Dave, from Dad, 1987

Thirty years ago – December 25, 1987 – I got a Christmas gift that wasn’t on my list.

No biggie. I knew how handle it. Simple rules of engagement, per the social contract we all agreed to as kids:

1) We got to ask for anything. We could make a long list of those things, in fact. No matter how absurd.

2) If we were good we’d probably get something from the list.

And we were always good.

3) If a gift is not from the list – and this was the critical part – we showed appreciation for it. No matter how cool or, uh, unexpected.

4) Oh, and we reciprocated with a school project or cheap tie. Maybe a kitchen utensil.

I’d rip open a present to find a three-pack of athletic socks. “Wow. These are great,” I’d say with my eyebrows thrust unnaturally high, “just like James Worthy!” Or the Minoxidil shampoo that promotes hair growth (true story). “Sweet, thanks Dad.”

Anyway, back to 1987 and the big surprise gift. I know my first impulse was not to radiate excitement. Pretty sure I locked up in genuine confusion.

 

To be honest, I just didn’t get it.

I was looking for something cool like a Spuds Mackenzie T-shirt or a Walkman. Instead, I got a large white box.

Empty.

My dad explained that it was a “strong box.” He pointed out the obvious: “You store things in it.” He had been in the basement quite a bit that fall, apparently building strong boxes (my brothers got one, too). He was proud of his handiwork.

As a high school sophomore in small-town Nebraska, I didn’t own much of consequence. I had a summer job working in a warehouse, and I was busy memorizing the lyrics to every track on the Bigger side of my first LL Cool J album. Music was starting to take attention from my baseball cards.

Which was worth noting, because I loved baseball cards. All my buddies collected. We’d get together to trade whenever we could. The wheeling and dealing was fun, but the afternoons usually evolved into spectacular debates about players, teams and leagues. Pete Rose or Ty Cobb? Lou Brock or Vince Coleman? Dale Murphy or…

Come on. Murph had no equal!

Anyway, it was a blast. We learned a lot about the game by trading cards. Then we’d forget the arguments, go outside and play as many innings as we could until dark.

Just as my interests were turning to girls and music, baseball card collecting had become a business. Instead of arguing about who was the better player, we speculated about which card might have the greater value and growth potential. Baseball cards were becoming the gateway drug to securities trading on Wall Street.

The following summer, I decided that my new strong box was the perfect place to keep my baseball cards. I wasn’t trading with my buddies anymore and I needed space for my boom box and cassette tapes.

Then, perhaps as a last-ditch effort to hang on to something I had once loved so much, I bought a full box of 1988 Fleer baseball cards.

It felt weird. For my entire childhood, I would scrape together a fistful of nickels to buy a pack at the grocery story. I would ask Santa for cards, too. Now I had a job and paycheck. And I gluttonously bought 36 packs at once. A whole box.

I didn’t even bother opening the packs. I was probably just too busy being a high school kid. So I tucked them in my strong box with the others. One thing I knew for sure; I was keeping my cards. Forever.

Every single one.

That story is over, but my rhyme ain’t done.

Three decades later, I still have my strong box. It just sits there holding my cards. Waiting.

I opened it up a few days ago. Not for the first time, mind you. My three young boys love it when we dig out the old cards. They ask questions and we invariably get lost in years of stories and baseball mythology together.

They even have their own little collections now.

Just a few days ago, my youngest asked me about the box of unopened 1988 Fleer. He really wants to open the packs.

 

“When are you going to open them?“ he asked.

I thought about it for a few seconds. It was a good question. One I hadn’t really entertained for a while. “Well, they’ll be 30 years old next summer,” I told him. “Sort of sounds like the perfect time.”

We were sitting on the floor. I had lifted my head to look up and think about my answer. And I noticed something on the underside of the lid the box.

My dad died of cancer in 2011, two weeks before Christmas. I had the great fortune of spending some time with him in the weeks before his death. I knew it was coming. We all did.

But, as they say, you’re never prepared for it.

Now here I was – six years to the day of losing my dad – sharing childhood memories with my youngest son.

“You know what,” I said. “I don’t think I’m going to open them at all.”

He looked a little disappointed.

“I don’t think I can do it.”

I mean, who was I kidding?

There is no way in hell that I’m opening those baseball cards. I’ve been lugging those things around the country in a heavy wooden box since the Ollie North hearings. In the one gift I’ve never forgotten and will always keep by my side.

Nope. I won’t do it.

My boys will open those cards on Christmas morning.

One year too early.

Dave Raymond has been the television play-by-play voice of the Texas Rangers since 2017. He has also worked for the San Francisco Giants, Baltimore Orioles, and Houston Astros