I still can see myself shuffling through a pack of 1986 Topps baseball cards while breaking my baby teeth on the stick of gum. Moose Haas. Jerry Don Gleaton. Cesar Geronimo. Bob Knepper. Didn’t know them from a dentist in Detroit.

But wait : oh my lucky stars. It’s George Brett.

I was 5 years old, and the memory is as clear as day. Every time I came across a Kansas City Royals player, I announced it to my father, who then would tell me if he was a stiff or a stud. Onix Concepcion? Steve Farr? Ehh. George Brett? Yeah, son, hold on to that one.

The 1986 Topps George Brett actually was a boring card – just Brett walking left to right with his powder-blue road uniform on. But by golly, my pops told me Brett was a Greek God, so I took his word for it.

So what does a 5-year-old do with the prize? About 48 hours later, a collector could’ve noticed the scuffed edges, bent corners and six billion fingerprints I put on it and considered it worthless. No way, man. When I was 5, that card only would’ve been worthless if I sealed it from society to keep it flawless. Looking at it, holding it, showing it off, dreaming of being on a baseball card like that – now that was worth more than gold.

Somewhere along the line, the baseball-card industry lost its mind and forgot the roots of what made the hobby so special. It’s not the gloss, the autographs, the inserts, the shows, the mint/near mint debate.

It’s the 5-year-old who got the only George Brett card on the market that year, loved it to the point of ruination and never regretted the hit his bank account might take down the road as a result.

It’d sure be nice to get that innocence back.

– Ryan Wood

I bought my first baseball cards as a 6-year-old at the Dillons in my hometown of Mulvane – 1986 Topps and Fleer.

My parents had given me a scrapbook, so I took the cards, smeared white Elmer’s glue on the backs and slapped them onto the pages. The only player’s card I remember was a Fleer Todd Worrell, who briefly was a star relief pitcher for the Cardinals and, later, the Dodgers.

I kept collecting, and I remember, as about an 8- or 9-year-old, looking at the cards I had glued into the scrapbook, including Worrell, and kicking myself for ruining the card’s value. By then, though, I was more obsessed with my 1987 Fleer rookie card of Royals infielder (and notorious on-field cup-straightener) Kevin Seitzer – a bright blue-trimmed card he shared with Orioles prospect John Stefero.

Once in 1987, I was drawing names at a church raffle. A neighbor man said if I picked his name, he’d give me five bucks. Somehow, I picked it. He gave me a buck and told me to “go buy a pop or something.” I bought two packs of 1987 Topps and got a Mark McGwire rookie. Card karma.

My parents began collecting with me, and we’d buy a few packs and share. I automatically got any Don Mattingly, my mom got Dennis Eckersley and my dad Ellis Burks. Then we took turns “drafting” the other cards off the brown shag carpet in our basement.

With the market having been oversaturated, overpriced and ruined for at least 10 years now, I appreciate my halcyon card days. I didn’t care about value – just how much glue it would take to stick a 1986 Fleer Todd Worrell rookie card into my scrapbook for all of eternity.

– Jason Walker

I have a confession to make: I actually liked the gum.

You know, the gum that used to come in every pack of baseball cards? Heck, originally gum was packaged with baseball cards in an effort to sell more gum.

Before long, the gum became an afterthought, and after enough complaints from collectors about the gum staining their precious cardboard, the gum went away.

Talk about grown-ups ruining a good thing. Again.

Anyway, I liked the gum. OK, it didn’t taste much like gum, more like pure sugar, and it didn’t last long. The stuff didn’t so much chew as break : then disintegrate into a sugary, sticky goop.

But there was something magical about unwrapping a pack and letting that unmistakable smell hit you, finding all the pieces – invariably a corner or two would break off the pink slab – and chomping away as you flipped through the cards.

And that’s where the real fun came in: chucking the no-names into the unload-on-unsuspecting-friends pile, setting aside the keepers, reveling in the Royals. OK, most of the Royals.

My dad never was a big fan of George Brett – “Too cocky,” dad groused – so I never was a fan of George Brett. Never kept one card, and I recall getting a few. Traded ’em all away. Maybe even for a stick or two of gum.

Just for fun, the other day I dragged out my old cards. Not the ones from my second childhood – when, in college, I used my new-found disposable income to splurge on a new wave of cards – but the ones I collected as a child.

There was my cherished Freddie Patek, the Graig Nettles I never could unload, my pride-and-joy Gary Carter rookie card and two – two! – Bert Blyleven rookies I just couldn’t figure. They were 1971s; I would have been 2. All I can figure is my older brother must have dumped them on me, no doubt for a George Brett.

And I swear I could detect just the slightest scent of gum.

– Andrew Hartsock

Johnny Klippstein. I’ll never forget Johnny Klippstein. When I was 11 years old, I had more Johnny Klippstein baseball cards than any kid in America.

Back in summer of 1952, scores of kids just like me hung around the Crown Drug Store at Gregory and Wornall roads in Kansas City, Mo., waiting impatiently.

The crowds were so large and the anticipation so great that management was forced to post a sign that read: “No baseball cards until 3 p.m.”

When the sign came down, the rush was on. For a nickel, you received one wax pack of five Topps baseball cards and one stick of bubble gum that usually found its way to a sticky grave on the sun-drenched sidewalk.

Over there, a voice cried: “I got Mickey Mantle.”

Momentarily, someone blurted: “I got Yogi Berra.”

And I, of course, had Johnny Klippstein, a run-of-the-mill pitcher for the Chicago Cubs.

As far as I can remember, I never opened a pack that contained two Johnny Klippsteins, but I sure wound up with a bunch of them that summer.

I never did get a Mickey Mantle. Or a Yogi Berra. But I did get a Phil Rizzuto once. Mostly, though, it was nobodies like Klippstein, Erv Dusak, Virgil Stallcup, Lou Kretlow or Solly Hemus.

Eventually, like every other kid, I graduated to more important things like going out more and doing nothing more often. Just like your mother, my mom threw my baseball cards away (along with a bunch of comic books).

On the Web the other day, I noticed a ’52 Topps Johnny Klippstein card in excellent condition was selling for $24.

It’s probably one some Dumpster diver dredged from our family trash.

– Chuck Woodling

Ah, baseball cards.

Yes, they were popular on Chicago’s South side back in the day.

I think the greatest gift I ever received was from friends Jerry Falsey and Terry Barnes, who each presented me with 30 packs of baseball cards on my 10th – or was it my 11th? – birthday.

It didn’t take as long as I thought it would to open the 60 packs of cards. And it didn’t take long to chew all that gum that used to be included in packs of cards.

I didn’t share any of the cards with my buddies, just some of the gum, which was delicious, but quickly lost its flavor.

Other baseball card memories:

l My friend Tom Fletcher got in trouble with his mom for “stealing” some loose change from her purse to go buy cards, what else?

l Terry, Jerry and Gary (yes, the three amigos were ribbed mercilessly for their rhyming names) were screamed at repeatedly by store owners for peeling open packs of cards in the back to see whether the packs had cards worth purchasing.

l My friend, Terry, the bully, beat up some kid (it wasn’t me) once for sticking baseball cards in the spokes of his bike. Terry wasn’t amused that the cards flapped in the wind, making the bike hum like a motorcycle.

I do think my mom threw out some (most?) of my baseball cards. My brother, Tim, managed to hang onto most of his cards. In fact, he put them in a photo album and sold some to collectors, saving the rest as their value continues to rise.

– Gary Bedore

I never really collected baseball cards much. But, having Roger Clemens autograph his card for me in my backyard was, well, pretty damn cool!

It all started at roughly 7 on a Saturday morning. I couldn’t have been any older than 12 or 13. Dad called from the clubhouse at Walnut Creek Country Club. My mom answered the phone, then woke me up.

Groggy, I listened to my dad command, “Wake up and go get something for Roger Clemens to sign. He’s headed down No. 1 as we speak!” (we lived on the No. 2 tee box). Immediately, and admittedly a little confused, I jumped out of bed and headed to my closet. That’s where I found the entire set of 1985 Topps. Shortly after dumping what seemed like five million cards onto my floor, I found it! The Rocket card!

As he rolled up in the cart next to the tee, I approached slowly. He was a giant, but couldn’t have been nicer. He walked over to me and happily signed. I only remember saying three things. “How’d you do on No. 1?” “Be careful on No. 3, especially off the tee.” And, “Take it easy on the Rangers this weekend!”

Since that day, I’ve always been a fan of Roger Clemens.

– Kevin Romary