The Tronsdals’ Tucson home is filled with baseball cards in different states of organization.

 Photo courtesy of Tom Tronsdal

National Baseball Card Day is here! Now, that might not mean much for most people. But for my 16-year-old son and me, it is our own Christmas in August.

Cardboard boxes, plastic bins and frames are scattered throughout our living room. Binders render one end of the couch unusable. Stacks of baseball cards cover the dining room table. Amidst this chaos is supreme order. Each stack has been meticulously organized by brand, year and the player’s Hall of Fame status.

These cards, while always present in our home, have taken on a new significance.

Instead of spending our spring and summer going to ballgames and absorbing player stats, Mac and I have turned to baseball cards for our fix. Through the kindness of friends — and the power of eBay — cards have been steadily filling our house since the COVID-19 shutdown began.

As a kid, baseball cards were much more than tiny cardboard likenesses of my favorite players for me. I grew up on an Army base in West Germany during the height of the Cold War. Our one television station was filled with game shows, soap operas and “Starsky and Hutch” reruns.

Live sports were not common. The only time I might see actual film of games was when short NFL highlights were shown before weekly movies at the base theater. In fact, I didn’t see a live baseball game on television until after my eighth birthday. All of my sports news came from outdated library books and the daily edition of the Stars and Stripes newspaper.

As I read the paper, names and numbers filled my head. Like any good fan, I needed to pick a team to follow. Having been born in a Navy hospital on Lake Michigan, I chose to become a fan of the team closest to my birthplace. The Chicago Cubs, in hindsight, might not have been the best team to follow. Still, I didn’t know much about my “hometown” team until one day my dad brought home a couple of packs of baseball cards. As I ripped open each package, the players from the newspaper jumped out at me. My 5-year-old prayers were answered. That first pack contained not only a Chicago Cub (Pete LaCock) but the Cubs’ team card as well. That’s all it took. I was hooked.

Those same cards now reside in Mac’s collection.

Just like I was in Germany, my son is presently feeling separated from the sport he loves. Desperate for some connection when baseball games started being canceled, Mac turned to his baseball card collection. He spent hours sorting and resorting his cards into well-organized binders.

One day, we went online to buy a collection of random cards that promised players from at least five different decades. Before long, hundreds of cards covered the dining room table as Mac began sifting through them. He found a card for a player who lives in Tucson. Turns out it was Eddie Leon, a former Tucson High and UA player. I had heard about him, but didn’t know much. (Turns out he was drafted out of college in the first-ever MLB draft in 1965.)

After pulling the Eddie Leon card, we did some digging to find out how many UA baseball players have actually made it to the big leagues. According to a list we found from the UA, there have been 83 Wildcats to make it to The Show.

When I was younger and Arizona basketball began its rise, I would collect a card — usually autographed — for each Cat who was taken in the NBA draft.

This got us thinking: How many cards could we find of the 83 former Wildcats to have appeared in the major leagues? Looking at the list, it appeared a bit daunting. Sure, getting a Trevor Hoffman or Terry Francona card would be easy. But we also had players dating back to the 1930s or guys who had just a quick cup of Sanka in the majors in 1966.

We found our mission. Mac and I fired up the computer and went through the list alphabetically, from Brian Anderson to Alan Zinter. We discovered that the baseball cards we know today really didn’t come into existence until 1951. This would make finding some earlier players more difficult. Luckily we found an autographed 3x5 card with Hal Warnock’s signature from 1938. We weren’t so lucky with Arizona’s first major-leaguer, Hank Leiber.

Player by player, we went through the list, searching preferably for each player’s rookie card. Dave Baldwin of the Washington Senators? Check. Joe Magrane of the St. Louis Cardinals? Check. Scott Kingery of the Philadelphia Phillies? Check.

Mac Tronsdal, 16, opens up the latest tiny package of baseball cards purchased via email.

Every card brings us a new insight. Mac found a JT Snow where he is wearing the number 60, a jersey Snow wore for only seven games as a Yankee call-up in 1992. Then he discovered a 1980 Montreal Expos prospect card featuring both Terry Francona and his UA teammate, friend and future bench coach, Brad Mills.

And, of course, Kenny Lofton’s rookie card for the Houston Astros mentioned his UA Basketball career.

The cards were ordered from various card stores across the country. About a week later, the cards started coming â€Ļ and coming. Our mailbox filled with small envelopes holding each of our finds. It was like Christmas morning as we opened 70 envelopes not knowing who we would find inside.

We located 77 of the 83 Wildcats to play in the big leagues. We were still missing six. One of the missing players, Kevin Ginkel, was sure to be included in a Topps set later in the summer since he was now an Arizona Diamondbacks reliever. (His card was just recently found in a new Topps package.)

That left us five players to locate: Hank Leiber (1930), Walt Kellner (1949), Bart Zeller (1961), Steve Barber (1967) and Jim Scranton (1979).

Tom and Mac Tronsdal are collecting baseball cards of Arizona Wildcats who made it to the big leagues. They need five more.

Our quest to complete the collection led us to the UA to see if we could find the missing players or their family. Despite the UA’s assistance, we weren’t able to reach anyone. (If anyone knows these men or their families, please let me know. Mac and I would love to reach out to these former UA greats.)

As the summer rolled on, more cards stacked up throughout the house. There were cards donated by friends cleaning out their closets. Some bought on trips to our local card store, Showtime Cards. And new projects started by Mac. My ever-patient wife, Amanda, has learned how to move through these stacks without disrupting their order.

The cards have kept us immersed in baseball with the absence of box scores or highlight shows.

And even though baseball has started again, it honestly doesn’t feel quite the same. Sure, our family watches every night, but the games haven’t connected with us the way they usually do. Whether it’s the empty ballparks or the specter of a virus hanging over us, the joy has been missing so far. Even if that joy is diminished right now, all we need to do is turn to the binders littering Mac’s bedroom floor to regain that missing connection. Decades of players and statistics jump out to remind us of the game we love.

Right now, we don’t have much time to dwell on what we’re missing. It’s National Baseball Card Day. And it might just be the day we find our missing cards.

The Cleveland Indians visited Tucson for spring training each year from 1947 to 1993.

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Tom Tronsdal is a Tucson business owner. He can be reached at tomtronsdal@gmail.com.