Cookbook Friday: Baseball Cards

       

Here’s a photo of my dad, Freddie Donroe, being consoled by his mom, Dora [Barbaresi] Donroe.  I don’t know what he was upset about, but I’m sure it was very, very important.  And speaking of tears, here’s a story written by my dad about collecting baseballs cards in the 1950’s and 60’s:

As a young baseball fan, my prized possession was not my bike, my Yankee-Doodle rocket launcher, or even my dog.  It was my baseball card collection. 

From 1957 through 1963, I was an avid collector of those cardboard stock photos of our diamond heroes: Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford.  There was no greater joy than to go to the corner store after school with my friends and buy a pack of baseball cards.  And if one happened to have a whole quarter to spend, one could buy five packs of cards.  That meant 25 cards and five slabs of the most delicious stale, dried-out gum on the planet.

I became a master at “pitching cards,” that simple game of hurling cards against the wall, with the card nearer to the wall the winner.  If you won, you took your opponent’s card.  I managed to win every one of my cousin Joe Donroe’s Yankee cards one year that way.  Today, as an older and wiser man, I regret the mercenary way I treated my cousin.  But, at the time, he knew what he was getting into.

In 1958, I managed for the first and only time to collect the entire Topps series of cards.  Every single player card, team card, specialty card, and even index cards.  I kept the entire set in an old Thom McCann shoebox in my closet.  I kept them for over a decade.  Safe from thieves, weather, and other mishap, they were not safe from the one predator I could not foresee: a spring-cleaning mom. 

How could she (or any of us) have known the way the sports memorabilia market would explode in the 1980’s and 90’s?  So much for my daughter’s college tuition!

Freddie Donroe
Hamden, Connecticut
1948 -

Blogger’s note: Coincidentally, Joe Donroe’s son ended up attending the same university as me.  He has since become a doctor, while I am, well…a blogger.  Looks like Dad's cousin Joe got the last laugh, after all.

Next Recipe: Icebox Cake

     (Previously: Stuffed Mushrooms)

Comments

[joey]

I recall being warned never to pitch cards with Freddie. In the early 60's, during our summer vacations, Eddie and I would look forward to when Dora would bring us home an entire box of cards EACH. Yankee cards were prized, of course. The cards from that team in Boston went immediately to the spokes of our bikes (several hundred dollars worth, at todays prices). And it was possible to fit 17 pieces of gum in your mouth at one time.

[Tammy]

Dad always said Eddie was the favorite son.

As for the Red Sox, you can imagine how things have been around here over the years with a Yankees fan for a father and a husband who's a die-hard Red Sox fan.

[Sally]

And you're right on about that hard, stale gum Dad. Yuck! Personally, I preferred the Garbage Pail Kids cards from the 80's-90's.

[Dad]

Sorry but that baseball card gum was the best! So hard it could chip teeth, remove fillings with ease and destroy the toughest braces conceived by man. Publicly my Dentist loudly condemned it, but privately you knew he had to love the stuff!

[Fish Sauce Hater]

I still have all of my baseball cards and they're not for sale. Even the Yankees.

And no lie, when I was a kid the store I went to complete my sets?

My Mom Threw Out My Baseball Cards in Attleboro, Mass.

[Tammy]

Hater: No kidding! I guess all of the Meddling Mothers are in cahoots.

Dad: Does gum still come with the cards? Do they still sell cards? And, also, what's baseball?

Sally: Did they sell garbage-flavored gum to go with the Garbage Pail-themed cards?

[John Anthony Santomasso]

I had a similar thing happen to me. I had complete sets of Yankees, if memory serves, from '55-'61, to include 2 or three Mantle MVP cards from '56. I also had fairly complete sets of Dodger and Giant cards from their last two years in NY. While in the Army '68-'71, my Alzheimer inflicted Mother, not knowing what they were, trashed innumerable boxes stored in the back of my closet. I was able to collect these cards for two reasons. Most of my friends in my neighborhood were Red Sox fans, so trading was easy. And I too was fairly proficient at the art of pitching cards. Weren't they the greatest days of our lives?
One added note. I went to St Francis Parochial School, in Fair Haven, on Ferry St. There was a Joseph Donroe in my class. If this is who you are talking about, I'd love to make contact with him.

[Dad]

John,

My cousin Joe moved to Hamden around 1957-58. I'm not sure where he lived prior to that but Fair Haven sounds very possible. I know that my dad, Joe's uncle, talked alot about the Ferry Street section. I do not have Joe's address or e-mail but I'm pretty sure he still lives with his wife Judy in the greater New Haven area. Try a Google or Switchboard search.