you cey it's your birthday...

i was 7 when i started collecting cards. i was a set collector. i was around 10 when i started collecting a team (the dodgers) as well. i decided i would collect the team sets for each year, starting in 1970 since that was when i was born.

i quickly realized that this would not be quite so easy as i had hoped. to go along with the scarcity of accessible hobby shops carrying older singles, there were the cards themselves that stood in the way. there was the 1972 garvey high number, the 1971 dick allen high number, the 1971 tom paciorek rookie that happened to include dusty baker and don baylor and the 1972 traded frank robinson, among others. and then there was the 1973 ron cey.

while not his rookie card - he had a 1972 card - cey was featured as a rookie third baseman along with mike schmidt. with schmidt winning mvps and the world series in the early 80s, i figured it would be a long wait to fill that hole in my dodgers collection.

in reality, i only had to wait until my 14th birthday (which just happens to have been 24 years ago last week).yep, that's me. i am triumphantly holding the card that my dad has just given to me for my birthday. i neglected to take it out of the case, so it's tough to see. here's a close up, where you can kind of see the penguin there on the left.sharp eyes will notice the 1978 cubs team card also on the table. i caught cubs fever in 84 (although i didn't really mind when garvey took lee smith deep), and started to collect them back to 1970 as well, so my dad gave me a few cubs cards as well.

i shortly thereafter abandoned the cubs project, but continued with the dodgers with one less white whale to chase.

thanks dad.