A long time ago, I started my Instagram account because an online friend of mine said I would probably enjoy posting pictures and stuff. I started my account back in April 2013, and my first posted photo was of my cat, Jericho. I would post a few random pics here and there, and not really do much else with it.
I started posting random baseball cards in my collection, beginning with my Hall of Fame baseball collection. I started getting more and more followers and finally around 2014, someone messaged me about making a trade for an extra Manny Machado baseball that I had. I won't go into full details on it, but the trade didn't work out. However, it kind of did.
Issues surrounding the trade were later resolved, and a friendship blossomed from it. As the trade was initially discussed, the kid and I would have Kik conversations, and talk about getting autographs, what cool cards had we picked up, and when the trade didn't work out, I was upset. I felt like I had made a card buddy.
About a year later, the same kid messaged me out of the blue and asked for my address. A week or so later, I got a package in the mail with a nice note and an assortment of nice Orioles cards. Since then, the kid and I have chatted back and forth when time allowed. I have sat here the last 6 years and watched the two-sport (baseball and football) player grown into a heck of a baseball player. He has also grown into a heck of a man. That little hiccup back in 2014 is a faded memory now, and I can say that I am so very super proud to say that I "knew Joe when..."
The whole reason I wanted the box of 2019 Leaf Perfect Game Showcase was so that I could pull a card of one, Joe Reid. I didn't open the box live on Instagram like I normally like to do. I only opened it with my wife by my side. I wanted the moment I pulled Joe's card to be mine. I pulled the card.
Instantly, I sent Joe a direct message on Instagram and showed him the card. Joe was as excited as I was.
Joe will probably read this, and I don't want to embarrass him too much, but I do want to say that the moral of the story is that I never gave up on Joe. He never gave up on me, either. We realized that there was a friendship there built over the love of baseball, and we used it to form a connection. My hope is that Joe continues on his path, and maybe someday soon, I can catch one of his games in person. I would love to go to a game with my autograph book and graph someone I "knew back when...". That would be really cool.
Thanks for the Christmas gift, Mal. You saw how excited I was when I pulled the card.
1 comment:
Good wife
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