2008 Allen & Ginters Mike Hampton Relic from a variety pack I purchased at Target.
I don’t buy many new baseball cards but when I feel the need I purchase from wal-mart/target/etc. in variety packs since I’m usually more concerned with getting the most cards for my money. Sometimes I can score something cool but more often than not they pack a couple of relatively new with a couple of old sets, not very exciting.
Anyway, a couple of days ago I picked up a “Championship Collection” with 8 factory sealed packs. The box claims that there are over $18 worth of cards here and it only cost me $10! I’m not gonna say I’m not a sucker but I like cheap things and it adds some variety to my very early 90′s centric card collection. Inside this box were some 2008 Topps, 2007 Upper Deck, 1994Fleer Ultra, 2007 Topps Chrome and some other non-memorable packs.
Hidden at the bottom of the box like a leper was a pack of 1988 Donruss, obviously put it there so the consumer could never accidentally see it and not buy the box. I was pretty disappointed as I have more than a few Donruss 1988 and they are some of the ugliest baseball cards I have ever seen. On the plus side I now have 15 1988 Donruss in good condition.
This was an orginal factory sealed pack so it was in the wax paper wrapper and it had a piece of gum! I think that whole gum thing was fading away when I amassing most of my collection, I did get packs that contained gum but the vast majority of baseball cards that were purchased for me did not have gum. I seem to remember that the gum was always stale and it would turn to powder in your mouth before magically congealing into a gummy wad at which point it would be flavorless and I would spit it out. Such a fickle uncaring child I was.
Now I’m an adult and am fully aware that this gum was more than likely produced a few years before the cards were packaged but I could not resist the chance to eat the gum. I was sitting in the car outside the store with my wife and told her “We need to eat this right now” and she agreed. As I picked it up from the top of the pack it felt the same as I remember, light and stiff with just a hint of flour or cornstarch. I put it up to my nose drawing a couple quick whiffs, still smelled like I remember. I was starting to get excited. I gently snapped it into two halves and passed one to my wife, we simultaneously popped into our mouths and began chewing….oh the HORRORS that were to follow.
The gum started like most other cheap baseball card gum, it instantly became granular in my mouth but something was missing. The flavor that is usually quick to tickle my tastebuds, even it was for such a short time, was delayed. I knew something was about to go wrong but unlike astronauts who have an abort button to cancel a seemingly harmful situation, I had no such button and was commited the point my teeth started grinding up my chalky prize. I continued chewing and the flavor never came, the 20 plus years of imprisonment inside the pack of cards had leeched any sweet flavor and replaced it with a waxy flavor I could only describe as “crayony”.
As I mentioned before most baseball card gum I’d ever eaten has started out granular and quickly congeleled into something one could recognize as gum. This gum certainly started out granular but the coagulation I was expecting just never happened. I chewed vigorously trying to coax out a little gummyness but alas it was not to be. Disgusted, we both opened the card doors and spat out what looked like unicorn vomit. I feel sorry for the people that parked in that spot after we left, who knows what they though those chunky pink puddles were.
I guess the moral of my story, if there is one, is don’t eat gum from the mid to late 1980′s. I guess adults really shouldn’t have to be told that…
