Cards are collector’s passion

By Tom Hintgen (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published Tuesday, July 24, 2007

As a kid growing up in the 1950s, Craig Rupp purchased a few baseball cards. Like many children, he stuffed a few into a box and attached others to the spokes of his bicycle to make flapping sounds. Other cards were traded away or simply discarded by parents. Only a few were kept in a safe storage place.

Today the Elbow Lake resident has turned back the clock to the 1950s. Players from that era such as Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Ted Williams and Hank Aaron were great players who were looked up to by many young boys.

The greatness — still today — combined with childhood hero worship and 2007 nostalgia by Rupp and others has helped elevate the value of these baseball cards. Rookie cards of the great players are usually worth more.

“Baseball cards and baseball memorabilia became my passion 20 years ago,” the 60-year-old Rupp said. “Along with 1950s cards, I’m also interested in those from the 1960s and 1970s.”

Browsing through baseball cards from 50 years ago — in 1957 — Rupp came across a Don Drysdale rookie card when the righthander pitched for the Brooklyn Dodgers, one year before his team moved to Los Angeles. That same year Hank Aaron played for Milwaukee, several years before the Braves moved to Atlanta.

“It’s an entirely different world for baseball card collecting today compared to when I was a kid back in the 1950s,” the 1965 Elbow Lake High School graduate said. “Gone are the corner grocery scores where young boys purchased the cards that came with sticks of bubblegum. Today many collectors purchase cards at baseball card shows or pick up some favorite cards on e-Bay.”

Baseball memorabilia — in addition to baseball cards — also is a big part of the passion for Rupp who is a 38-year employee of Mendelson Egg Company.

Examples include autographed baseballs, player photos signed by major leaguers, baseball bobblehead dolls, baseball uniforms and you name it.

Rupp also has taken the leap along with the most avid baseball baby boomers who take their passion and love of the game to the next level — attending fantasy camps where they play baseball and rub shoulders with major league stars from bygone years.

That dream, for the first time, became reality for Rupp in 2002 when he attended the Twins Fantasy Camp at Fort Myers, Fla. He had so much fun that he returned three more years — in 2003, 2004 and 2005. He became a personal friend of former Twins pitcher and current announcer Bert Blyleven.

“Others who share the baseball passion that I do understand what attending a fantasy camp really means,” Rupp said. “It might be similar to deer hunting. Only those who share the bond of hunting in the wild each November can fully understand the feeling.”

For Rupp — and other baby boomers like him — the 1957 major league season isn’t really all that far removed from what the average person really thinks it is. The boys of summer is a philosophy that crosses into all seasons of the year.

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