Better Call Saul Baseball Cards: An Exploration of Jimmy McGill’s Childhood Hobby
While Jimmy McGill, aka Saul Goodman, has made a career of shady dealings and cons as a lawyer in Albuquerque, New Mexico, one of his most innocent joys from childhood has been his love of baseball cards. Throughout the prequel series Better Call Saul, small glimpses are given into Jimmy’s pastime of collecting cards and how it has shaped some of his personality traits. Though just a side interest on the show, Jimmy’s baseball cards offer intriguing insights into his formative years and character development.
As a young boy growing up in Cicero, Illinois, Jimmy was an avid collector of baseball cards. In flashbacks, he is often seen thumbing through his collection with great care and interest. For a kid in the 1960s, collecting cards was a hugely popular hobby that allowed children to connect with their favorite players and teams. It was also a solitary activity that let imaginative young minds dream up scenarios involving the cards. For Jimmy, his cards provided an escape from his tumultuous home life with his brother Chuck and their con artist father.
Spending hours organizing his cards by year, team, and position was a soothing ritual for Jimmy. It allowed him to meticulously control at least one small part of his world during a chaotic childhood. His card collection became a source of pride and comfort. Even decades later as an adult, Jimmy retains fond memories and knowledge about his childhood cards, showing how meaningful they were to his development. The orderly categorizing of cards also helped foster Jimmy’s knack for systematizing information, a trait that would serve him well as a lawyer.
Beyond just enjoying looking at the players’ photos and stats, Jimmy took his baseball card hobby a step further by setting up elaborate trades with other collectors. Even as a young boy, he had a gift for negotiation and convincing others through his silver tongue. Jimmy would cleverly trade common cards for rare ones he wanted through persuasive sales pitches. His card-swapping skills foreshadowed his talents for making deals and convincing clients as a lawyer. Jimmy treated trading like a game or puzzle to be solved, an early sign of his enjoyment of outmaneuvering others through clever schemes.
As an only child, Jimmy’s baseball cards and the social activity of trading with peers offered companionship during lonely days. But the cards were also a way for Jimmy to temporarily escape his difficult family life and immerse himself in the achievements of his favorite ballplayers. Thumbing through stats and imagining game scenarios was a form of escapism from his parents’ volatile relationship and Chuck’s disapproval. Sports provided Jimmy with heroes he looked up to and strived to emulate in his own way.
Into adulthood, Jimmy retained fond memories and knowledge of his childhood baseball card collection, a reminder of more carefree times before life became complicated. Even after abandoning his given name and becoming Saul Goodman, Jimmy held onto a few key cards that still brought him joy, like a rare 1969 Willie Mays. For a man who so thoroughly reinvented himself, those baseball cards enduringly represented an innocent part of his identity and past that could not be shaken. They were one of the few positive reminders Jimmy had from his childhood in Cicero before life led him down a darker path.
While Jimmy’s baseball card interest was a relatively small detail in Better Call Saul, it offered meaningful insights into how he developed some defining personality traits from an early age. His card collection fostered organizational skills, social intelligence around trading, and a gift for storytelling. They also provided companionship and escapism during lonely times. Most importantly, Jimmy’s cards represented happier memories from his youth that stayed with him throughout adulthood turmoil. Even decades later, they continued giving him brief moments of joy and connection to his origins. For the man who became Saul Goodman, those childhood baseball cards were one innocent link to the good-natured boy he had been before life intervened.
