This is my baseball card collecting story and I'm sticking to it. I started collecting cards in Maine back in the early 1950s.  In those days the local candy store sold bubble gum with a baseball card for a penny.  In 1951, I bought my first card (1951 Bowman) and came up with a player named Tom Saffell.  I had no idea who this was and was not impressed with the card size, so no other card purchases were made that year. Next year however, when I stopped by that same candy store, they had another bubble gum product called Topps.  The size and beauty of those cards really impressed me, especially because one of the first cards I pulled was Warren Spahn of my then favorite team the Boston Braves. When the Braves left Boston for Milwaukee however, I changed my allegiance to the Boston Red Sox.  But, by now I was hooked and spent much of my funds from my paper route increasing my collection.  I never finished the set, nor the ones for the following year 1953.  That year Bowman also enlarged their card size so I also began collecting those.  Entering my teen years provided me with more funds from the extra work I did and that increased my purchases.  I finished about 85% of the 1954 sets and continued to collect in the following four years.  1957 Topps was the first set I was able to complete.  

In 1958, I was able to pick up most of the first two series of my Topps set before I went off to join the Army.  Fast forward eight and one-half years, I was discharged.  On my first visit back home, Mom asked me what she should do with my baseball cards.  Needless to say, I reclaimed them and my card collecting got serious. I went back and filled in my Topps & Bowman sets from 1954 up to 1967, with the exception of the 1954 Bowman Ted Williams card.  I was able to fill in my 1952 Topps up to card #252 plus a few other higher numbers, my 1953 Topps to card #220 and about 90% of the two 1953 Bowman sets. From 1967 on, I completed just about every set that came out, including all the Kelloggs and Hostess sets.  My set collecting continued on until 2002, when I stopped. While I no longer have most of the sets and cards that I collected during those vintage years, I still collect cards of my favorite players and enhance those collections via trading on line and an occasional purchase via the local stores or online sites. Those players are (in order of when those collections started): Eduardo Perez, Garret Anderson, Alex Rodriguez, Ted Williams, Jim Rice, Dustin Pedroia and Andrew McCutchen. To facilitate my trading passion, I also retained a large amount of cards of players whom I considered either stars, semi-stars or promising stars, plus many parellels & inserts.  Some players I may have just a few cards to trade, while others I may have hundreds.  Most of what I have is from the 1990s to early 2000s era but I do have quite a few cards from later to trade also.

The list of my wants and cards for trade can be found by using the HOME index on the left and I would welcome any trades to add to these collections. Should you have cards to further enhance my player collections, please email me at baycityme@aol.com and hopefully we can work out a trade that would benefit us both.  

Thanks, Ora

In addition, one other special player in my personal collection is Ora Escal (Mickey) Burnett. To my knowledge, he is the only player with professional experience with my given name.  He never played in the majors and only has eight minor league cards, all from the late 1940s when he played in the PCL.  When I lived in San Francisco I was able to obtain five of those cards from various sources, most from when he played with the Oakland Oaks. The three cards that I am missing are ones of when he was a member of the Los Angeles Angels. I do not expect to further his collection but I thought I would at least present it here on my page.

Very proud to have been a long time member of Trading Bases, one of the best card trading groups on the internet!!! Also a member of another great card collecting group: TradingCardDB(TCDb) as (OraInPA).  I have finished uploading my cards to trade/cards I need to that site and would welcome any trade offers there.  https://www.tcdb.com/Profile.cfm/OraInPA   

Site last updated: 09/16/2025

Connect to my wants and cards to trade by opening the links at the left of this page. My Alex Rodriguez wants are listed as the "A List of Wants for my Player Collections" file followed by my other player and set wants, then my cards for trade lists.

THANK YOU!!!