardboard boxes you used to get from the pick-your-own orchards. I went through them 10,000 times-sorting them by color, year, team, position. I read every back, learned the names of players I'd never see live and learned the real names of players I only saw as initials in the box score in the morning paper. Cardboard in the 70's was different. It was thick and sturdy. I could wrap 40 cards with a rubber band and carry them to school. We would flip for cards, trade them. I can only imagine what they looked like then as I shuffled, stacked and organized them untold amount of times.
Who was Brooks Robinson? That was my question- the guy who may or not be better at third base then Mike Schmidt-AKA the best player to ever play baseball to me. Brooks Robinson? He plays in the AL I never heard of the guy, never saw him play. I'm ten. Mike Schmidt is like God. My father is teasing me that Mike Schmidt is no Brooks....Well as it happened I had a Brooks Robinson card. A 1976 Topps Brooks Robinson. Cards from the 70's are the best. Distinct colors and designs, you can pick them out in a second. The 76 set was always my favorite-great color combos and a cartoon character with a funky disco outline. And here was that guy Brooks. Funny name; and kinda cool. I knew a Brooke, she lived down the street. This guy had a girls name but it was different-it was plural. And he played third, where Mike Schmidt plays, the most elite of all positions in the field. And he looks like a boss, he's shading his eyes from the sun, a player that was just too cool. I didn't know it then of course but Brooks Robinson wasn't even playing baseball anymore. He was already retired and most likely already in the HOF.
I loved that card. I wouldn't trade that card. I loved Brooks Robinson and soon the early 80's became the late 80's and I discovered girls and Led Zeppelin and those cards are long lost. The one thing I never lost was the love of baseball and through high school and college and then grad school and life I had always held onto my Phillies and baseball. I returned to the hobby in 2006 by accident-a wayward eBay search and was shocked and confounded to see where cards had come. I'm certain I will never leave card collecting ever again-I love my pre war stuff- modern Phils patches and various chrome and of course my Mike Schmidt Collection. Mike Schmidt, the best third baseman ever.
Cards used to be simple and pure. It was American. Topps cards. Cardboard pieces with pictures of heros with their accomplishments listed on the backs. Playground rules applied-two cards for a single card from an older year. We all had our favorite sets. I loved looking through that peach box of cards that had belonged to my brothers and were then mine. I learned the game of baseball by reading those 70's baseball cards. I can picture myself sorting them on my bunk bed. I had a happy childhood. I loved to play sports, I had many and great older siblings and a great neighborhood of families that created a community that collectively raised everyones children. The one thing that connects those memories are those cards. My brothers, my father, that great street I grew up on, The Vet, summers down the shore, trading and flipping cards with friends, playing ball in the street. I was never lucky to have a Mike Schmidt card back then but I have since been able to rectify that. I have clear and vibrant memories of holding that 1976 Brooks Robinson card in my hands and admiring it. It brings me back to simpler times and a happy childhood. Things are too easy these days.
It is still my favorite card of all time I do not have a copy in my collection. I think I'm going to keep it that way.
eBay sample:
