Somewhere after 1987, I didn't purchase baseball cards too much. I think that was the phase where comic books took over more and music became more of a priority in my life.
I still went to games. I still was a die hard White Sox fan, but I just didn't seek out cards, for whatever reason. One day, in 1990, I went into my local drugstore and decided to see what the new Topps cards looked like. I bought a pack and opened them in the parking lot, on my bike. Ivan Calderon was in that pack.
I thought the gradient and the dots were an exciting design choice. This one pack and this one card rekindled my passion for collecting cards. I don't know what would have happened if there wasn't a White Sox card in that pack. There was also a Nolan Ryan 5,000 card in there too that piqued my interest. The Nolan Ryan card was cool, but if there wasn't a White Sox card in there, it may not have held my interest long enough to consider purchasing another pack.
It just goes to show that any card can spark something that inspires you to collect. I was only in it to collect the White Sox team set, but got sucked into collecting everything again. I fizzled out around the strike and got back in again thirteen years later. You never can tell where inspiration is going to strike or what is going to create that initial spark.
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