A sports card store in tiny Mead, OK - the perfect spot for a former 300lb barefoot kicker

MEAD, Okla. (KFOR) — To read Tony Goza's brand of cards is to predict, not the future, but certainly trends.

We find him sorting through stacks of baseball cards just after the 2023 World Series, looking for Rangers and Diamondbacks in the rough that people might be interested in later.

"I've pulled my Corey Seagers and my Adolis Garcias," he says. "Now all of a sudden, interest in them has peaked."

Goza's Sports Cards opened in June '23 in what used to be the office of his other business, a custom auto shop called Sound Creations.

One day, he decided he needed a place that made him truly happy.

Sort the card boxes going back to 1977 - that's when Anthony's mom parked him in a Florida sports card shop while she ran to the post office.

Goza figures, "I was probably bugging her hard enough to do it."

For some reason, a 1948 black and white Red Schoendienst card caught his eye.

It didn't come cheap (around $25.00).

He recalls, "I had to do a lot of chores in order to get it."

That card became another, and another.

His collection spurred an interest in playing sports.

Tony was a 300-pound kicker for a couple of minor league football teams in Alabama.

He refers us to a poster hanging above the counter featuring one of his field goal attempts.

"See that fat boy in the picture?" he laughs.

He is still an avid sports photographer, shooting high school and college games all over south-central Oklahoma.

It still strikes him as funny that one card went on to influence so many other things in his life.

He insists, "It shaped me for how I looked at sports."

He moved his office home.

Now, the old office is home to all the big sports and some Pokemon cards for good measure.

There may be long lines of cars zooming by the wide spot in the road between Kingston and Durant, but Goza is happy for the few that stop, and for a hobby that turned out much more important than he realized.

For more information on Goza's Sports Cards go to their website here or their Facebook page here.