Cooperstown, Andre Dawson and Halley's Comet

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As I referenced yesterday afternoon, my wife and I went to Cooperstown Saturday to see my favorite player as a kid, Andre Dawson. We were there back in July for the induction ceremonies, but on this trip we had a pretty good shot at seeing him up close.

I linked to the blog entry I did on the trip yesterday. That pretty much summed up everything. Like many, I've been a fan since I was a kid. I was fortunate enough to get a picture with him at a game when I was 9. It was that picture that I hoped to get signed and did get signed. That's him signing it to the right.

I also got the opportunity, on the Hall of Fame's Character and Courage weekend, to thank him for being as good a person as he was a ball player. So check out that blog entry, if you haven't already.

That excitement out of the way, my wife and I took another look at the Cooperstown shops. We aimed for the one I'd picked up packs in in July, but we ended up in the one across the hall, Yaz Sports. Or at least I ended up there. It was a nice day and my wife told me to take as long as I wanted. Since there was a large quarter box and large box of vintage cards, that was a while.

The store was cool because it had a lot of vintage cards and then junk wax cards. There were also vintage packs behind the counter, including a box of 1989 Fleer. I couldn't help but notice the box had a type-written label identifying the packs as possibly containing the famous error from that set. The label also identified the packs as for those age 18 and over.

Though I was over 18 at the time, I instead opted for other options. I picked up three packs of 1981 Fleer, they were a buck apiece, a pack of 1982 Topps, 1985 Topps and 1989 Upper Deck. The others were a little more, topping out at $6 for the 1982 Topps, but they should be fun to open.

But the real fun was in the large quarter box and vintage box. I'll go through my finds in detail later, but I picked up some good CMC alums, including, after a bit of searching, some older CMC alums, including a 1966 Rookie Stars card and one from 1972 Topps.

The quarter box had some of the more well-known CMC alums. I also grabbed some beat up vintage cards from there and some other interesting items, including the Halley's Comet Topps 206 mini.

In that blog entry, I referenced vowing as a kid to go to Dawson's induction ceremony. Halley's Comet brings back another childhood memory, one of standing out in the cold waiting to see the comet in 1986, then finally giving up and going inside. It was overcast a bit, too, as I recall.

I remember doing the calculations and figuring how how old I'd be next time it came around, that I'd be able to make it. And what's 75 years when you're a freezing 7-year-old?

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