Two days ago, I went back to my old playground.
There was no swingset, though. No monkey bars, no sandbox, not
even any grass.
That’s because my old playground is an unassuming baseball
card shop in my hometown called Sportscard Outlet. I can’t
remember the last time I was there. Had to be at least seven years,
probably longer.
What I do remember is a guy named Vince, majestic stacks of
baseball cards and five great years of my childhood.
If you ever collected cards, I’m sure you had your own
Sportcard Outlet ““ the kind of place where you and your
friends would go three or four times a week to blow the better part
of your allowance, all the while hoping to pull that ’89
Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. or that ’90 Leaf Frank Thomas.
To be completely honest, this column started out as an RIP for
the sports card industry. I had done some research online and found
nothing but doom, gloom, and worst of all, greed in a pastime that
had once seemed so innocent to me.
So when I decided to drop by Sportscard Outlet, I expected to
see the same doom and gloom. Heck, I half expected there not to be
a Sportscard Outlet anymore.
I didn’t even bring my tape recorder or notebook. I
figured I already had the whole story: Oversaturation of the market
and the 1994 strike had depressed both prices and kids’
interest, to the point that shops everywhere were closing down.
But sure enough, when I walked into the shop ““ six inches
taller and hundreds of beers older ““ there was Vince, sorting
cards.Â
This is a story about one of the good guys. It’s one that
they never teach you in economics class, because it’s about a
guy who thinks about something besides the bottom line.
All those afternoons that my buddy Mike and I came into
Vince’s shop, he always talked to us, always told us about
new sets coming out, always looked through our collections for
anything he might want to buy. I can’t imagine how annoying
we were.
But you see, Vince is still in business precisely because he did
all these things. And when I came into the shop, it only took him
half a minute to remember me.
“Oh yeah, you and Michael,” he said. “You guys
used to play field hockey in junior high, right?”
We caught up for a while, then I told him about this column. He
started talking and talking about the industry with the same
excitement one of his sixth-grade customers gets when opening a new
pack of cards.
“It’s funny,” he says. “The guys who
catered to the big spenders are no longer doing business. Let
“˜em go. I tell people that if they want to make big money, go
to your stock broker and good luck.”
Vince admits that he has been lucky to do business in a well-off
area, where kids have money to spend on cards. But he’s still
had to weather the stormy times.
“I don’t pretend like I’m not a businessman,
but I also don’t try and sell pity,” he says.
He pauses, as Ed from Lloyd’s Plumbing comes into the shop
to ask Vince what he’d like for lunch.
“See, I do have a core group of big money people, but
they’re legit collectors. I have overcome through
resourcefulness, and good relationships have gotten me through the
hard times.”
Part of that resourcefulness has been the realization that he
couldn’t get by with the shop alone. But instead of shutting
down Sportscard Outlet, Vince has taken a day job and comes to the
shop from 4 to 8 p.m., Mondays through Thursdays.
The other days, he’s open the full eight hours. But all
seven days, he’s doing the same things he did for Mike and me
seven years ago, with all new customers.
“It takes more work dealing with little kids, but the big
spenders can get what they want online or at card shows,” he
says. “They don’t need a hobby shop. I’m
definitely an exception to the rule, but that should be a
lesson.”
On my way out, for the first time in almost a decade, I got the
itch. I bought a couple of packs and bid Vince goodbye.
They say you can’t relive your past, but as I started up
my car and saw a couple of kids walk into Sportscard Outlet, I saw
Mike and me going to our playground for the first time.