The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book

Neither Brendan C. Boyd nor Fred C. Harris had published any books nor possessed any special expertise in the field of sports or sports memorabilia when they decided to write The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book.[4] In 1970 while both were employed at a Boston, Mass. bookstore, a customer inquired about books on baseball cards. Surprised to learn that there weren't any works on the subject, Harris told Boyd, "we should write one."[6] So they pored over the cards they had collected in their youth and wrote The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book. Although the book doesn't indicate which author contributed which parts, generally Boyd covered players from the American League and Harris those in the National League.[6] Publication of the book was probably aided by the 1972 publication of Roger Kahn's The Boys of Summer, which rekindled interest in 1950s baseball.

Brendan C. Boyd wrote another book, published in 1993, titled Blue Ruin: A Novel of the 1919 World Series.[7]

"The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book," presents a humorous and usually irreverent account of the baseball cards that were distributed during the authors' youths and of the players depicted on the cards. The basic format consists of an image of a card of a player, or in a few instances a manager or umpire, accompanied by a short characterization of the card and the player. The commentary for each card ranges from a single sentence to a few hundred words. Unlike most sports-related publications, the vast majority of players featured in this book possessed mediocre talent and had been largely forgotten by 1973.

The book is not a baseball card guide in any respect and makes no pretense of being one—there's no indication what a card is worth or even that it has any intrinsic value other than the memories it invokes. Baseball card collecting in 1973 was primarily a childhood activity and invariably abandoned by young adulthood. The authors' stated assumption is that the cards one collected in his youth are all gone, as revealed in the book's closing comments, "We know, your mother, your own mother, threw them away." Instead, the authors present a nostalgic look at the part of their youth that involved collecting, trading, and flipping baseball cards.

The book is divided into four sections:

• Where Have You Gone Vince DiMaggio (Some Reflections On a Baseball Card Childhood)
• This Kid Is Going to Make It
• Profiles
• Some Final Observations on Trading, Hoarding, Collecting and Other Aberrations of the Baseball Card Life

The first section reminisces in a rapid-fire stream of consciousness flow about growing up and eventually coming of age in 1950s suburban America with Pez, cap-guns, Jujubes, and baseball cards. The second section delves into the Topps trading card company and its pioneering executive Sy Berger circa 1973. "There was Topps and then there was Topps," Harris says in the introduction to the 1991 reissue. (ref 2)

The bulk and the heart of the book is the section called "Profiles," containing the card images and player biographies. Usually one or two players are featured per page and the biography is by no means meant to be complete or unbiased, but rather a quick snapshot of what the authors remembered most about the player. In all there are 221 baseball players featured[7] with no stated or apparent reason for their selection, although it can be gathered that many were picked for the humor potential inherent in some aspect of the player or the card itself. Most of the cards were issued from 1951 to 1963 with a few later ones included.[6]

The last section of the book offers a short discourse on things to do with cards, from hoarding, trading, to finally collecting. The ending foreshadows the adult hobby of collecting baseball cards that was about to explode, although it is unlikely the authors were prescient of this.

The book is not written in a linear fashion. Each card and its accompanying commentary, with a few rare exceptions, stand alone and are not categorized, such as by team, league, era, position, etc. The ultimate effect of the seemingly scattershot arrangement is that the reader can start most anywhere and jump about without any loss of comprehension. That said, there are unstated themes that run through the book, or they could be described as threads that hold the story together.

Much of the book's humor and thus its appeal derives from the authors' style, which is integral to the narration. Although there are notable exceptions, for the most part the overt writing style could be characterized as breezy, goofy, and irreverent, at times to the point of being ridiculing.[3] Somewhat curiously though, perhaps because of the reader's awareness of the authors' respect for the game and the inherent difficulty of playing it at the major league level, the ultimate effect is to glorify the effort made by the humdrum player because he was part of game that was a significant part of one’s youth. The following two quotes from the book are representative of the style used in the "Profiles" section:

Quick, name a major league baseball player who was born in San Remo, Italy, lived in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, and couldn't hit. That's right--Reno Bertoia. OK. Name another one. The back of Reno's card is interesting. It says that his average last year was .162 and that, although he did not get to play in too many ballgames, he gained valuable information about American League hurlers that would help him in the future. I suspect that the information he gathered was that every pitcher in the American League could get him out, and that perhaps he should try another line of work.

Now, it is not necessary for me to declare that Hector Lopez was the worst fielding third baseman in the history of baseball. Everyone knows that. It is more or less a matter of public record. But I do feel called upon somehow to try to indicate, if only for the historical archivists among us, the sheer depths of his innovative barbarousness. Hector Lopez was a butcher. Pure and Simple. A butcher. His range was about one step to either side, his hands seemed to be made of concrete and his defensive attitude was so cavalier and arbitrary as to hardly constitute an attitude at all. Hector did not simply field a groundball, he attacked it. Like a farmer trying to kill a snake with a stick. And his mishandling of routine infield flies was the sort of which legends are made. Hector Lopez was not just a bad fielder for a third baseman. In fact, Hector Lopez was not just a bad fielder for a baseball player. Hector Lopez was, when every factor has been taken into consideration, a bad fielder for a human being. The stands are full of obnoxious leather-lunged cretins who insist they can play better than most major leaguers. Well, in Hector's case they could have been right. I would like to go on record right here and now as declaring Hector Lopez the all-time worst fielding major league ballplayer. That's quite a responsibility there, Hector, but I have every confidence you'll be able to live up to it.

There are a few notable exceptions to the satirical style, in which straightforward reverence is paid, usually to the game's greats. The card for Ted Williams says simply, "In 1955, there were 77,263,127 male American human beings. And every one of them in his heart of hearts would have given two arms, a leg and his collection of Davy Crockett iron-ons to be Teddy Ballgame." (The glowing comments on the Williams card when juxtaposed with the rather disdainful ones in the closing section of the book about a 1955 Mickey Mantle card reflect the authors' Bostonian bias for the Red Sox in that team's fabled rivalry with the New York Yankees.)

The commentary accompanying Satchel Paige's card lists Mr. Paiges oft-quoted "Rules for Staying Young" and concludes with the authors' own prophetic pronouncement: "Satchel Paige could have been the greatest pitcher in major league history, if he'd been given the chance. Don't look back, America, something might be gaining on you."

And the cards of Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente, in honor of their notable off-field heroics and recent deaths, are each posted on a black background with no comment at all.

Although the book was never a bestseller and spent much more time out-of-print than in print since its publication (and then reprint edition in 2015),[5] it has nonetheless attained a cult following[3] and been frequently cited by many publications and online resources.

Perhaps the book's most lasting legacy is the contribution it made, albeit unwittingly, to the adult hobby of card collecting.[3] Harris and Boyd, like many other boys who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, collected cards as youths, lost interest in the hobby in their teen years, and rekindled the hobby in their adult years. The difference was that Harris and Boyd actually wrote a book about it because at the time there were no others.