Original subtitles

The following presentation is rated 14A.

This presentation deals with mature subject matter

and contains scenes with coarse language.

Viewer discretion is advised.

♪♪♪

Stu: My generation was the last to grow up

without the internet.

We didn't have smartphones, laptops,

or reality TV.

We had baseball cards.

Baseball cards were everything.

As a kid, there was nothing better.

Opening packs, never knowing what we would find.

Trading valuable rookie cards with our friends,

eating as much stale bubble gum as we could.

These cardboard collectibles were schoolyard currency,

and trying to keep them in mint condition consumed our world,

until one day we grew up.

Well, most of us did.

Looking back, I often wondered,

whatever happened to baseball cards?

Finding out the answer to that question

would change my life forever.

This is my story.

And in order to tell it right,

we have to go back...

all the way back, to my bar mitzvah.

[Music plays]

♪♪♪

♪ Havah Nagilah Havah

[Cheering, clapping]

♪♪♪

♪♪♪

[Hip hop rhythmic beat]

My name is Stuart Eisenstein, and um,

since I was 2-years-old,

people have called me Stuart Stone,

because my parents put me into acting,

and I was a child actor and as a 2-year-old,

Eisenstein was a mouthful,

so they just changed it to Stuart Stone.

And um, as I got older,

I started calling myself Stu Stone because um...

well, 'cause it's shorter.

How are ya? - Good, how are you?

- Good to see ya, man. Is it cold?

- It's cold here, yeah. - It's cold? Damn it.

As a child actor, I played the role of the kid.

I was the kid in a lot of things.

My first movie was called "Heavenly Bodies",

which was like the Canadian version of "Flashdance",

and it had a little less dance and a little more flash.

I was in movies, and TV commercials,

and you know, "Donnie Darko",

and "Rapping with Jamie Kennedy",

but I was also the voice of a tonne of cartoon characters

back in the day.

I was Ralphie on "The Magic School Bus",

"Prostar", "Babar", "The Tick", "Beetlejuice",

"X-Men", "Care Bears",

"Wish Kid", the McCauley Culkin cartoon,

"Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure", "Swamp Thing",

Clifford the Big Red Dog,

"Tales from the Crypt", "The Raccoons",

"My Pet Monster", "ALF", "Rugrats" -

that was a big one.

No, I wasn't in "Adventures of Moby Dick". I was?

- Yeah. - I didn't even know that.

Trudy: Hello? - Hello?

- Hi! - Hey, I'm here.

- Oh, okay I'm at number 42, but I'll be at the front.

- That's gotta be her. How are ya?

- Welcome back. - Thank you.

Thanks for picking me up. - You're welcome. Let's go.

- I brought some uh, friends here.

- Like I don't... - You look fine.

- Thank you. Are you hungry? - I'm starving.

- Okay, I have brisket for you. -Oh, you do?

- Yeah, I made us supper. - Great!

- So how does this work? You just...talk?

- Yeah, don't worry about, don't worry about the camera,

just be... be you.

- You're actually really gonna get into your room

and get rid of the shit?

Now that you brought a film crew?

- It's perfect that you should say that,

because I've been in her car for not even a minute,

and the first thing she's bringing up is...

- What do I bring up every time you come in?

- These boxes. Can we, like, get out of the airport?

- Yeah.

- And then you can bother me about that? - Okay.

- When my grandfather, Sam, passed away,

uh, in his basement, they found all these boxes

that had my name written on them

from like the 80's and 90's that I had put away as a kid,

and somehow they ended up in my mom's condominium,

and she's been bugging me for years, and years, and years,

to like, go through these boxes and get rid of them.

Trudy: You know what? - What?

- Those boxes were never touched

when they were in Zayda's house.

- I know, so I'm just excited to crack 'em open

and see what's in there.

Trudy: You want cream in your coffee?

- Thank you. - You're welcome.

- We're gonna go through the boxes, okay, just be happy.

- I'm happy, 'cause I still can't believe

that you're actually gonna get rid of shit.

- Yup, well we'll see what happens. [Laughs]

You know, I remember stories of my dad

going through his stuff and finding like,

million dollar treasures.

Maybe that will happen to me.

- Do you need garbage bags?

- I mean, are you planning on throwing things away?

- I've known Stu since he was probably 8-years-old.

Stu's family lived on the same street as mine.

We have been as thick as thieves

for as long as I can remember.

I didn't expect him to have the Ark of the Covenant

in that room, but I also know that Stu

had a lot of cool stuff growing up,

because Jack was always trading stuff for cards.

- How are you gonna put all of this into that?

- Well, if not, I'll buy a couple more bins.

- I would like to just keep this here.

- No. Okay, we've gotta do this in piles.

Trudy: You dressed up as your twin and you won first prize.

[Trudy laughs]

Cabbage Patch Kid, still in the box.

That is so awesome.

"Magic School Bus", Miss Frizzle autograph.

- Oh. - Signed by Lily Tomlin.

There's like, too much stuff!

So far we have a pile of keep, and nothing going out.

- Aw man, this is great! - What is it?

- Jose Canseco rookie card. - Yeah.

- Billy Ripkin card. - So whadda we do with them?

- You know this card? - I remember that one.

- What do you know about it? - It says fuck on it.

- It does. Save these. Jose Canseco.

- You liked him. - Save that.

- Doesn't he have a twin?

Stuart's dad came home one day, and he said,

"we're going into the baseball card and comic business."

And I go, "pardon?"

And he was friends with this guy

who was strictly in the comic book business,

Jack said can I put some cards in here

and see what would happen?

And that's how it all started.

This has been a long time and look they're in mint condition!

- He was Jack the Pack Man and he would set up at trade shows,

which back then, probably were just like general hobby shows,

because I don't think there like,

there was real card shows back then,

but he was Jack the Pack Man, and he sold packs.

At that point, baseball cards were the biggest thing ever.

More Jose Canseco's.

- I guess he was your favorite. - One of them.

We've got more baseball cards!

1989 Bowman. Ken Griffey Jr. on the front of this Topps box.

I opened up these boxes and it's like,

boom all over again, it's like an explosion of felling.

just even touching and holding and looking at these cards

take me back to these times

that were the greatest times of my life, as a kid.

And my dad was like, my hero,

you know, life was just so good back then.

Oh my God.

This was so... I can't even believe this.

- What is it?

A Ken Griffey Jr.? - Yeah.

- Wow.

- More baseball cards, more baseball cards.

1987 Topps set. I loved this set.

This is like the classic Topps set of my generation,

right here.

Cards that like, it's like a baseball bat.

- Great. - Packs and packs,

and boxes and sets.

This is like, we're... I, I...should sell this stuff.

It's probably worth a fortune.

I will take a box of these cards,

- Yeah. - and I will go to like a card show,

and I'll sell them. I think Karie would go to a card show.

Karie: Hello? - Hello.

- Hey. - You should see what I found.

Your mother's literally sitting here cracking packs.

Stop opening them! I can sell it!

- And the Mattingly? - And the Mattingly is literally

I have both Mattingly's in my hand, right now.

- The Donruss one too? - Yes!

- Well, there you go, that will get rid of some of this.

- Some of it? How 'bout all of it?

[Both sigh]

Dave: The first kind of heyday of baseball cards

were during the 1880's,

and they originated as a tobacco marketing gimmick.

So, some tobacco honchos had the brilliant idea

to start inserting picture cards

into these boxes of baseball,

which was, at that point, already very popular,

a very popular pastime in the U.S.

[Bat cracks, crowd cheers]

Dave: The 50's is when...

when baseball cards really exploded.

- Hey, Johnnie, I have free baseball trading cards!

- Free baseball cards? - Yeah, front of the packaging.

Dave: It was a confluence of a few things.

It was competitiveness among these, these candy makers,

like Topps and Bowman.

And also just the growing popularity of baseball.

You had these great Yankees and Dodgers teams of that era.

Boy: There's Roger Maris and Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle.

Dave: The birth of the modern baseball card

was, came from Topps.

- How many stars can we get? - 200.

- 1951 Topps, which was a game,

um, that also served as a trading card set,

was their first full-on baseball release.

And these were all conceived by Sy Berger,

who, if you know anything about trading cards,

is, kind of like, the grandfather of the industry.

The famous story goes is he designed the early sets,

like 1951, 1952 on his kitchen table.

Because the Mickey Mantle card was in the last series,

football season had already rolled around,

so kids weren't focused on baseball anymore.

They couldn't get rid of the cards.

And then he's also famous for dumping all the 1952 cards

into the Atlantic Ocean,

which is where the Mickey Mantle rookie card was,

and another reason why that card was so valuable.

- Well kids, baseball season's here again,

and with baseball trading cards,

you can get a rundown on all your favorite players.

- The '52 Topps card is the prototype

for the modern baseball card, and the Mantle rookie

is really the shining one of the bunch.

Baby Boomers who grew up then, who loved Mantle,

later in life they gravitated back towards cards.

Stu: Hey! - Hey, whadda ya think?

- Auntie Sandy, how are ya?

- Boy oh boy, what a show this is gonna be.

- Yeah. Where is everybody? - Who knows?

- See what I got here? - Oy, yoi, yoi.

- What is it? - All the card stuff.

- Yeah. Hello?

Karie: Hey! Come in. - You guys ready?

- Yeah. Noah! Sam! Let's go!

Stu: As a kid, going to card shows with my dad

was absolutely some of the most fond memories I have.

Card shows were the best.

They were just massive, and they had so many people,

and vendors, and every kind of card you can imagine,

and packs and boxes, and...

Karie: Oh my God, this box is so heavy.

- When your mother and I were kids,

we used to go to card shows all the time.

- Card shows were the best because Bubbe would give us

a little corner of the table, and we would sell,

we would have our own little section with our own cards,

And we would like sell our own stuff and make money.

Hey, Stu? - Yeah.

- It was amazing.

- This is like going and scratching a lottery ticket

that you know you're gonna win,

and it's just a matter of how much are you gonna win?

How do you get in? - I don't know.

Not here, keep going around. You guys excited?

[Noah yawns] - Noah, stop yawning.

- I can't believe what happened next.

You ran over all the cards!

Yeah, I left them on the side of the street

because I think that you're gonna go and... and drive.

Adam: These boxes are salvageable,

and that's what we have to work with.

My name is Adam Rodness, and I'm Stu's brother-in-law.

The moment where the cards were on the ground,

everything was everywhere,

I was trying to remain as calm as humanly possible,

because I knew Stu was gonna freak out.

Karie ran over the entire collection of baseball cards.

- This is not a box. This is...this is not a box.

I don't understand what... why she would leave?

This is a joke, right?

- Bye, box.

- I don't understand why you would leave.

It makes zero sense to me.

- I said to Adam they're thirsty...

- And like the kids couldn't wait 5 minutes?

- No, they're kids, Stuart...

- There was drinks inside. - How would we know that?

- You don't know that a building that has...

- There wasn't even a bathroom that we could find in there.

the kids wanted to go eat something--

- And you don't feel bad at all about running over the cards?

- No, it was an accident. Sam: Sorry we don't respond...

- So you guys are walking away. I'm still trying to film.

- Why would you leave the box in the middle of the road?

Can you at least bring it in?

♪♪♪

Karie: Whoa!

[Low hum of chatter]

- It's not quite how I remember it.

- Where is everybody?

Harv: Kinda reminds me of that scene from "The Wrestler".

- Yeah. This is like the scene from "The Wrestler".

[Low hum of chatter]

Stu: Okay, I've got some, I got some vintage cards to sell,

1990, 1987.

- I'm a vintage 1957,

and I'm not worth much either, honestly.

- Okay, you might be lookin' at 10 bucks a box.

Stu: So this whole box of stuff is worth like 20 bucks?

To you? - 10, 20, 30,

no it'd be worth less than that to me,

'cause I'm selling it for 10.

So you got...4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

This whole box is worth 40 bucks.

- What?

- And then I have, I have to make some money on it

selling it at 10.

- I didn't even tell him that they were run over by a car.

- Ha. - What's up, man.

- Hi. - How are ya?

- Yeah. - Found out?

- Yeah. - Oh my God.

- You, I knew you were when you were like, my height.

I mean I've been to your house. - I was at your house.

- Really? - Oh yeah.

I remember boxes and wax boxes,

and all kinds of stuff in the garage.

Your father I haven't seen in 20 years either.

- Neither have I.

- It's sad because your father was like the king of this hobby.

- Yeah, for sure.

- Like literally, I mean everybody went to Jack.

It brings back memories.

- It's crazy. It's good to see you.

Harv: Stu and Karie were there, and they walked away,

and when they walked away, he kind of like,

he said, turn off the camera, I need to tell you something.

And I turned off the camera, or I put the camera down.

- Don't put it on tape, this one. Not good.

- You sure? - Yeah, it's not good.

- I'm sorry. Give me a hug.

And I'm sorry your cards aren't worth anything.

- Look, I got a Donruss '91.

Stu: It didn't go at all

the way I'd hoped that it was going to go.

Oh, look at that, Karie, drinks and snacks.

- Yeah. Well I didn't...

Stu: I came there with this box of stuff,

I left here with this box of stuff,

and what I found out inside was that, uh,

whether cards are run over or not,

they're not worth anything. I don't understand.

My dad told me, you know, put these away,

someday they'll be worth something.

And, I wanna know why this box that I'm schlepping around

is worth nothing.

Announcer: No baseball collection is complete

without this year's hottest new player.

- Jose Canseco?

- In general, the 80's were a decade of great excess,

great greed, people were trying to make as much money

as they could, any way they possibly could,

and looking for any way to do it.

And so I think the rarity of the old cards

kinda spilled into people thinking,

"all right well, there are a bazillion cards now,

but if I hold on to this thing for 30 years,

nobody's gonna have one, and it's gonna be the only one,

and that didn't happen."

Announcer: We invite you to come in and browse

the largest display of baseball...

Dave: In the late 80's, early 90's,

there were something like 10,000 baseball card shops

in the United States. It's just kind of incredible.

Within a few years, the vast,

vast majority of those card shops were gone,

and hardly any of them are still in existence.

♪♪♪

Stu: My dad had opened up a store called Sluggers,

and that was in 1987.

By 1990, there was already 11 locations of Sluggers,

and I would work there on the weekends,

I would be there, every chance I could get, I would go there.

- Sluggers had the premium cards.

- That was kinda the highlight of the weekend,

was goin' in there and it was always action packed.

- I think I actually got a paper route,

just so I could go once a week to Sluggers,

and spend it all on cards.

Everyone knew what Sluggers was,

everyone went by Sluggers to by packs, to look at cards.

- It was like a pretty famous place.

Like, to the outside world,

we looked like we had the best life.

You know, we had a nice house, a nice, everything looked great.

Just on the inside, it wasn't so great.

- Okay, thank you, goodbye.

[Guests laugh]

I've got a group of about 3 tables that work with me,

work for me, around me, on top of me,

and I'd like to thank them for helping me work hard

and make some money.

To all the people who work with Sluggers,

or buying from us, or all those guys.

[Applause]

Stu: Wow.

Should we get out?

- If I would like, have looked into the future,

I never would have guessed this.

This is so bizarre, huh?

Yeah, let's go see.

- I actually can remember specifically

like, maybe a week before the store opened, we were here,

and we were here just kinda looking at the store.

This was a few days before it was gonna open,

and there was like other people standing right over there

looking in at the store and they were like looking in,

they were like, what the hell's this?

- Yeah, they were laughing. - Baseball cards?

- They were like, Sluggers? I give it 6 months.

As soon as you round this corner, it's like...

- It was unbelievable what a gold mine it was, too.

- Like, boom, like you are attached to this.

- Yeah. - So, and Toys R Us was like...

- We used to go and play in there.

- the greatest store ever, you know.

It's like the perfect storm. Toys R Us,

- Oh yeah. - an ice cream shop.

and a baseball card shop.

- Do you remember sneaking in through the back

and getting ice cream? - Yes.

And like, the guy didn't have an alarm on the ice cream shop.

- So we used to sneak in and get ice cream.

- When he would close, we would sneak through the back door,

we would make ourselves ice cream.

- It was so fun. You know, it was really, really fun.

- Which is against the law.

- Yeah, well, that wasn't a big deal for our dad.

I loved collecting cards, and I loved sports.

My mom called me and said,

"we just hired a girl and she's also, you know, feminine,

and into fashion, but she also plays baseball,

and loves sports and collects cards.

I can't wait for you to meet her."

So, it was really like amazing,

it was having kind of like an older sister.

Do you remember that? - Uh, I do.

- So go from there then.

- I don't know what happens from there.

You seem to know everything. - No, I thought you remember--

Harv: Why does it make you so angry to talk about this?

- Because this is like what are we...why?

This is like, I came here to see the store, not--

- I understand, but this is part of what happened in the store.

This is part of the story. - Is it?

- It is. - Well, that's why daddy left.

- It's uh, it's... I don't know what to say.

That's not what I came here to do. I came here to like,

relive happy memories of what used to be Sluggers,

not a fucking Jerry Springer episode.

- Well it's really, - In the parking lot.

- it's really boring just to come here

and look at this pharmacy and not reminisce

about what it really was. - I know, but I mean...

- Am I right, or am I wrong? - It wasn't like,

"oh let's come here and look at the store.

Oh, remember when daddy cheated on mommy?"

- Well you knew before I knew, that they were together.

You don't remember that?

- I mean, if I do, I don't I... - Do you want me to remind you?

- No. That's all he cares about.

- It's not all I care about, dude.

You, all you care about is cards that have no fucking value.

- Harvey's the biggest instigator

I've ever met in my life.

He knows how to get under my skin,

and that drives me absolutely crazy.

- I remember that, but the rest is boring.

I'd rather talk about like, your dad fucking his employees.

Um...

- I mean, he just thinks that he can just like say that,

and he's like so cool to be able to just like,

take shots like that, and he thinks he's like,

hurting me by saying that. Karie: He's not hurting you.

Harv: I'm not trying to hurt you.

- He's trying to make you deal with it.

- This is a guy that is the most insecure human being

I've ever met for doing that to me.

- Because I'm not...like if I could turn the camera

and ask you about your fucking problems,

I wouldn't do that to you.

- I wouldn't do that to you. - But the thing is--

- But you're so happy to do that to me.

- I didn't decide that we're gonna make a movie about my problems.

- I was making a movie about baseball cards.

- Baseball cards are part of your problem.

- What? How do you figure?

- But the solution to your problem is working through

the bad shit that happened to you in the past,

so we can get it out, and finally deal with it.

Karie: So you can get married and have kids,

like your sister. - And be normal,

and have children, and have sex with people,

and like relationships and like and not be so like, closed.

- You think I'm closed? - Yes.

- I think that your relationship issues with your dad

venture into other parts of your life.

- You're a real piece of work, Harv.

- I'm not a piece of work.

- You are, because you're just trying to like, get me to like,

have like a fucking... - I'm not.

-...like an epiphany or something.

- I care about like the fact

that you never dealt with this shit,

and I'm trying to help you deal with it.

Obviously when we first got together to do this,

we thought that we were gonna be making a movie

about me opening up these boxes of treasure,

and I think that there's really something interesting here,

and that is the fact that these cards are not worth anything,

and I'm not really sure why that is.

- This is not how you make a movie.

- How do you make a movie?

- You... don't do it this way, with that board.

- Don't you wanna know why it's not worth anything?

- I know why it's not worth anything,

'cause baseball cards are for giant nerds.

- Okay, well that's one theory.

- You had an interesting story to begin with,

this is baseball cards. - Okay well...

I'm telling you right now, that this could be interesting,

because there's a lot of people that collected.

It was a multi, multi-million dollar business,

and my dad's little store, in Toys R Us plaza

was generating a tonne of money,

so there's a tonne of people

that are probably in the same boat as me,

that went and found their stuff,

and why isn't it worth anything?

And it's funny because I actually,

when I went through the boxes,

I-I pinpointed some cards that I thought might be...

might be important.

And this card, right here, was '86 Donruss,

Karie: Yeah. - Jose Canseco rookie card.

I must've opened up a thousand packs of '86 Donruss,

and I never pulled a Jose Canseco out. Ever.

Like the mustache that he's like clearly trying to grow here...

Karie: How old is he in that picture?

- Can you get that? [Laughs]

- I used to have the biggest crush on him, too.

Stu: All right, so Jordan-- Harv: So did Stu.

- Jose Canseco was a maniac, and it was awesome.

You know, he was this larger than life everything.

First 40-40 guy, part of the Bash Brothers,

the whole forearm smash in the late 1980's

that he and Mark McGwire did every time they hit a home run.

He dated Madonna.

I mean he was part of popular culture,

way more than baseball.

[Baseball organ music]

[Knocks]

- Yeah.

- I wanted to talk to you about baseball cards.

- Okay.

You all right? [Stu laughs]

- I think as a player,

your first year in the major leagues,

and your rookie year is, is one of the most important years,

because you wanna do well.

- And of course, you wanna have, and you wanna see,

and you wanna collect that first rookie card and...

- Yeah, this is it. - That's it.

- So this is the '86 Donruss Jose Canseco.

- At that point in time I don't know what happened to me.

I was actually trying to look a little older,

and trying to grow a mustache. [Stu laughs]

And it was very weak attempt at a mustache,

and if you notice any and every other card after that,

I'm clean shaven, - Yeah, no mustache.

-I don't have a mustache, zero.

So I think I realized early on

that I just couldn't grow a mustache. So, here.

Please, get rid of that card. Terrible mustache.

When the industry was at its peak,

that was probably the highest valued card at one point.

- How many, do you estimate, of these there are?

- Thousands upon thousands upon thousands.

It's just impossible to tell because

I'm sure no one knows how many were actually produced.

But it's also misleading

because I've seen how they sell the boxes,

maybe one out of five might have one.

How misleading is it?

You'd think in that box, you're gonna get one Canseco card,

or one Mark McGwire card, or one Ken Griffey Jr. card.

It's not in there.

You may have to buy several boxes.

It almost seemed like overnight,

uh, the industry happened. Take the faces off these cards.

What's it cost to make this card,

and cost to make this card? The same?

- Yeah. - Identical, right?

- Mm hmm. - But because this card has

a different individual, this card's worth a 120 bucks,

and this card's worth what, 25 cents?

- Right. - It's all hype,

and building up, and, and salesmanship.

I think the whole thing is a scam. [Laughs]

- No, but it could be, right?

I mean, I've been trying to think,

like get in my dad's head, like maybe he saw

that that's what his was, and he was like,

I gotta get out, like this is... this is all fucked.

- Well, you know, when you look at these magazines

that like Beckett,

they have pricings of what the cards are in there.

For example, if you wanted to know what a Jose Canseco

Rookie card of a certain year cost,

you look at the Beckett, and there was the price.

This would be the Bible of more or less what um,

I think what all cards would actually be valued at.

- Is it this thing, that you called the Bible,

like pricing the cards out? Like how did they...

did they just like, guess?

- It could be a controlled industry.

- Yeah. - And it partially probably was.

- So over the years, have you...

is there any collectors that you've actually befriended?

- There's one major one here in Vegas, Foul Ball Paul,

believe it or not, and I think

he has the Guinness Book of World Records

for having the most baseball cards.

I actually went to his house one time,

and it seems like the whole entire house has memorabilia.

You want me to call him? - Yeah!

- Let's see if I can get a hold of him.

- Hello? Paul: Hello. Hey.

- Paul! - Yeah, what's up, Jose?

- I've got some people here that wanna meet you.

- Okay.

- I heard you got the uh, craziest collection of...

of baseball cards in the world?

- Yup, over two million. - Two million.

- Two million. And Jose says

you have the most Jose Canseco cards of anybody.

Paul: Yup, over 2,000 cards on him.

- Wow.

- I never knew there was 2,000 cards of me. [Laughs]

[Baseball organ music]

[Door whirs opens]

Stu: Hey! Paul: Hello, Stu.

- How you doin', man? - Doin' good.

- Geez already. These are all cards?

- Mm hmm. I have over two million baseball cards,

and counting. - Wow.

How did you get the name Foul Ball Paul?

- Um, I actually got hit by a ball at a Padres-Cubs game

at Qualcomm Stadium.

[Baseball organ music]

- And this is all cards? - Mm hmm.

- Wow!

You probably have more cards of the players

than they have of themselves. - Yes, I do.

- Oh my God, that's...

He's got his own merch.

Barry: Oh this is the ball that he got hit by,

to how he got his name.

- This is the infamous Foul Ball Paul.

- That's the infamous ball.

Stu: You guys like eat, sleep, live...

Barry: Baseball? - Everything is baseball.

These are all just Jose Canseco cards.

And has Jose seen these cards?

- Uh, yes, he has.

- And what does he have to say about all this?

Barry: I'm not signin' 'em. [Stu laughs]

I am blown away by all this.

This is like, you're a great father, first of all,

like hats of to you.

- You know, I find it so odd when people say that to me.

because I don't think there's any other choice.

- Look at that. AKA Foul Ball Paul. Look at that.

[Laughs] This is awesome.

Do you have, is there a Foul Ball Paul card?

- No, there isn't. - There needs to be.

- I know, we were thinking about that.

That's his ultimate goal.

Paul: This is actually what I like to refer

to as Casa de la Paul.

- All right, Paul, whadda ya got here?

- These are all my jersey cards that I get,

when I buy boxes of cards.

- And so tell me, what's a jersey card?

- A jersey card is where they take a piece of your jersey,

if you're a ball player, and they put it on the card.

- Oh, that's cool.

- They're worth money, but I don't...

I don't do it for the money,

I do it for the love of the game.

- Paulie was a happy-go-lucky child always,

and um, what it is, he's missing Gene 16

on the genetic scale.

16, 17, and 18 is how you take in information and process it.

By missing that one gene,

Paul doesn't necessarily process everything.

Now certain things, like baseball,

sports-related type of stuff,

see he really likes so he's...

Stu: That's what he's into.

- Yeah, he's real sharp, he's like a little encyclopedia.

- So you could go on Jeopardy and win,

if it was like a baseball... - Quiz, yes.

- If it was a baseball, or a wrestling quiz, I could...

I could answer it off the top of my head.

- This Upper Deck right here.

Barry: So that's a factory set, unopened.

- Okay, sealed, right. 1991.

You would think this is over 25 years old.

- Right. - It should be worth something.

- Should be worth a lot. - And it's worth...

- 6 bucks, 7 bucks. - 6 bucks, so it's worth nothing.

- Right. - It's good for Paul.

- Yeah, it's great for Paul. - Bad for everyone else.

- Bad for everyone else.

[Phone ringing] Stu: Yo.

Foul Ball Paul has merch. [Laughs]

The fact that this one guy has millions of cards that...

that speaks volumes. Anything goin' on over there?

- No. - Nothing.

- Zero. - No.

Harv: Stu started getting more distant

from the vision that I had or the film.

He kind of became more insistent on baseball cards,

baseball cards, baseball cards. There was something going.

He was convinced that something had happened in the industry,

and that's what caused this...

these cards to be worth nothing.

Um, I got convinced of something else.

I got convinced that we needed to talk to Jack,

and we needed to get Jack and Stu in the same room.

I gotta tell you guys something.

Um...

kinda...um...

- Are you okay?

- I'm fine, yeah, no, no, no. I'm fine, I'm fine.

It has nothing to do with me, or ex-wives, or children.

- Oh, thank God.

- Um, your dad's in Toronto. - Shut up.

♪♪♪

Karie: I would say that my father

is definitely the only man that's ever broken my heart.

Once he left Toronto, and he was gone, he was gone.

He wasn't just gone from the house,

he was basically gone from my life.

Harv: So, I talked to him.

I told him that we were making a movie about baseball cards,

and we wanted to interview him about baseball cards.

Adam: Does he know? He doesn't know anything.

- He doesn't know anything. - I won't say anything.

I think Stuart has never dealt with it,

and that's why he's...can't have close relationships.

Adam: We don't tell him that we're going there, obviously.

We put him in the car, we're going to some...

Harv: Are you fucking crazy? - Something else, there we go.

- I think it's smart. I think Adam's right.

He's not gonna go, Harv. - I'm not doing that.

- Why? We'll take him for like a Korean barbecue or something.

- No. - He'll be ecstatic.

- He's not gonna go. - That...that, like this is...

like he keeps saying I'm trying to make this Springer,

I'm not gonna make this Springer.

- Stuart is not gonna talk to him.

- He's gonna have to do it. - He's not gonna do it.

- He's gonna do it, and I'm gonna sit him down,

and I'm gonna tell him he's gonna do it.

Rob: We literally have shelving in here to hold close

to 80 million cards, without stacking a box.

Once you cross that threshold,

now you're in Burbank Sports Cards.

- Ha, are you kidding me?

- What you see here is the world's largest inventory

of single sports cards.

- This is like the "Indiana Jones",

the last seen in "Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark".

This aisle we're in represents the boom period.

- Basically it does,

and the large quantities that came along with it.

-During that time period,

where you have like people trying to get rich quick,

is it possible that the collectors were like,

misinformed by the dealers,

who were pushing this as like, this is a good investment,

these are rare, these are rare?

- A lot of things were speculative back then.

People were going to Price Club and Costco,

buying everything off the rack,

and just taking it home and putting it in the garage.

- What card are you holding right there?

- It's an '89 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card.

It changed the game. It was like, like, burning hot.

It was... it became... it went from being like a $2 card

to a $200 card, and you just couldn't get enough of them.

It was just minting money, it was just that easy back then.

Mike: Ken Griffey Jr., this guy was the number 1 pick,

in the Major League Baseball draft,

and he we knew he was going to be beyond superstar.

And I remember Upper Deck, for sure,

I remember when they came out, and again,

that was a huge thing,

because this was a brand new baseball card,

and it was fancy, and hologram-y.

Dave: Upper Deck, they made a very splashy entrance

into the world of baseball cards,

and they took a hot prospect,

made him number 1 in their set,

and it just sparked a frenzy.

- It's almost like the premium card,

like the Cadillac of the baseball card,

and you always thought that Topps was the number 1

and then for some reason it's like,

Upper Deck started saying like, "I'm the man,

I'm better than everybody."

I think everyone felt like special because they had this card.

♪♪♪

[Knocks]

- Hey, how is it going? Tom?

- Yeah. - Stu.

- Stu. Yeah, I'm a senior in high school, 17-years-old,

so after school I would drive to Anaheim

and work at the card shop.

- And what was the name of the card shop?

- Uh, Upper Deck Card Shop. - So it was actually just

a card shop called The Upper Deck, or Upper Deck?

- Right. Yeah, The Upper Deck Card Shop.

And Upper Deck was a trading card company

designed by a trading card collector.

And in June of '88, they brought me on

to be the first ever employee of Upper Deck.

- You're the guy that actually created

the Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card. - Yeah, exactly.

- Like, no one else can claim that.

- Right, it was just me. - That's you.

- Basically I created the whole thing, from scratch.

- I don't know if this is familiar to you.

- [Laughs]

- This is your baby. - Yeah.

- But there it is, right there,

that's the actual Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card right there.

- Yeah.

So, I had figured at some point in the '89 season,

he's gonna make the Major League team.

- So you made the decision in '88.

You saw, you saw ahead into the future, Griffey was your guy.

Because he didn't have any other cards anywhere else.

- Exactly.

So this is the polaroid picture of the actual slide,

and so this is the actual image here,

versus what it was modified to.

- To what it became. - Versus what it became.

Back in the day, in '89,

they were supposed to make 200 cases a day,

and the machinery was so abysmal,

and they didn't know what they were doing,

they were only able to make sometimes 28, 32 cases.

It was a $400 case cost, and as soon as somebody got it,

it was worth $1,000, because it was so scarce.

And that ended up allowing them to make more product,

because there was an artificial bubble of value.

- So there's a real rumor

that they printed '89 rookies of Griffey Jr. in 1990?

- Yes, with a 1990 paper stock.

There's probably at least a million cards of Griffey.

- A million of them. - Yeah.

If you want to look up at this sheet, here,

it's a 100-up sheet, so the Griffey card

would have been the very top left one.

Somebody could have run a 100-up sheet of an $18 card,

according to the Beckett book, right,

and now they have a hundred $18 cards.

- Right. Which actually went up to like $50 the next month.

- Yeah - And $100.

- So it's this big business.

- Yeah, so it's like printing $20 bills,

$50 bills, $100 bills. - Literally.

- And if you had 100 $100 bills running at one time,

you know... - It's pretty good.

- Legally, they probably could have still done 'em.

Ethically, they should not have done any more.

[Phone ringing]

Jack: Hi, Stu? - No, it's Adam, your...

your son-in-law. - How you doin'?

- Okay, so, where are you staying, number one?

- Uh, good question.

Woman: Jack, you need to pay attention right now.

Adam: Who is that in the car with you?

Woman: I think we've gotta get over there [unclear].

Jack! [Call ends]

- He hung up.

Well, that looks like it's promising?

I don't know. [Laughs]

Brian: Beckett was started in 1984 by Dr. James Beckett.

It is a price guide for collectors and dealers,

um, so they can value their cards in their collections.

It certainly helped the boom of the 80s and the 90s.

There's a whole bunch of arrows.

People want to see arrows. Arrows--

Stu: Arrows are kind of like the hook.

- Yes, arrows sell magazines,

so I think a lot of people, myself included,

were like, looking for just the arrows and saying okay,

this is the guy I'm buying, because it's going up.

Now, it meant it went up.

It might have been $1.50 last month, and now it's $2.

Payne: I came here in 1991.

- Oh, so you've been here since the boom.

- Yeah, I saw the boom through, and through the other side.

I was here when we were selling a million magazines a month.

- Wow. - '89 Griffey was...

that took on a life of its own,

even though it's rumored be, you know,

have been over-produced,

which I think is probably the case.

♪♪♪

Jordan: I spoke to a PR guy from Upper Deck,

and they are no longer interested in speaking to us.

Harv: [Laughs] I told you. Karie: Why?

- I'm not saying that's a dead-end entirely--

- So wait, they went from we'll talk to you,

to a week later, we're not interested.

-Pretty much. Yeah.

Adam: So what're you gonna do?

[Phone ringing]

- So my name is Robert Young Pelton,

I worked with Steve Jobs on the launch of the Apple,

I worked with a number of computer companies,

car companies.

And uh, I then started my own business

called Pelton & Associates,

and we bought a lot of print materials.

So one of our salesmen that would come and sell us,

or bid on posters, or brochures,

or any of the sports, was a guy named Paul Sumner.

One day he came to me and he said

he had this idea to do baseball cards,

and um, one of the things that Paul Sumner was doing,

is that he had focused on the card aspect

of the baseball card industry.

He wanted to do a very high-end,

Very, you know, beautifully-printed,

and designed and photographed,

and so I said to him, well you know,

Topps is in the gum business,

they're not in the card business,

and that the products that they sold was this stale gum

that sat there for 5 or 10 years

and they basically used the box material to print the cards,

because they were free.

The funny thing was that something that was so,

I won't say naive, but so simple and honest,

and whatever, had turned into this sort of very,

once again, not criminal enterprise,

but it might as well have been.

You know, it might as well have been the same

as a drug deal or whatever,

because they were gaming the system so bad,

and these poor kids walked into a store,

they were being gamed, right.

Like, "Oh look, I found a Ken Griffey," you know,

and guy's got 5,000 more in the back of his office.

And that was the first inkling I got

that there was something maybe not quite right, you know,

in the magic kingdom of Upper Deck.

Announcer: You have got to be kidding me! Wild West Deals!

Don West, here, from WildWestDeals.com.

Does this look familiar? I would hope so!

My name is Don West, and in the 1990's,

I was the show host on the Shop at Home Network

for the sports memorabilia show and baseball card shop.

[Theme music]

Announcer: You're watching Shop at Home,

America's second-oldest television shopping network.

- The day I really knew we were on to something huge was,

I'm doing this show and this box falls off it's stand,

and cards are everywhere on the floor.

We had to stay on this 3,200 count set of cards,

in fact, you can YouTube this.

It's a Griffey rookie!

There is a Griffey!

Man: Unbelievable!

Man 2: Folks, you're not gonna go wrong on this.

Man 1: Throw that over there. [Laugh] There's another one!

There's a Griffey rookie!

- We looked up, and the next thing I know,

we sold about 5,000 sets of these, in a half hour,

and I... that's when it hit me,

we are on to something really, really big here.

Whoa! Whoa!

We went from $3 million a year, to almost $150 million a year,

for 7 straight years.

You know you have your T206 Honus Wagner,

and then you have your '52 Topps Mantle.

Well, those two cards have always stood above everyone else.

And then I would say the most important card after that,

I would feel very confident saying

it's the '89 Upper Deck Griffey Jr.

I know they just kept comin',

so there's a lot more out there than...

than I wish there were, how 'bout that?

♪♪♪

Man: You guys know the best place to catch movie?

- No, no.

[Elevator chimes]

Ha.

That's already so cool.

[Knocks]

- Stu? Hey, nice to meet you! Stu: Yes.

- How are you, man? - Jon.

- Jon. - Suse.

- Hey. This is crazy to me. Just, whoa!

Susan: Welcome to Topps! - This is,

Jon: When we get to do a tour and you realize this,

Susan: I think it's pretty... - ...this is pretty cool.

- People want window views of the city; I just want this.

♪♪♪

Clay: The way we do business, we understand it's collectible.

We know that you can't go and like,

just keep the presses running.

You can't be irresponsible.

We're, we're very responsible when it comes to production,

and it's one of the reasons why we've lasted in this...

in this game so long.

Jon: This is essentially how cards are made.

Um, we typically do them on 100-up forms are called,

so it's you know, this is Heritage Baseball,

and we print thousands of these sheets,

and then they get cut up. This stuff gets destroyed.

It's very important this stuff gets destroyed

because you know, there's super high-value stuff in here

that we wanna make sure doesn't get in the market,

doesn't, you know...someone who pulls this Griffey,

we don't want other ones floating out there,

we want the one to be the one.

Integrity's really big in our industry.

- Nice. '87 Topps.

Green packs, Spring Fever Baseball,

no purchase necessary.

So see, the back card is already damaged by the gum.

The great thing about trading cards

is it's a surprise.

Right? It's a surprise.

Like who doesn't like opening up presents?

Adam: Think I got some other card show as well.

- Card shows are a waste of time.

- I think we went to the wrong card show.

- No, I'm telling you, Adam, it was like a ghost town there.

- No, there's like another card show happening at the airport.

Professional ball players, and the manufacturers.

Upper Deck will be there.

- Upper Deck. - And...

- Upper Deck is gonna be at this card show.

- All right so, great, I'm gonna confirm our attendance.

- Uh, if we actually can get Upper Deck,

that would be fucking huge.

- We can get Upper Deck if they're gonna be at that show.

We'll get them saying no to us.

♪♪♪

- Oh there's a few people here. - Yeah.

♪♪♪

This is a slightly different than the other show

Karie: Yeah. - that we went to.

- Oh my God, it's a full football field.

I can't believe it. I'm shocked.

Let's go this way.

♪♪♪

Stu: You've been saying no to me for months.

- This is kind of their bread and butter right here.

-Right, so now I'm... not I've got a chance

to fucking...to do it.

So where's the guy? What's his name?

Are you Chris? - Yeah, how are ya?

- How are you, man? - Pleased to meet ya.

- I'm Stu, nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you.

- Is there like, a place we can sit and talk for a minute?

- Sure.

- This is it, the mecca of... the mecca of card companies -

Upper Deck. - Yeah.

You know the whole idea was

let's build a better baseball card, right.

- So how important was this card to the company Upper Deck?

-It's not was, it still is.

It's uh, big for our company, it's big for him,

it's big for baseball, it's big for the industry, so.

- So you said there's like a lot of these out there?

Like people, like basically millions of people bought them?

- There wasn't...mass, mass, mass produced, but it's uh,

there were definitely more produced than,

you know, we make today.

- How many of, how many of these

do you think there are in the world?

- I have never, ever seen any proof of is that Upper Deck

was creating sheets of just Griffey rookies which I...

I'm 99.9% sure is totally untrue.

- That's not true.

And as far as like, production runs, too,

like, do you think that like, there was lessons learned

from the 90s that are now being applied?

- Absolutely. People, people know that, from the shop level,

on down to collectors, you know, they chat a lot more.

There's all these collector message boards,

and they're on Twitter, and Facebook, and uh,

there's a lot more education about how much is out there.

And, people know if...

if a company produces too much product,

and they just don't buy it. - Right.

I can't believe we just got that.

Okay, now we've got that table, I've gotta run...

I know. What?

Okay, here we go!

Hold on!

- Listen, what do you think of tall blondes?

- Okay, just...this just in. Okay.

I hear, hold on, let me interrupt this thing.

This just in, I just have to ask you,

what do you think of tall blondes?

- Who are you? - I'm Batman.

- And why do you have a spot? - Doesn't matter.

What do you think of Upper Deck hockey?

- I have no, who are you? Why are you wearing that suit?

-What do you think of, how 'bout... how 'bout Score hockey?

- Who cut your hair?

- He's trying to change the subject, obviously,

he's trying to change the subject.

- Who pinched your ear? - Doesn't matter.

- There's a spot on you, spaghetti.

- What I wanna know is, why would someone like that

hang around with you? [Laughter]

- I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding.

- Money.

- I don't wanna, I'm not tryin' to ambush you, here.

- You're not ambushing me, you're not ambushing me, at all.

How are ya? - That's good, how are you?

- No, no, this is my last spot.

The final vault, this final. - That's you?

- Yeah. - Oh, I didn't know that.

- Wait, this is you?

- I can't believe that you're at a card show.

- Just remember, I owe all of this to your father.

- Really? - So he got me in, in 1990.

He was a pioneer, there's no doubt.

Remember, he made the first price glide... price guide.

- Yeah, you didn't know that. - Really?

- Pre-dated Beckett by 5 years.

The problem with your dad was

that your dad really couldn't look far-term at anything.

Far-term for him was overnight.

You know what, it's just too bad he didn't stick around.

Stu: All of a sudden, one day, we just got told that

he was getting out of the business.

Um, I don't know why.

Right around that time, my parents got divorced,

and then, it was over.

Apparent-- you know, the stores, it was over.

Like, the marriage was over, the card store was over,

and uh... that was pretty much the day,

that time period, everything changed.

Man: 3rd aisle there, Karie: Yeah.

- It's called BGS 10. - Yeah.

- The fella that is at that booth, his name is Karlos.

Karlos was the originator of all those Sluggers chains.

- Thank you so much. - Thank you for your time.

He's gonna go tell him.

- You need to like not... - Not what?

- I was scared to go... - Go to Karlos?

-Oh yeah. Just talk in the hall, here.

- Okay.

- I asked this guy,

'cause he said he was in business for 26 years,

I said, "oh, have you ever heard of a store called Sluggers?"

He's like, "Yeah, this guy Karlos, who started Sluggers,

he's booth, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

-So who's he? - Karlos was the guy that my dad-

- That bought Sluggers... like my dad fucked over.

- So we're gonna talk to him.

- I don't know. - Well, we like--

Harv: What are you talking about?

Of course we wanna talk to him. - This is why we're here.

- Yeah. [Low hum of chatter]

Stu: Uh, I don't know if you know me, my name's Stuart.

This is my sister, Karie.

- Karlos: Yes, I do.

- You know, you probably last saw me,

- Stuart Eisenstein.

- Yeah, you probably last saw me when I was a kid.

- I did. And Karie. Yes. - Hi, how are you?

- Your dad, actually, he helped me along big time in life.

- He did? - Your father helped me a lot.

If it wasn't for Sluggers, um,

and your father's generosity,

I probably wouldn't be in the financial position I am today.

Stu: Really? Karie: Really?

- Yeah. - Wow,

that's the opposite of what I thought you would say.

- Nope. -I thought that there was like,

a big, bad falling out between you guys?

- Never. Your father... your father left,

some time ago in the 90s,

but I've always tried to track him down.

Everything, everything your father gave me turned to gold.

I don't think you know the whole story about the store.

- I don't. I don't. - We don't.

- So the whole story about the store is that

he wanted 30 grand for the store,

I didn't have that kind of money, uh,

'cause I was 20.

I lucked in and bought 3 cases of High French hockey cards,

and I bought 'em for 700 bucks a case,

they appreciated to $10,000 a case.

Stu: Holy shit.

- I traded the cases for the store.

- Wow, that's a crazy story. - Right?

- That's insanity.

- So basically the money changed,

so the 30 grand that I needed, went and paid that.

And from there, it was just a free roll.

- Do you feel emotional? - I was like,

So nervous to come up to you because I thought

there was like, a bad-- - Me too.

- Even if I've had bad things, time heals everything.

- Mm hmm.

- And you don't forget what people did for you,

and regardless of what happened to them,

you know, later on in life,

I never forgot your father. Ever.

Stu: Wow. Karie: Thank you so much.

Stu: They sat us down, with me and my sisters,

a week after my bar mitzvah,

and explained that my dad was gonna be leaving.

And he said he just needs to figure some shit out,

and he would probably come back in a couple weeks.

But he didn't come back.

♪♪♪

- You don't have to roll now.

- Oh yeah, roll. Why, 'cause you're smoking?

- Yeah.

- Dude, you don't think people know you smoke?

- No, they don't, and they're not going to.

- Your mom knows. - Well, that's the only person.

- Everyone knows you smoke.

If you don't think that smoking in the baseball card

collecting community is like the coolest thing

you can fucking do, it's like literally,

one step away from having both ears pierced.

Um, something happened, I think it's good news.

Um...I think it's gonna help our movie,

but it's gonna come as a little bit of a shock to you.

Your dad's in Toronto.

Right now.

And me and Adam talked to him.

- You spoke to my father on the phone?

- Yeah.

- And you already told him that we're gonna talk to him?

- I... told him that me and you were making a movie

about baseball cards, and that we wanted to interview him

because he would know the most about baseball cards

out of anyone we know.

So... if...

this is your chance to talk to your dad, man.

- Ah. I just don't understand why you didn't tell me.

- I didn't know what you were gonna say.

I didn't know if you'd actually want to

make that phone call yourself.

- I mean, I have never said that I was gonna do this,

so I don't understand what...

I just feel like you're kind of ambushing me here.

I-I knew that when you said to come for coffee

that... I just...

- Dude, we found your dad,

and in 2 days you're gonna have the opportunity

to sit down and talk to him.

♪♪♪

♪ I love, I love, I love,

♪ I love my Kraft Dinner with... ♪

- Hot dogs.

Stu: In 1980...I think 1983, 1982,

I was in the Kraft Dinner commercial.

It was the one, "I love, I love my Kraft Dinner

with my dad," which is ironic,

because I never actually ate Kraft Dinner with my own dad.

♪ I love, I love, I love,

♪ I love my Kraft Dinner with Young Stu: My dad!

["Hava Negila" plays, cheering]

Trudy: Being a dad at the time,

was very important up until the time he left.

And after that, I don't know why he was not a good dad.

- Mom, what were you thinking

when you were Dirty Dancing out there?

-I was thinking that I hope my kids wouldn't be watching this.

- I was watching, ma,

and all of our viewers out there were watching.

Anything you'd like to say to the viewers at home?

- I'd like to say that I'm so proud of Stuart today,

and I wish you Mazel Tov, Mazel Tov.

- Thank you. - [Kiss]

Why does everyone have to kiss?

Stu: I never really thought of what my mom had to sacrifice,

because we always had food,

we always had the bills paid,

and now that I'm thinking about it,

she...she worked a lot of weird jobs back then,

and she really stepped it up.

And she always made sure that everybody was okay,

and everything's cool.

She had her hands full. She got fucked over.

Trudy: Stuart's bar mitzvah was the last time that we...

that we actually were together as a unit,

yes, as a family unit.

He left a long time ago and he disappeared.

No one could find him, nobody knew where he went,

and he was a person

that probably just didn't wanna be found.

This guy is responsible for holding all of my presents.

Can I just ask you something? Where did you put them?

- They're in my safety deposit box,

and I'll be going on a long trip. Thank you, Stuart.

- So how much ransom do you ant for these?

- Nothing, nothing.

- You're just gonna keep it for yourself.

- Yeah, wait 'til you grow up, and you can look for me.

[Knocks]

Stu: Hey. How are you? - Hi. Glad you could make it.

- I made it. - Yeah, yeah. Come on in.

- I found this picture that I want to show you,

and uh, you might recognize this picture.

- Oh yeah, this was the picture at the...at his wedding.

- Yeah. - Yeah, to your mother.

I was there to keep a close eye on your father.

And uh... I remember that day.

My sister wanted to get married,

so, they got married, and here you are.

- I don't know much about him

other than the fun times that I had with him.

- Right. And I'm sure they were fun times.

- They were great. I mean, we had a blast.

- But again, when it involved money or business,

- No good. -...uh, it was no good.

You'd have to keep your hands in your pocket,

otherwise his hands would be in your pocket.

- So you think I shouldn't find him, or I should?

- I think you should stay as far away as possible from him.

[Stuart's Bar Mitzvah footage]

- Mazel Tov to my wonderful nephew, Stuart!

- I think when he left, it affected all of you.

- But do you think I should uh...

I should try to talk to him about it?

- You can talk to him because you've been estranged

from your dad a long time. - Like 20 years.

- It's been 20... more than 20 years.

- Yeah. Time flies. That's crazy.

- Life goes on, kid. - Yeah.

- He's lost, and that's what happens,

we all get lost at the end.

- Yeah. Well, you didn't get lost.

- Oh no, I can't get lost, they won't let me get lost.

- Your dad was uh... he was any only child,

and I guess being from the Holocaust, et cetera,

they were more than generous with him.

They gave him everything he wants.

He was a smart guy, like I said.

The problem is, he wanted it very quickly.

Always the angle, always the angle, you know.

- Even without him in the picture,

I want to thank you for what you did for me.

- Well, that's okay. - My sisters and my mom.

- I know. You have to do what you have to do,

and I care about you know, your mother,

and your grandparents, may they rest in peace,

they were really special people.

When I was 15, my mother passed away

and I lived with my father,

and my father who was not a nice guy, asked me to leave.

So on 15 or 16, I was living on my own.

25 years later, my father contacts me,

and we all got together.

So we're sitting there talking, whatever,

and I said to him like, "I don't understand,

25 years I haven't seen you, like I don't get it."

And his answer was "it's water under the bridge,"

which basically is I don't wanna discuss it.

People just don't leave their kids.

I mean, they leave their spouses,

but they don't leave their kids.

I guess every child would like the love

and approval of their parent,

no matter what their parent did.

- This is one of the pretty women

that we were talking about earlier.

Uh, she's my sister and we don't always get along,

but I guess I have to get along with you right now so,

what do you want to say?

It really sounds like the people he really hurt

were his family, and his parents.

- Yeah, I just uh...

I don't even know if it's even worth talking to him about it.

I'd almost maybe not, rather not know.

- You have to know. You have to talk to him on so many levels.

First of all, just by meeting those people in the show,

we saw like, he was the pioneer, he was the expert.

He got me in the business.

Just the fact of who he was in the business,

we should interview him.

- I disagree with, with one thing. - What?

- People who disappear, there's a reason why they disappear.

I don't feel comfortable, putting myself in that situation

or putting him in that situation.

- Well then, I'll do it, if you don't wanna do it.

- Well, maybe that's how it should be.

- Okay. It's not your job to protect him.

- I mean, it's your job to protect me,

so if I'm telling you I don't want to do something,

I would appreciate it if you would have my back and be like,

you don't have to do something. - Okay, but off the record,

I'm telling you that I don't agree with you.

- I mean, this is... there's no off the record.

- No, but I'm saying...

- Everyone just heard you say that.

Trudy: Well, I think Stuart needs to find him.

He needs a lot of questions answered.

He also needs to find him as a dad, to get...

just to see if there's anything there in a relationship.

Because I know that the...

they haven't seen each other for a very long time.

This guy is shy of cameras.

I don't know if he's gonna talk to us.

He's the owner of Sluggers Collectibles,

very, very popular in baseball cards.

Multi-millionaire, this guy, Jack Eisenstein.

And for once we're gonna catch him in the act.

He's got food all over his face;

let's see if we can get a close-up.

Hi, Jack. - Hi, dad.

- Anything you'd like to say to the viewers at home?

[Baseball announcer like] Yeah, come to Sluggers real quick,

buy all your cards here, and buy everything real quick.

Thank you. - Okay

- He's staying, like literally, right there.

One of those is his hotel.

Which is crazy, he's like, that close.

Hello? Karie: Hi.

- Hey, Karie.

- Are you... are you going to meet him?

- Yup. I'm leaving right now. - How do you feel?

- I feel...I don't know how I feel. How do you feel?

- I feel sick for you, obviously.

I mean just, I'm nervous for you.

- Um, I'll see you after. I'll let you know what happens.

- If he says anything bad about Mom, you punch him in the face.

- All right, well, if you see me with uh, a broken hand,

then you'll know that he said some shit.

Just over there is Le Parc, we're passing.

That's where I had my bar mitzvah.

And that's like the last time my family was altogether

as that like, version of my family was at that bar mitzvah.

This is just crazy how that worked... how this works out.

♪♪♪

Here we go.

My dad's name is Jack.

He was born in 1950, in Toronto.

His parents were Holocaust survivors

that came over to Canada after the War,

and they opened up a fish market in Kensington

that was called, uh, Baldwin Fish.

And that was their business.

And my dad came along, and uh,

that's uh... that's him.

That's my dad.

That's the last... that's all I know about him.

- You wanna go ahead of me? - Yeah.

Stu: He was our hero. He was everybody's hero.

He was like the coolest dad in the neighborhood type of guy.

All the kids loved him.

He always gave cards to everybody,

whenever our friends would come over.

He was the greatest.

We had really, really great time during that period,

the 80s, in the early 90s were awesome.

Harv: How are you feeling?

- I mean, my heart's pounding.

- You gonna be okay? - I dunno.

[Sharp exhale]

One day, he just like left, he completely left.

He like, disappeared and we didn't know where he went,

we didn't know where he lived,

we didn't know how to get a hold of him.

[Emotional exhale]

I never went to a psychiatrist or a shrink

to talk about these problems.

I've like, kept these very inside for a long time.

This is... crazy. [Elevator dings]

I can't think of like, if I had a kid,

like, could I leave them?

I don't think I could.

It's easy for you to sit and ask me,

that there must be questions for me to ask him,

but what questions could you possibly ask someone

that doesn't exist?

You know, at some point you kinda give up on,

well, I wish I could ask him this.

You just stop thinking about it.

That was a quick ride.

- You thought it was gonna go longer.

- Yeah, I was praying. I was hoping.

I kind of was numb to it.

I kind of just buried it, and I moved to L.A.,

I lived in L.A. for 20 years. I didn't have to deal with it.

And... even my family,

I didn't have to really deal with them.

So I didn't...you know,

I didn't have to go through what they went through.

[Knocks]

I know my dad for about 13 or 14 years of my life.

I know that guy.

That's 25 years ago.

- Stu. Stu the Jew was moxin'. - How ya doin'?

- What's goin' on? Nice jacket.

- Thank you. How are ya? - I'm okay.

- Nice uh...nice room. - Nice pad, eh?

- Yeah. You got the suite. Like the old days.

- Yeah. Two rooms.

- Uh, we're gonna get set up. - What's that?

- We're gonna set up

and we'll find a nice place to sit and talk.

- What's wrong with here? Let's sit here.

Why does that guy look like Harvey?

- That is Harvey. [Jack laughs]

- When's the last time you saw him? Long time ago.

- Long time ago. Harv: Wow. How ya doin'?

- [Stu sighs] Well, hello.

- Hello. - How ya doin'?

- Okay.

- You just happened to be comin' to Toronto?

- Yeah, visiting my family. - So how old are you now?

- 29. - Plus a few.

- 65. - 65. Do you know how old I am?

- 38. - Yup. [Laughs]

How did this whole thing get started for you?

- Well, it actually started with comic books.

I had a comic book in 1977 when we were moving,

you happened to be born that year.

Some guy's gonna come over and help me move,

he says to me, "Jack, what do you want for this comic book?"

I says, "you're gonna give me money for a comic book?"

He says, "Yeah, I'll give you 25 bucks for it."

As soon as somebody puts a monetary value on a comic book,

that I think is worthless, I'm not gonna give it to him.

- What comic was it? - Action Comic Book Number 1.

- The first Superman comic ever.

- Yeah, Action Comic Book,

not Superman, but he was in there.

- The one when he's holding the car over his head.

-Yes, yes. I gave him the comic,

he sent it to uh, Vancouver.

The guy offered us $7,500 for it.

I gave him $1,000 bucks commission,

I took the $6,500 and bought a TR7.

- Hm, you bought a car. - Yeah. And...

- So that sparked your interest in going back

and finding all your other cards.

- When I went to look for everything else then um,

I read this story in 1981, which was 3 years later,

how they have these big shows in the United States.

So I phoned and asked if I could get a table,

and the guy says, "where ya from?"

I says, "I'm from Canada." "Oh for sure,

we have nobody from Canada here."

- So you were the first guy from Canada to set up.

- I was the first guy from Canada ever set up at a...

- With what cards? With the cards from Bubbe's closet?

- No, and then no, plus then I went...

I phoned the candy wholesalers

and wanted to bring hockey cards to America.

So I used to, I just got cases,

loaded up the truck with cases,

and went to Plymouth, Michigan, and set up,

and nobody had ever seen this stuff before.

You go to Detroit show, they're dumping boxes there

for 2 bucks, you could take those boxes

and take 'em to Philadelphia, get 10 bucks.

Then you buy cases off these guys who were dumpin' 'em,

and take 'em back to Detroit, or take 'em to New York City,

or take 'em to anywhere else.

They've never seen 'em. - So this is like a flip game.

-Yeah, just keep going back and forth,

and it just bigger, and bigger, and bigger.

- And there was nobody in Canada doing it.

- Not at that time.

I remember when I opened up the Sluggers store,

there was a guy with a kid looking in the window,

did not know I was the owner, and he says,

"these people are not gonna last long."

- I was there for that; I remember that.

- Yeah, the guy says "they're not gonna last long."

And that's when the market just went completely nuts.

- Look at the lineup here.

They're going crazy, just to get in to buy cards.

-It was over...we did uh, about $35,000 in sales,

or $40,000 in sales that day.

- Just that day. - Yeah.

-So did you feel guilty

that you're peddling bullshit to people?

Did you know it was bullshit? Be honest.

-I...thought something strange. You can't take it to the bank.

You could take the money to the bank,

but you can't take the cards to the bank.

They really dug deep.

Obviously a lot of it's fraud, because they lied.

Because the boom, because they kept printing.

There was never a shortage. - And did you know that then?

-I knew it, I knew because I had friends on the inside, so.

- So what did you know?

- The major players were all just... printing.

I mean, Upper Deck, unbelievable, Upper Deck.

- I wanna show you some stuff. What's this?

- Upper Deck.

The first set they ever made. [laughs]

Ken Griffey rookie.

The trading was always my forte; I loved trading.

That was the best way to make money.

Cash - people remember when they gave you cash,

then they remember, "oh I remember what I paid for that."

In 1990, I did a show in Dallas, Texas,

and I met the ex-President of Upper Deck.

So I says, "what's the deal?"

He says, "well give me as many sets."

I can't remember how many sets I traded him,

but he had a box like, 5,000 of 'em, just that card.

They just printed that one card.

- Right. Okay, so like the rest.

- This, any other card here is hard toilet paper.

- Hard toilet paper.

- Yeah. When it became out in the open,

those closet collectors were not closet collectors anymore.

- They came out. - They came out.

You know, you've got dentists would come to your store,

they didn't care. They'd spend like $1,000,

and I remember this lady, she looks at me, "this is crazy.

My husband's spending $2,000 on that stuff."

I says, "would you rather him spend it on a blonde?"

She goes, "you're right." [Laughs]

- And then you said that you got too... too early.

- Look, I got sick. I didn't know how long I'm gonna live.

I took the money and ran.

- Literally. - Yeah.

- Um...we'll talk about that in a minute.

- Your father's not a bad guy.

I heard you get rewarded sometimes

for being nice to people, so...

-So you feel like you gave and gave and gave and gave,

and never...and when it came time for you, no one gave back?

- Well, I don't think they would return the favor.

Let's go back to those shows.

[Jack laughs]

The fam!

Why're you showing me this? - I mean, that's 1990.

- That's your bar mitzvah. - Yeah.

- Still was okay, the business was still pretty strong.

- So what happened after that?

- What happened to what?

- Like, all of a sudden, a few weeks after that,

Like everything kinda went... no good anymore.

That's like the last picture of our family,

from that era, ever together as a family.

- Wow.

Interesting picture.

What happened with what, Stuart?

- Like, everything kind of went south from there.

- The market, or us?

- The market, us, everything. Like--

-Yeah, well I went a different direction.

Went into manufacturing. - Right.

- The retail store, retail business was in big trouble

because there was more stores than people collecting.

- Right. - So now, they're gonna go south.

- So you had some tough times and what...

- I didn't have tough... I was still strong here.

We were still pretty strong in 19...

- Business-wise. - '89.

- But family-wise, your marriage, that... it ended.

- I went stupid, that's all. Okay.

- You disappeared. Where did you go?

What... I don't understand? Where the fuck have you been?

- I...I became stupid.

I listened to a woman

because men become stupid with women.

- But didn't you feel bad about that?

- Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

- What is ha-easy to just leave?

- No, you just don't think; you get caught up in it.

You just get caught up.

- So what about... you didn't think...

-It hurt! Don't worry. You phoned me one day,

"you comin' back, Dad?" and I said, "well, I don't know."

"You know, you gotta come back, Dad, this is a joke."

You remember at all? - Yeah.

- Yeah. - And you didn't come back.

- No. - No.

- No. But it's... also, I don't want to blame anybody,

but when you're a Holocaust kid,

you can get cold pretty easy.

Most Holocaust kids are not normal.

They are crazy. - You think you're crazy?

- Well, Holocaust kids are really...

some of them are really fucked up.

They can get cold, real quick.

You don't care about anybody.

- So do you think that Karie and Dena and me...

- Oh I know! It all hurts, it's all punishment.

I uh, there's only so many times I can say I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

But what can I do? I can't change nothin'.

- I mean, you've had 20 years to think about it, I guess.

So do you regret it? - What's that?

-Leaving? - No, but that was...

I had a brand-new family again. You start over.

3 little kids, remember?

- So just start again with them?

- That's not the first time that's ever been done, Stuart.

- Right.

- It's probably been about a million times, you know.

- You said you were the King of Trades,

you always loved making trades. - Yeah.

-So this is kind of like a trade, you like, trade...

and you went... - I had a brand-new

young family that depended on me at the time, so,

- And how is your relationship with those kids?

- I've cooled off with them, too.

6 kids is a lot of kids. [Laughs]

For an only child from Holocaust survivors.

When your grandmother died,

it was very, very depressing for me.

Even though you have 6 kids,

you feel like you're alone,

because that's your immediate family.

So when Bubbe died, you feel wow, now I'm alone.

But you're really not alone, so. [Laughs]

Okay, can we stop this? What's goin' on?

[Big exhale]

- You okay? - Yeah.

There's no napkins around here?

- Someone could get...

[Tissue rips]

- Oy vey.

So uh, thanks for talking to me.

[Jack laughs]

- It's been a long time. - Yeah.

- Long time coming. - Yeah.

- You're my dad, no matter what happened.

- Yeah. - And uh... you know I would...

I would like for you to be a part of our lives.

I wish that I... - I'm trying.

- I wish that you would try a little harder.

- I didn't expect to have 6 kids.

- Well, I would hope that the lessons

that you've learned from us,

you could not make those mistakes with the other kids.

- Yeah. - I mean, you should try.

- Well, I'm avoiding them too, So...

- I think you should stop avoiding them.

You were my hero. [Jack laughs]

- We were every day.

- Well, these stories will make you more of a hero.

- And then it just kinda stopped.

- People make a lot of big mistakes in their life.

- You know, thank you for coming out of

the witness protection program to talk to me.

And I hope you learned... I learned a lot about you,

and I've learned a lot about cards,

and now I know what I have to do

to make these cards worth money.

- You have to destroy them all.

- You would have to destroy them all?

- Yeah. What made a card collectible in the first place?

Everybody's parents threw them in the garbage.

- Good to see you. - Love you.

- Take care. Behave yourself, all right?

- Okay. - Thanks for doing this.

I'll see you in 20 years.

I don't know how to feel.

I feel...

like I gave...

I feel...

I feel like I gave him closure,

or gave him an opening,

maybe the opposite of closure.

That's all I got.

When I started out on this journey,

I thought I was gonna find out

what happened with baseball cards,

and what ended up happening

was that I found out what happened to me.

♪♪♪

♪ Fallen, my bed is warm

♪ Mama Maria has been released

- People will show up.

♪ Come in, my bed is warm

♪ I can't wait, no I can't wait ♪

Stu: Karie, I told you I had another sister.

♪ So one of a kind, so sweet, so curious ♪

- Open it up, open the package. Have fun.

♪ I can't make you mine

Dena: These are all from when we were kids?

- Yeah, everything.

- Full action over there, he's having the best time.

♪ I finally found what I'm lookin' for ♪

Woman: Joe Carter! - There is Joe Carter!

♪ Dream about it anymore

♪ Heaven, heaven

♪ I've been made a believer

Stu: A lot of people look at the hobby of cards

as something that's a real father and son type of thing,

that you did with your dad.

Um, I want to say that I think I've figured out

what actually caused the boom in cards, and uh,

although it may have been a hobby

that was enjoyed by fathers and sons, uh,

I think the real reason why the boom happened,

I can confidently say, is because of the mothers

that threw away our fathers' cards and destroyed them.

She was one of the mothers that didn't throw away...

- Anything. - my stuff.

And uh, I think that in order to save our memories

and the childhood hobby that we all loved,

I think what we need to do is burn it to the ground.

And uh, I want...

I think it's fitting that my mother,

who worked at Sluggers,

who was the godmother of baseball cards in Toronto, uh,

be the first person to throw some cards on the flame.

And I'm gonna give, here's a fresh wax pack,

just like you like.

♪ You've got me burnin' up

♪♪♪

♪ I've finally found what I'm looking for ♪

♪ Won't have to dream about it anymore ♪

♪ Heaven, heaven

♪ I've been made a believer

♪ I've been made a believer

♪ I'll keep you safe, I won't go away ♪

♪ The things you say, they keep me away ♪

♪ Now I've been made a believer ♪

♪ Ooh ooh ooh

♪ Now I've been made a believer ♪

♪ Ooh ooh

♪ Now I've been made a believer ♪

♪ Ooh ooh

♪ Now I've been made a believer ♪

♪ Ooh ooh

♪ Now I've been made a believer ♪

♪ Ooh ooh

♪ Now I've been made a believer ♪

♪ Ooh ooh

♪ I've been made a believer

♪ Now I've been made a believer ♪

♪ Ooh ooh

♪ I've been made a believer

♪ Ooh ooh

♪ I've been made a believer

♪ Ooh ooh

♪ Now I've been made a believer ♪

♪ Ooh ooh

♪ Now I've been made a believer ♪

♪♪♪

- I'm not sure if you have this card, or not,

but uh, if you do have it, you'll let me know.

- Yep, I'll let you know. - But if you don't have it,

I want maybe I can add it to your collection.

- Okay. - Hold on a second here.

- Oh wow! I don't have that one.

- What do you see there?

- Me running with a bat in my hand, up in St. George, Utah.

- Sage Sports Cards has officially made

a Foul Ball Paul rookie card.

- Oh wow, that's great! - [Stu laughs]

If we open this entire box,

and there's not a Canseco in it, that is just like,

- The chances of a real Canseco being here, slim to none.

That wouldn't happen.

[Wrapping rustles]

Jack: Jim Wolf, Rudy Law, Wayne Walker.

Carlton Fisk.

Same cards over and over again. - I know.

- This is impossible, because they use different sheets.

- I'm like way ahead of you here, you're too slow.

I'm fucking devastated right now.

I have never pulled a Canseco out of a pack.

I just bought a 30-year-old box of cards that had a seal on it.

What is this worth? [Laughs]

- Hard toilet paper.

- You need to go to the bathroom?

- Not yet.

♪ You don't have to know the devil ♪

♪ There are other ways to say

- Wow, ha. And there's the old school gum,

so that's...how old... how old is this gum?

[Crunching]

And it's got the crunch. [Laughs]

Stu: Who else needs some gum? - Go Sanders.

- Joe you want the gum.

- It's like rite of passage.

1989.

1989, that is vintage gum.

You know how much money that gum is worth

on the open market?

- That is awesome.

[Crunching] [Loud bang]

'84, '94, this is over 30 years old.

Man: I've got gum, too. Woman: Pat Tabler.

Stu: Here, we got another gum eater, right here.

- It's stale!

Jon: I'll give it a shot. Mine's cracked in half,

so I'll try a little piece of it.

Jon: [Gum snaps] Oh!

Susan: Yeah. Did you just break a tooth?

Do we have to call the emergency dentist right now?

- Well, actually like, no.

No that's bad, that's bad.

That's bad! I'll be right back.

Harv: That gum's been in that pack for almost 30 years.

- Mmm. Man: Honey, the baby.

- There's a baby in there! 30-year-old gum.

- You might go into labor or something.

- It's not gummy, it's like candy.

Stu: Harv, you wanna eat some gum?

Come over here and do it.

We're gonna get the... the people behind the camera

to get involved in this gum.

Dave: I ate one stick, I think that's my limit.

[Harv crunches gum] - Oh wow.

- It's a bit hard. - Stu: I ate one.

- Of course you did. Harvey [unclear] chew gum.

- Pretty hard gum. [Crunching]

It's more like hard candy now.

I'm assuming it's safe to eat. - I don't know.

- How 'bout this? [Crunches gum]

[Spits out gum] That was a bad idea

♪♪♪