Poke-what?

We've already gone through a number of "collections" with our six-year-old. You know how they get obsessed with certain things and can't get enough? First there were the (lead tainted) Thomas the Tank Engine toys. Then we moved on to Rescue Heroes. There was a mercifully brief dabbling with Transformers (those things torture the living hell out of me). We are still in the throes of a Star Wars obsession, which has mostly involved Legos, light sabers, and DVDs.

Now the new thing all these first graders are up into is Pokemon cards. I'm not sure TB knows exactly what a Pokemon is (I sure don't, beyond that there is some kind of yellow animated thing with pointy ears. I have no idea if he stands for good or evil.). Still the boy is begging for them because some conniving little wretch other kid brought some to school.

7-11, in their merchandising wisdom, has a display of these cards right as you walk in the door, and if you have a soccer playing youth, you know that Slurpees are a common post game treat. Therefore, we have a choice: 1) skip the Slurpee to avoid the Pokemon issue, but suffer the Slurpee tantrum, or, 2) run the gauntlet to the Slupree machine and hope the boy doesn't notice the Pokemon cards on the way in.

These cards are $4.50 a pack, so I'm not falling for it!

But then I got to thinking about my own experience with cards. In the summer of 1974, I was seven-years-old, and deeply into baseball. I liked my hometown Mets, but I was completely nuts for the Cincinnati Reds. This was the era of the Big Red Machine: Joe Morgan, Tony Perez, Dave Concepcion, and my favorite: Johnny Bench.

Without my really asking him to, my father started bringing home packs of Topps baseball cards a few times a week. At first, he'd bring a pack or two a week. I'd open and look at the cards, study the statistics on the back, and chew on the rock hard stick of pink bubble gum that came inside. After a few weeks, the collection started growing. My Dad, who's obsessively meticulous, started organizing them. Before I knew it, he'd bought plastic cover sheets, three ring binders, and tally sheets to keep track of our cards. He'd let me trade the doubles and triples.

As far as I know, this was before you could go to a card shop and buy a whole series in one giant box. What fun is that, anyway? Soon, Dad was bringing home ten, sometimes fifteen packs a night. He was getting into it, big time. Sure, he was stopping off at the deli anyway for Kent Kings and a six-pack of Rheingold, but it seemed like the closer we got to finishing the set, the more he would buy.

I couldn't keep up with the gum, so my Mom would save it in Baggies Alligator Bags.

As the summer wore on, and the collection of 660 cards neared completion, I started getting more and more desperate for the elusive Johnny Bench card. We had nearly all the teams completed, all the all-star cards, all the checklists, but a handful of cards were still missing.

Eventually, it reached a point where we only needed three cards to complete the set. Some nights, out of ten packs of cards we'd get nary a new one. We had shoeboxes full of duplicates. Dad kept buying them, but I was getting distraught. Before long, the season would be over and they would start shipping the 1975 cards.

Finally, one night after I'd been out playing late, I came in for a snack before bed, and there on the kitchen table was the Johnny Bench card.

I remember I was so excited I nearly tackled my father to the ground. He lifted me up and I held on and he spun me around like we had just won the lottery. That's what it felt like. To this day, it's one of the most joyous moments I can recall. I think Dad was just as excited about that card, and my reaction to it, as I was.

We collected the next couple years, but not with as much follow-through. We did complete the 1977 season, but only after we realized that you could write to the company and request specific cards. I think we lacked a dozen or so and we just ordered them. By that point, the Reds were heading downhill and it became an American League world, with the Yankees winning back to back series. Our collecting trailed off after that.

I'll always be a baseball fan, probably because of that experience in the summer of '74.

So, am I depriving my son of a fabulous experience by avoiding the Pokemon cards? I don't think so. Those things are crap.

But next season, we're going to watch more baseball, root hard for the Mets to redeem themselves, and maybe, just maybe, we'll buy some baseball cards. If we get Jose Reyes, we might have to work on completing the set.