Sisters shop specializes in rare baseball cards, sports memorabilia

Five decades after opening packs of baseball cards at the Brown Jug liquor store in Woodside, California, Michael Blesius still remembers the thrill of sorting through them in search of his favorite players.

It was the 1970s, and Blesius was looking for the likes of Willie McCovey, Johnny Bench and other stars of the day, along with those who played at nearby Candlestick Park, the windblown, former home of the San Francisco Giants.

Cards and packs in tow, Blesius would ride his Schwinn Scrambler home, check the player statistics on the backs of the cards and organize them into teams.

Blesius’ interest in cards waxed and waned as he grew up. At one point, he sold his entire collection for $4,800 — cash that became gas and date money in high school.

But by his 30s, he was collecting again, buying cards here and there and watching the collection steadily grow.

The cards were a small part of Blesius’ life while working for NBC in the Bay Area. But the Bay Area was starting to wear on him.

While being close to a major league ball park was important, the Bay Area with its traffic and congestion was starting to wear him down.

It was a trip to Whole Foods one day that proved to be something of a tipping point. After standing in line for 20 minutes to buy a bottle of milk, he called it quits.

“I was done,” he said. “I was just burned out.”

He sold his house within a week, packed his belongings into a U-Haul and moved to Oregon.

Blesius had long been familiar with Central Oregon. His former wife’s family spent time around the Metolius River and Suttle Lake, and Blesius had fallen in love with the area.

After a brief stint living in Bend, a building in Sisters caught his eye. The building was for sale, so he bought it.

He and his wife eventually turned the building into a small hotel, with an apartment upstairs. Blesius gutted and rebuilt the building himself, creating the hotel that he would operate for years. His cards were with him too, but still mostly boxed up.

As the hotel business grew, Blesius realized he needed more space and rented an upstairs office space a couple of blocks away. It seemed like a good spot to also lay out his cards and collectibles. Slowly, Sports Card Ink took shape.

It’s a card shop, but not a typical one. Blesius doesn’t keep regular hours, instead opening the doors on appointment. Unlike other modern card shops, he doesn’t run a side business selling online. He doesn’t sell much and that’s okay with Blesius. It’s more museum than store.

“It’s not a business,” Blesius said. “It’s just my fun. It’s my peace in life. It’s my high blood pressure medicine.”

And over the years, the collection has grown well beyond the cards Blesius brought with him from California.

The biggest influx came during the COVID-19 pandemic, when people across Central Oregon began cleaning out closets and discovering boxes of cards they had accumulated years — sometimes generations — earlier.

Word got out in the community that Blesius was appraising collections. He’d buy some for his own collection and help visitors sell the rest. His goal is to get cards back into circulation. Childhood friends learned of his shop and sent them cards, too.

He estimates he has received about 20 childhood collections that way.

Today Blesius’ collection includes legends of the game. There are Jackie Robinson cards and a Sandy Koufax rookie. A 1956 Topps Willie Mays card is one of favorites.

The walls of his shop are decorated with sports posters, jerseys and old photographs. Old baseball gloves and signed balls are on display. Most of the memorabilia pays homage to an earlier era of professional sports. Some of his collection includes items dating back to the 1800s.

He also has an unusual piece of basketball history: A ticket stub from Michael Jordan’s ninth NBA game, with Jordan’s image printed on a Portland Trail Blazers ticket.

Looking at it one day, he wondered why the Blazers placed an opposing player on their ticket. He called the team and asked. A rep for the team explained that at the time the Blazers were looking to boost attendance and featured opposing players as a marketing ploy.

As for those who bring him cards to appraise, one visitor was a woman who brought in a small box of baseball cards that had belonged to her husband. After looking through them, Blesius realized the collection was beyond his own ability to buy. The box contained rare Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth cards from the 1920s.

“They were phenomenal, just phenomenal,” he said.

He advised her to take it to an auction house. The cards eventually sold for more than $280,000, according to Blesius. He was happy to see them find the right buyer.

That’s part of what Blesius likes about collecting — finding good homes for things that might otherwise sit forgotten in a closet. He also gives cards to children who come into the shop and are enthusiastic about baseball and collecting.

When they sort through a stack of cards, it takes him back to his own childhood of opening up packs at the Brown Jug.

He also wants to keep the simple pleasures of card collecting alive in an age when the card manufacturers are increasingly shifting their marketing strategy to adults who look for value.

Packs of sports cards in the modern era come pre-loaded with cards that are designed to have extreme value right out of the pack, because they are signed or limited in numbers. In pristine condition, some can fetch millions.

Blesius doesn’t buy modern cards. His collection is largely made up of cards from earlier eras, and he has little interest in the modern practice of grading cards and chasing one-of-one cards. He thinks the hobby has become too expensive for kids.

“Baseball cards should be like candy bars again,” he said. “You’re in any store in the country and you look down next to the Snickers bar and there’s a box of Topps Baseball.”

He passion for sports cards and memorabilia goes beyond the cards. He had a front row seat to history himself.

As a kid he spent Saturdays at Stanford football games, watching John Elway quarterback the Cardinal. He grew up going to games at Candlestick Park and has attended World Series games. He was at Pac Bell Park when Barry Bonds hit his 756th home run, and recalls the emotions of the 1989 World Series interrupted by the Loma Prieta earthquake.

He has been to about two thirds of the major league ballparks and has fond memories of visiting Wrigley Field, Fenway Park and the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

“I’ve just been a baseball fan all my life,” he said.

Prominent fans of the game have found his shop too.

Former major league player and Madras native Jacoby Ellsbury visited with his children. Blesius had some Ellsbury cards ready to give them should just such a visit occur.

He has saved cards for local athletes and mailed baseball cards to others simply because he thought they might enjoy them.

He once developed a friendship with Willie Mays after helping promote one of Mays’ autograph signings in the Bay Area. During one conversation, Blesius asked Mays who his favorite player was.

Mays said Johnny Bench. The famed Reds catcher was also a favorite of Blesius.

Finding connections and talking baseball with pros or just fans of the game are what keeps him engaged.

Blesius, 60, is aware that the connection will have to be handled by someone else. He has no children, and he doesn’t expect other family members to want to keep it. He has some ideas of his own.

He thinks it will eventually get sold and the proceeds put towards something for children, possibly a new baseball field or a Ronald McDonald House.

“Ultimately, that’s where all of this will go,” he said.

Before then, though, he would like to expand Sports Cards Ink. Blesius describes himself as an “ambassador” for the hobby and dreams of creating something bigger in Sisters — a place that would be part card shop, part museum and part celebration of baseball history.

For now, it will remain somewhat off the grid, a place for true collectors to gather, and kids to take home a book and few cards, absorbing an experience Blesius hopes they’ll remember for years to come.