Baseball cards have a long history in Natick, Massachusetts dating back to the late 19th century. Some of the earliest baseball cards produced featured players from the Natick town team that played in the early 1900s. While the hobby of collecting cards grew nationally starting in the 1880s, it took root in Natick around the turn of the 20th century as kids started swapping and trading cards depicting their favorite local players.
Natick was home to a thriving amateur baseball scene in the early decades of the 1900s with several town teams made up of the best local players. Teams would travel to nearby towns to play games on Saturdays and Sundays, drawing big crowds. Card companies like American Caramel began producing sets in the 1890s that included players from these New England amateur leagues. Some of the earliest Natick players to have their likeness on a baseball card included pitcher Jack “Smokey” Moriarty and third baseman Tommy “Sticks” Murphy who starred for the 1905 Natick town team.
As the decades progressed, baseball card collecting became a popular pastime for many Natick boys in the summer months. They would ride their bicycles to the local drug store, candy shop or five and dime store hoping to find the newest packs of cards to add to their collections. Popular early 20th century sets like T206 White Border, 1909-11 T206 Gold Border and 1911 Imperial Tobacco Allen & Ginter featured many major league stars that Natick kids idolized. Swapping duplicate cards was a big part of the hobby.
In the 1930s and 40s, the Goudey and Play Ball sets dominated the baseball card market. By this time, the local Natick Dairy store had become a hotspot for kids to congregate and trade cards. Longtime Natick resident Bill Perkins fondly remembers riding his bike there as a young boy in the 1940s hoping to find packs of the colorful Goudey cards to add to his collection. The Dairy store owner realized the cards were a big draw for customers and made sure to keep stock of the latest releases.
Topps took over production of modern cardboard after the war and their colorful, bubblegum infused sets like 1952, 1955 and 1957 were immediate hits with Natick collectors. The Stratton Pharmacy was another local shop that always had Topps packs behind the counter. Brothers Billy and Tommy Joyce would pool their allowance to try and complete sets, often trading doubles at the playground after school. Natick’s own Dick Radatz, who went on to pitch in the majors, was an avid collector in the late 1950s and early 60s. He has fond memories of hunting for his favorite Red Sox players at local stores.
The 1960s saw the rise of the specialty card shop in Natick catering specifically to collectors. Stan’s Sport Cards was opened in 1963 and became the epicenter of the hobby in town. Weekly Friday night gatherings drew dozens of kids to trade, buy and sell with one another. The 1970s introduced colorful oddball and regional sets that Stan’s always stocked like Berkshire, Boston Nine and Danbury Mint. As values rose in the 1980s, auctions became more commonplace with kids selling prized vintage cards to finance new purchases.
Today, Natick is still home to a few remaining card shops that cater to both casual collectors and serious investors. Heritage Card Shop has been in business since the 1980s and hosts monthly trading events. Their extensive online store reaches collectors worldwide. Natick Sport Cards opened in the late 90s and has a strong focus on vintage Red Sox and providing supplies for today’s collectors. While the collecting culture has changed with the internet age, the tradition of kids in Natick discovering the hobby through local shops remains an integral part of the town’s baseball card history spanning over a century.
