Blue-Tinted Glasses

Objective schmubjective. I am content to like or dislike things based on how they make me feel. This isn't going to be anything close to an "objective" look at baseball cards. I reserve the right to make little to no sense. I come at this thing with some serious biases, but since this is all about opinion, it's all good. I love reading about what other people think. That's why I read blogs like the one I'm attempting here. So if anyone cares to comment on what I have to say, let alone read it, I have no problem with being told that I'm a jackass and an idiot and that I'm completely wrong. Because to someone, somewhere, I will always be wrong. In fact, if you're a Giants fan, I hope you always think I'm wrong. That way I know I'm on the right track.

So, to understand where my opinions are coming from, let's take a moment to understand what shapes my biases. I became a baseball fan, and a Dodger fan, at the age of ten, on the final weekend of the 1980 season. For those of you for whom that fails to elicit the telltale feelings of the proverbial thrill of victory and agony of defeat, that was when the Dodgers swept the Astros to force a one-game playoff to determine the NL West champion. That was immediately followed by a much worse Blue Monday than the one Dodger fans would be treated to the next season. (Dave Goltz? Really?) But the roller coaster adrenaline rush did the trick. I was a fan for life.

And my local drugstore was more than ready to feed my new addiction, even though it was the off-season, at a cost of 25 cents a pack. Sorted by team, 26 rubber-band-secured stacks of priceless infotainment were at my fingertips all winter as I awaited my first full season in the big leagues (of fandom). Oh, I was hooked all right. These were THE baseball players. As far as my worldview was able to encompass at that time, Steve Garvey was, always had been, and always would be the Dodgers first baseman. Lopes was at second, Cey at third, etc., etc., ad infinitum, in saecula saeculorum.

Jump ahead 33 years. Despite a better grip on reality, and an appreciation for the world's ability to endow extra-strength commercial-grade cynicism, I am still in love with baseball and its funny little 2.5 x 3.5 inch cardboard glimpses into its soul. And the same things that made me love them as a ten-year-old are the things that make me smile today.

Look, Matt Kemp is sliding into home plate on the card's boarder!

Look, Dan Uggla is... well... not pretty!

And it's just that easy to please me. So bring on the bliss!