Heritage
A few weeks ago my colleague, John Dudley, wrote an amazing article on Topps Heritage baseball. Check it out by clicking here. You’ll be glad you did.
Today though, I’m here to say that I recently bought a box of Topps Heritage and sat down to rip it open with my 8-year old nephew.
Now, he’s a huge baseball fan, and an Orioles fan like his Uncle Johnny, so when we sit down to do something along these lines we’re always rooting to pull a few birds from these packs and add them to his collection.
There are many things I enjoy about Heritage each year, including the nostalgia it gives me opening each pack, knowing that in some cases I remember opening these actual packs, before they were called heritage anything.
Secondly, they’re pretty affordable compared to other products out there, meaning they are better to rip with kids just for the experience than a lot of other products. I really enjoy this aspect of it, and, let’s face it, there’s still the potential to hit something really substantial.
I paid around $125 for the hobby box so I figured it was worth the shot and the fun.
We dove right in, splitting the packs evenly between the two of us and ripping them alternately one at a time.
To start, we didn’t have too much to get too excited about — some nice base rookies, which is always a cool thing for a kid, but that was about it.
That was until my nephew opened his second-to-last pack.
He leafed through them with a smile, as he had done every previous pack, calling out the names of each player and some tidbit of info he learned from endless hours watching, studying and obsessing about the game, much the way I did when I was his age — just ask me about 80s Tiger standout, Steve Kemp, and you’ll see I’ve still retained a lot of the facts about the players and the game from when I was a kid.
Right after Mookie Betts, and a brief recap of his recovery from illness this spring, his eye widened and he looked up at me in utter shock.
“Oh my Gosh!” He said. “I can’t believe this! This is the best card I’ve ever pulled in my entire life!”
He turned the card around to show me and there it was…
A shiny new 2024 Topps Heritage Jasson Dominguez RC Real One Autograph Red Ink /75!
“I can’t believe it!” He turned and looked at it once more! “Holy smokes!”
It is a beautiful card, I thought.
“Ma!” He shouted. “Look at this!
He proudly showed it off to her and his brother (who was not very impressed).
“I got to sit down now!,” he smiled. “I’m exhausted!”
It’s a memory he, nor I, won’t soon forget, and one that we were able to share — all because of baseball cards.
That is pretty awesome.
P.S. The card was sent to our friends at SGC about a week ago. I’ll keep you all posted on the outcome.