When I was in high school, I wrote a research paper entitled- Collectibles: A Viable Investment. In recent years, I’ve gotten back into buying/selling sports and other trading cards. I am always looking to purchase both individual cards and full collections. I offer fair compensation and can also consign your cards (sell them for you).
I’ve been a Warriors fan since Baron Davis and have followed Steph since day one. I consider Steph Curry to be the greatest “pound for pound” basketball player of all-time. As a HUGE fan I had been searching for one definitive rookie card for my personal collection.
The Dilemma:
Like most notable 21st century athletes, Steph has way too many rookie cards. PSA lists 81 different 2009 Stephen Curry rookie cards. He literally has over 100,000 rookie cards in circulation. For comparison sake, Hank Aaron only has 6,860 rookie cards graded by PSA. Demand is high for Steph, but one day some of his cards will likely be considered “junk wax.” His most popular Topps rookie card has him smiling in white warmup sweats. I personally dislike the card (where is the Warriors jersey?), not to mention there are almost 4,584 graded by PSA. The dilemma? How to acquire a truly unique Steph Curry rookie card?
The Criteria:
-The card has to have an “on card” autograph. So many of Steph’s cards have sticker autographs, and who wants one of those?
-The card has to have a large image of Steph wearing a Warriors uniform, not one of those patch cards with a little photo of him on the side.
-The card has to be PSA graded. I love SGC, but not for modern cards.
-The card has to be scarce.
My Card:
Checked all the boxes: (SCARCE) the only 1 in the world, on card autograph, Warriors uniform, iconic image with that baby-faced assassin charisma.
September 20th 1981, Willie Mueller’s last day as a major league pitcher. We didn’t know that, and he probably didn’t either. My 2nd Orioles game, and I’m with my friend David on the first base line, autograph-seeking. Willie wasn’t a household name. He ended his career with one win, 7 strikeouts, & a 6.14 ERA, but David walked away with a signed baseball. Just recently, David reminded me about meeting Willie. That got me curious. It turns out that Mueller went on to star in the film Major League (1989), with Charlie Sheen. This is my earliest ballpark memory.
1980, Memorial Park, the Orioles, my first major league baseball game, & Al Bumbry is our leadoff hitter, best base stealer, and steady center fielder. What I didn’t know is that he, like my father, was a Vietnam War veteran. Bumbry was a tank platoon leader serving his country from 1969-1971. There were 12 MLB players who were in Vietnam, including: Garry Maddox, Chuck Goggin, and Jim Bibby. Maddox served in the Army and was exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam, which made his skin highly sensitive. As a result, he always wore a beard to protect his face. The Philadelphia Phillies had to waive their clean-shaven rule to accommodate Maddox. –Agent Orange was used to defoliate jungle vegetation, so that it was easier for the United States military to “see the enemy,” however, it was sometimes accidentally sprayed on our own soldiers.
you might think it was all tina turner, the cars, or tears for fears, but vinyl could only take me so far, same songs, over & over, flip to side 2, try to save allowance money for the new billy idol album, or listen to casey kasem, see if anyone fresh was in the top 40, but then i got my GE shortwave radio & became an auditory magellan, forget karma chameleon & all that pop sound, i now spent nights slowly turning the dial, on a quest to travel the airwaves, listening as the basketball play by play guy said, louisville has the ball, i added a marker dot to my map of cities: new orleans, pittsburgh, morgantown, buffalo, each night i tuned in to: games, preachers, news, weather, anything & everything, in search of a new locale, another mark for my map, of course it was more than this, i was a 1980’s lewis & clark kid, connecting with my country, & this is still what i’m doing today, except i’m the one broadcasting & you might be in croatia instead of cincinnati.
i was an athlete, six feet, maybe 190, kinda husky, remembered water polo in high school, we played in five feet of water, i liked pushing guys around, throwing the ball into the net, polk, you should come out and play with us, the colby captain said to me one night, yeah, i thought, i can play division III water polo, the first practice was two days later, i borrowed a speedo and headed down to the pool, ok fellas, we will start with 20 laps, at this moment i should have walked away, i had never swam more than a couple laps in my life, but i was too embarrassed, so i got in, labored through 7 exhausting laps, then quietly exited the water, went to the locker room, put on my clothes, and pretended the whole thing never happened.
from south carolina, harlem really, street fighter, paddle tennis champion, her younger years spent competing, and surviving a violent father, that story, the one where abuse makes humanity stronger, while most wither away, not to say her name is like serena or venus, fame swallowed by racist history, they let her play, but pretended she wasn’t really there, regardless, althea gibson with the volley, the lob, the slice backhand, the victory
I shoot baskets like no one is watching. No one is watching, except me, dream of youth, of future stardom, of current stardom. Driveway hero of every game, concrete cracks little lines where I place my sneakers, then heave up shot after shot toward the red rim, its gravity like a sun, my sun, basketball that sphere of influence. Minutes become an hour, become time itself. Stand here, move there, under the hoop, arms and legs leaping toward the sky.
My grandfather was a pitcher in the Cape Cod Baseball League before serving in World War II. He enjoyed sports and spending time with other athletes. During his retirement years in Florida he played golf with Johnny Antonelli. Antonelli was the ace pitcher (21-7 with a 2.30 ERA) for the New York Giants in 1954 when they won the World Series. I spent a day with Johnny and my grandfather watching spring training games in 1986. Antonelli let me wear his World Series ring for an entire game. Johnny Antonelli died just this past February at the age of 89. More about him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Antonelli
Daniel W. Polk 