I collected baseball cards as a kid. Baseball was/is my favorite pro sport.
I used to go buy the cards in droves every time I got a couple bucks in my pocket. (Probably was that petrified piece of bubblegum was the hook). Anyway, I recall it was late in the baseball season and I went to the drug store to buy more baseball cards. I accidently picked up a pack of football cards in there and didn't know it until I got home. I remember feeling like "Aw crap, I hosed up getting that pack of football cards." I never felt the need to buy football cards.
This coming from a kid who used to trade or put nearly ANY non-St. Louis Cardinals baseball card in the spokes of his Stingray bike. (shut up, everyone did it back in those days) Even remember putting a Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays in there. Flap flap flap... who knew?
Interestingly, it could have been a zenith of a football card pack as at least 2 of those cards inside were pretty awesome players in the day (Ray Nitschke, Gale Sayers). Every local kid knew about Gale Sayers and Ray Nitschke, but Roman Gabriel of the Rams?
It was THIS particular card below that was in the pack that hooked me to the L.A. Rams, and has been my favorite team ever since. I was a STL Cardinal fan already, so when the Rams moved to St. Louis it was a fantastic day for me having both my favorite baseball/football teams in the same city even though I no longer lived near there. When I moved away from home, I gave away my card collection to my little cousin.
And THAT is how I got hooked into following the NFL.
I even remember saving up like 12 or 15 bucks and buying crap like this:
