Darnell had always been a big baseball fan. From a young age, he spent most of his free time either playing ball in the backyard or collecting baseball cards. His room was filled with shelves displaying his ever-growing collection in protective plastic sheets. Each year on his birthday and during the major holidays, he would ask his parents for packs of the newest baseball cards to add to his accumulating piles.
This year, Darnell had saved up all his allowance and money from odd jobs around the neighborhood to buy some packs himself. His birthday was still a few months away and Christmas was even further, so he decided to take a trip to the local sports cards shop with the $30 he had amassed. As he walked through the door of “Chuck’s Sports Cards and Memorabilia,” the familiar smell of old baseball gloves and musty cardboard filled his nostrils.
Darnell made his way over to the long rack filled with packs from the current year’s sets. There were many choices to consider. He could get 10 packs of the basic team sets that came with about 8 cards per pack including mostly commons. Or he could splurge on a couple of the high-end packs that featured better rookie cards and parallels but at a higher per pack price. In the end, he decided to get a mix of 6 packs to maximize his odds of finding some cards he didn’t already have in his collection.
He selected 3 packs each of the Topps and Bowman brands. The Topps packs were $3 each and contained the standard baseball team logo designs. Bowman packs were $5 a piece but had prospects and prospects of top minor league players in addition to current major leaguers. With tax, his $30 budget was spent on the 6 cardboard rectangles wrapped in thin plastic.
Darnell thanked Chuck at the counter and carefully placed his purchases in his backpack to transport them safely home. The anticipation was rising as he walked the few blocks back to his house. Once in his room with the door closed, he emptied the contents of his backpack onto his bed excitedly. It was time to see what players may have found new homes in his collection.
He started with a Topps pack and gingerly tore away the wrapping to reveal the first few cellophane-wrapped cards below. The first was a run-of-the-mill reliever for the Rangers who was unlikely to have any trade value. Flipping to the next card, Darnell saw a shiny outline – it was a foil parallel version of emerging slugger Pete Alonso of the Mets. Not a super valuable card yet, but certainly one to add to his player PC (private collection) of the emerging star. A few more position players and another middle reliever followed before he reached the final card – it was a base rookie card of superstar Mike Trout from one of his early season with the Angels. Not a chase card by any means since Trout had been producing at an MVP level for nearly a decade already, but still an exciting vintage card to find of one of the sport’s greatest.
His pack luck seemed to be promising so far. On to the next Topps pack containing a few more middle infielders and a back-end starter before two bright spots – a base rookie card of current Cy Young favorite Corbin Burnes and a factory sealed pink parallel refractor of budding talent Juan Soto, one of just 99 minted. Things were shaping up better than expected from the bargain Topps packs. His Bowman packs awaited after a quick break to sleeve and topload the key cards he pulled so far to protect for his long-term collection.
The first Bowman pack held two non-graded rookie cards of potential prospects who had yet to debut in the bigs along with a red parallel refractor of super-utility man Whit Merrifield. More middle infielders followed but the last card brought an audible gasp – a gold shimmer parallel rookie auto /99 of wunderkind Wander Franco. Still not a true chase card but worth ten times what he paid just for the pack due to Franco’s potential to be a franchise cornerstone for the Rays. Things could not have started better. He eagerly ripped into his final packs hoping luck would continue to shine down on his collection endeavor.
A few more lottery ticket prospect cards came his way along with a purple refractor of emerging ace Sandy Alcantara before his last pack held the biggest hit of all – a prizm silver pack fresh rookie auto of buzz saw pitching phenom Shohei Ohtani mounted beautifully in a one-touch case. This $100+ card alone more than made up for his entire investment many times over. Darnell could hardly believe his luck in finding two premiere rookie autos in just 6 retail packs. It seemed the baseball card gods had smiled upon his collecting endeavor for the day.
As the glow of his impressive and fortuitous card pulls began to dim, Darnell got to work sleeving and organizing his new additions amongst the rest of his vast array of paper treasures. He made sure to showcase his prized Ohtani and Franco rookies in a special top-loaded quad stand on his main display shelf. With such auspicious additions to his collection and stories to tell his card buddies down at the shop, Darnell was already counting down the days until he could save up for another pack-busting adventure at Chuck’s Sports Cards. It seemed his curiosity and anticipation for what lies within each pack had been rewarded mightily on this day.
