My dad and I collect baseball cards
Robert Metz and his father have an extensive baseball card collection. Credit: Metz family
I have a lot of baseball cards. My papa [grandfather] went to the card store almost every day with my aunt and my dad. I have 20 boxes of baseball cards and 15 binders with these cards. I have almost the entire 1986 Mets team’s signed cards. My dad said that if Papa was still alive I would have twice as many cards as I do now. My collection goes back to players from 1980, when my father was just 9 and he would go with his dad to buy the cards. They would also go to card shows together, too.
Because the collection has been passed on to my dad and me, I have started collecting them too. My dad and I go to the card store together to find new ones. My favorite set is my book filled with the New York Mets. When my dad was a kid, he went to the card shows and he would get many of his favorite players to sign the cards. His favorite players are now some of my favorite players, such as Darryl Strawberry, Keith Hernandez, Gary Carter, Ron Darling and David Wright. I am so lucky to have inherited my papa’s card collection.
We have about 27,000 cards in our collection: Donruss, Topps, Fleer, and some are complete sets. When we go to a Mets game, we try to get there early and meet the players and get some autographs.
We also like to go to Jets games. We have gotten some other football memorabilia signed too. This Christmas, Santa brought me autographs of Peyton Manning and Joe Namath. We are big fans of Steven Matz. Being from Long Island, playing for our team, and having a similar last name is just a cool thing.
