A Few Firsts

Woke up this morning and started catching up on this weekend's blog posts.  Greg over at Night Owl Cards wrote about some "personal firsts" which inspired me to get out of bed and hammer out this post.

But since my first response to his "first" topic involves a basketball product, let me first show off this cool Ohtani that he sent recently sent me:

2024 Topps 2023 Greatest Hits #23GH-14

This guy is off to another stellar season at the plate.  Not sure when he'll pitch again, but it sounds like it might be in the second half of the season.  Let's focus on the now and look at Night Owl's first category...

First Blaster Purchased:  1998-99 Upper Deck Basketball

 eBay Image

I have no idea what product had the honor of being my very first blaster box.  Honestly... I'd have to search this blog to tell you my last.  That being said... I do remember going to Walmart with my buddy Mike and grabbing boxes of 1998-99 Upper Deck Basketball.

1998-99 Upper Deck #230d

That's the oldest memory of me going out and purchasing retail/blaster boxes.

First Parallel I Knew:  1975 Topps Minis

Although I have never owned the standard sized version, this 1977 Topps Mini Robin Yount rookie card has been in my collection since the early 80's:

1975 Topps Mini #223

I'm about 90% positive I purchased this in 1982 or 1983.  Is there a chance I learned about the 1984 Topps Tiffany set before this purchase?  Maybe.  But odds are I knew about the 1975 Topps Minis first.

First "Old Card" In My Collection:  1979 Topps Bump Wills

One of my neighbors gave me a shoebox filled with 1979 Topps baseball back in the early 80's.  While my friends and I owned stacks of 1981 Donruss and Topps baseball, I remember thinking how cool it was to own a bunch of these "old" 1979's.

This card stood out:

1979 Topps #369

While I was at the local sports memorabilia store (same store I purchased the Yount at), I learned about this card and his corrected version:

1979 Topps #369

The crazy thing is... I opened packs of 1977 Topps Star Wars, but at the time... the baseball cards felt older.

First Baseball Cards Purchased Through Mail-Order:  1986 Topps Glossy Mail-In

1986 Topps Glossy All-Star #57

This one is a toughie.  I'm 80% sure I sent in some of those special offer cards and ordered one or two of these special Topps mail-in sets.

I might be a year or two off, but I went with 1986 because it's my best guess response.

First Sitcom I Saw:  The Brady Bunch

There are a lot of shows from the 70's that I remember watching with my family.  I definitely watched a lot of Brady Bunch reruns when I was a kid.

1998 DuoCards Happy Days #1

But not exactly sure if that was before or after Happy Days, which we watched on a weekly basis.  Like Greg said in his response... it's "a gray area".

First Big Kid Book I Read:  Forever by Judy Blume

eBay Image

I'm not sure if this counts as a "big kid" book or not, but I remember getting my mom to buy it for me when I was in the 4th or 5th grade.  I remember it was one of those books where one kid at our school read it and word got around that it talked about "sex".  Don't remember the plot, but I definitely remember the cover.

First Cartoon That Freaked Me Out: Not Sure

Heavy Metal (1981) VHS Tape

Can't really think of any cartoons that freaked me out.  I remember watching Heavy Metal and seeing nudity... but I was a teenager when I saw it.  In other words, it didn't freak me out.

Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (1971)

I'll modify the topic by replacing cartoon with "kids movie" and go with Gene Wilder and his chocolate factory tour.  That scene when they're on the boat in the tunnel with salamanders and chickens definitely freaked me out as a kid, but I still watched it over and over.

First Championship for a Favorite Team:  1984-85 Los Angeles Lakers

1983-84 BASF #NNO

One of my fondest sports memories involving my dad was watching the NBA Finals in the 80's with him.  He was a Boston Celtics fan... which shaped me into a Los Angeles Lakers fan.  I was pretty devastated when the Celtics beat the Lakers in 7 games in 1984, but that was the year I really started following basketball.  The following season the Lakers beat the Celtics in six.  Good times.

1984 was a big year for me in regards to sports.  While watching the 1984 World Series (or shortly after)... I adopted the San Diego Padres as my National League team.  Unfortunately they lost in five games to the Detroit Tigers.  But I'll never forget rooting for the Brown & Gold.

Night Owl recently sent me some 1984 Star panels featuring one of the key players from that World Series roster:

1984 Star Steve Garvey Panel #1 (#'s 1-3)

1984 Star Steve Garvey Panel #6 (#'s 16-18)

1984 Star Steve Garvey Panel #7 (#'s 19-21)

1984 Star Steve Garvey Panel #8 (#'s 22-24)

1984 Star Steve Garvey Panel #9 (#'s 25-27)

1984 Star Steve Garvey Panel #10 (#'s 28-30)

1984 Star Steve Garvey Panel #11 (#'s 31-33)

1984 Star Steve Garvey Panel #12 (#'s 34-36)

These 8 panels are part of a 12 panel set produced by The Star Company.  I really like the simple design and the color matched borders.

Based on the checklist, the missing panels contain Garvey's Dodgers cards:

I love oddball issues like these.    I'm still deciding if I'll keep these panels intact or separate the cards and get these into the Garvey section of my Padres binder.

Greg also sent me a pair of colorful Padres parallels:

2024 Topps Blue Holofoil #2 (#'d 998/999)

2024 Topps Holiday #50

It's been over a year and I'm still trying to figure out what design is featured on this Soto card.  Regardless... it's shiny and pretty.

Speaking of shine, Greg also sent me some A's parallels for my collection:

2024 Topps Archives Black Foilboard #113

2024 Topps Allen & Ginter Chrome Refractor #35

Soderstrom started off hot this year, but has cooled off the past few weeks.  He still leads the team in home runs, RBI's, and slugging percentage.

2024 Topps Holiday Holiday Tree #H127

Hopefully F-Face Fisher will build a playoff caliber team around the twenty-three year old slugger.  Better yet... I hope he sells the team and the new owner builds a team around him.

Thank you Night Owl for the care package and inspiring this post of "firsts".

Happy Sunday and sayonara!