While I’m a creature of the real time game day stats of rotisserie football, the not so ancient homage to the game of baseball fuels local political flunkies, Fred Wilms, Fred Bondi and Rick McQuaid. From the Hour:

“I do this for the pleasure,” Wilms said. “Even if the cards were worthless, I would keep doing it because I love baseball.”

All three men say their baseball-card collections are an extension of their love for the game. In an age of high-priced players and glossy baseball cards, the three politicians still regularly watch the game they love.

“It’s still baseball,” McQuaid said. “It’s a bunch of grown-ups having fun.”

Though they sometimes fail to see eye-to-eye on political matters, the three politicians agree that manufacturer Topps produces the best baseball cards. They enjoy Topps because the company produces traditional-looking cards that remind them of the cards they collected in their respective childhoods.

“I always stayed with Topps because they’re authentic,” Wilms said. “They were the only game in town until the 1980s.”

Bondi, by far the biggest collector in the trio, owns approximately two million cards, including around 1,000 autographed cards. His prized possession is a Mickey Mantle rookie card from 1951.

“I’m trying to be nice to Fred on council, so he’ll leave me some of his cards,” McQuaid said.

McQuaid’s sizable collection includes a Nolan Ryan rookie card from 1971. He said he has no plans to downsize his collection and admits to still haphazardly filing the cards.

“I’m not the fanatic that, when you walk into my house, the walls are covered with notebooks (of baseball cards),” he said. “I’m not in the business to sell them. I’m in the business of just having them. I still collect them as a kid.”

McQuaid began collecting cards as a child, taking breaks from sandlot stickball games to ride his bike to Stan’s Variety store and buy baseball card packs.

“We brought cards and traded cards and put them on our bicycles as noise-makers,” he said. “I was a baseball fanatic and I always thought I would be a major league baseball player.”

Wilms’ started collecting cards at age 7 in 1968. He would walk a mile to a drug store and spend his 10-cent allowance on two packs of cards.

Bondi began collecting cards 30 years ago to bond with his then-teenage son Peter Bondi and soon began promoting baseball card shows, bringing big name players like Mickey Mantle, Don Larsen and Billy Martin to card shows in Norwalk.

McQuaid currently bonds with his sons Brian, 16, and Jaxson, 2, through Baseball cards. He admits Jaxson chews on the cards, but Brian reserves a passion for collecting.

“It’s been something that kept the fire going,” McQuaid said.

The three men recently began talking about trading cards with one another. Wilms is trying to complete a 1963 card set and wants to work a deal out with McQuaid, as he heard McQuaid is also a big collector of cards from 1963.

McQuaid said since he began collecting baseball cards, the style and price of the cards changed along with the game of baseball. Packs of cards now carry a more expensive price tag just as players’ salaries and the price of tickets to ball games has also skyrocketed.

“I still have 25 cent packs of baseball cards with gum in them that I haven’t even opened and I’ll show my son them,” he said. “He has the pack and they’re $1.99 with five cards in it. I’ve got a pack that has 15 cards and a nice piece of gum in it.”

Forget about Democrat and Republican, this week the main question is Giants or Patriots fan.

source:The Hour Politicians see eye-to-eye on baseball, January 29, 2008