5 Questions for collectors Part 4

 

I'm a people person. I love talking to people and learning their stories. My wife tells people all the time that I am the type of person who could talk to a wall and get it to talk back. That's probably the reason I really like these 5 questions. I love learning about people, especially those that I have a common interest with like card collecting. If these are interesting to you and you haven't read the previous 5 Questions, you can find them here Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. If you haven't answered them, its' not too late!

I need to come up with a different name for this post. I don't like Part 1, Part 2, etc... Gotta work on that one. 

On to the questions! 

 Question: Do you have a “rule” for your collection that you never break or almost never break?

When I first started collecting, I wanted everything baseball; Topps, Fleer, Donruss, etc... Needless to say that's not really an option. When I decided to really get back into the hobby I had to make a some "rules".  Now, some rules are made to be broken, but for the most part I've stayed the course with these.

 First, baseball only. I really enjoy seeing guys post about their card collections of birds, pirates, presidents, etc... but I had to draw the line somewhere. I'm a Cowboys fan and I've thought long and hard about collecting Cowboys, same with the Mavericks and Stars, but it would just be too much. 

Second, I decided Topps sets only. I have varied a little bit on that one. I have started Heritage sets and Stadium Club, but that's not an every year thing. Technically, they are Topps sets, but not what I was going to do. `I will also pick up Panini and other company cards for my player collections, but I'm not opening any of those cards. 

Third, because I'm a set collector, I decided that I need to put a limit on what sets, so I went with 1972 to present. Why '72? That's the first year of my Rangers. I'm focusing on about 2 or 3 years at a time of those vintage sets that I don't have. Right now, it's '75 and '78. I have picked up a couple of '79 lots and it will be my next set to work on once I've finished one of the others while putting together sets of the new stuff. 

Question: What’s your favorite way to spend time with your collection?

This is a tough question for me. I enjoy almost all aspects of working on my collection. Right now, I'd just enjoy spending any time working on my collection. The two most annoying things of working with my collection would be documenting it and listing cards to sell on buysportscards.com. I think my favorite is sorting cards and hunting cards that I need to complete the sets. I really need to start spending more time looking through my cards and appreciating what I already have. 

Question: If you could build your perfect product or set, what would it look like?

660 card set. White borders (I can't stand it when the dark borders flake and show white). There will be no posed shots of the players. Everything will be action shots or candid shots. There will be All-Star cards and league leader cards with the top 3 leaders on it for NL and AL. I don't mind parallels but I sure don't want 17! Let's say 4. I do like inserts but I'm not a huge fan of something like the Stars of MLB where there is a million of them. 5 or 6 different inserts works for me. I'm fine with  relics and autographs too. Numbered parallels? Okay, I guess, but no crazy 1 of 1's. I got ChatGpt to make me a card...I like it, but I'm not the most creative person either. I would like this set, but I don't know that I would love it.

It gave me an Aaron Judge card with the exact same pose. I asked for another player and it random generated someone who was not who I was asking for. I think I could have some fun playing with AI, but it does scare me a little bit with how much people are beginning to use and rely on it. 

Question: Do you prefer collecting active players or retired players? Why?

Both! For my player collections, it's definitely both. I probably spend more time and energy doing the active players, but I've found myself starting new playing days collections of players that I really liked who may not be that famous, but I always enjoyed watching them play. 

.  

When I went to Ranger games I used to hate it when Elvis wasn't playing. To be honest the only cards of his that I collected were for sets. I'm not sure why I did that, but I decided that I needed his playing days cards. Same thing for Jim Abbott. How could anyone not appreciate all he that he accomplished with what he had to deal with? He's another one that I'm working on. I guess to answer the question, it's definitely both.

Question: Do you think you will ever think that your collection is “complete,” or will it ever be?

I'm 100% sure that my collection will never be complete. The second that I complete all the Topps sets from 1972 to present, I'll start working on an older set. I'm always adding players to my player collections too. Plus, every year there's a new set to collect with my grandsons. 

That's my answers to the 5 questions...What's your answers?

Peace,

Michael

Isaiah 40:31

Ramblings of an old card collector

I finally got back to the Dallas Card Show. The DCS is over 700 tables of cards, autos and memorabilia. I arrived at about 11:00 am on Saturday and there was no where to park. Both parking garages were full. There were cars everywhere looking for a place to park. I eventually found a spot across the street and down the block at a grocery store. Everyone I saw getting out of their cars were heading to the show. I've been to this show many times and I've never seen it this crowded. Once I got in it was nuts! There is the main room a satellite room and about 4 side rooms. Every room was 2 or 3 people deep at every table. You could hardly navigate the floor. If anyone thinks the hobby is struggling hasn't been to the Dallas Card Show. 

This was taken about 3 hours later, right before I left. The middle of the picture depicts how it really was...wall to wall people. Despite all of the people, it was fun to get back and see some friends. 

On to the ramblings!

* My Rangers are not hitting. Same problem that they had last year. As a fan, it's frustrating, as a coach and former player, I understand. Hitting a round ball coming at you with crazy movement and speed with a round bat is, without a doubt, the hardest thing in sports to do. I remember when I was playing ball. When you're in a slump, the baseball looks like it's moving a 100 mph and dipping and diving and is the size of a BB. When you're on a hot streak, the ball just floats to the plate and is the size of a beach ball. I'm ready for the Rangers to start seeing beach balls. 

* I went to DCS with the plan to find myself a real Mickey Mantle card and a rookie Mike Trout. I wasn't sure which Mickey Mantle card I was looking for, but I knew I wanted one that wasn't graded. Quite a hard task when you don't know what you want. I finally decided on the 1960 Topps Mickey Mantle. I found 3 or 4 of them, but didn't pull the trigger on them. Only one dealer was willing to negotiate but he was so overpriced there was no way to make a deal. 

* I didn't leave the show empty-handed. I worked a really good deal on this Evan Carter auto-patch card.

The dealer had it in his display case and when I asked about it, he said he just wanted it gone. I was happy to oblige. 

* My desk, where I do baseball cards, is a total mess. I've got to re-organize everything. I've got stacks of cards that need to be sorted, logged into TCDB, or just put away. On top of all that is the mail, stacks of papers that need to be gone through...I'm glad school is almost out so I can get some things done.

* Another pick-up at the Dallas Card Show was the Ripken rookie.

Here's the thing on the Ripken rookie...I already have one, but I can't find it. Back a long, long time ago when I was pretty broke, I went and pulled all of my cards that were worth anything with the intent to sell them. Well, I never sold them, but I haven't a clue where I put them. The Ripken rookie was one of those cards. Eventually, I'll find it and have one for sell or trade, but for now, I have this one for my set. This gets me down to about 5 cards to finish the set. 

* The other card I was searching for at the Dallas Card Show was the Trout rookie. I walked all over that show. I'm sure I didn't see all of the tables, but I saw most of them and only saw one rookie Trout. It was graded and was a 9.5. Needless to say, it was out of my range...plus, I don't wanted a graded one anyway.

* After I get my desk re-organized, I have about 1000 cards to list on buysportscards.com. I struggle with deciding to list to sell or put them on TCDB for trade. There are times that I think if they were on TCDB I'd have alot more trades happening. I know if I list to sell, eventually, I'll get some money to put into buying cards that I want or need. 

* My team finished our season 18-10-1. We struggled at the beginning of the year, but played really well in district. We finished 2nd in district, losing only to the 1st place team. We swept our biggest rival for the first time and made the playoffs for the 4th consecutive year. We didn't fare too well in the playoffs and lost 2 games to 1 in the first round. All in all, it was a good year. Still feel like we should have won in the playoffs and go to the 2nd round, but as one of my players said,"The baseball gods weren't looking down on us this year." Now, I just have to get through the next two weeks to get to summer.

That's all the ramblings for now.

Peace,

Michael

Isaiah 40:31 
 

For the love of the game...

 I started playing baseball when I was 5 years old. There was a church league way back then and my church had several teams in all different age groups. The pastor of our church asked my dad to coach a team and that's when my love of baseball began. I wasn't old enough to actually play, but my dad let me practice with the team and I was the batboy. We wore those old gray wool uniforms with green trim, the church acronym across the front in green letters and green and white stirrup socks with a green ball cap. My first uniform and back then it was awesome. 

I found out later in life that my dad had never played baseball and really didn't know that much about the game. When he agreed to coach the team, he went out and bought a couple of books on how to play the game, read them and brought what he had learned to teach the team.  

Dad always brought a bag of bubble gum to every practice and game. I remember one time, a kid came running off the field after the third out in an inning of a game smiling and telling everyone that he had blown his first bubble! 

Baseball shaped some of the most important parts of my life. First, I got to spend a lot of quality time with my dad. Even if it wasn't practices and games, it was playing catch when he came home from work. There was many a time when I would be sitting on the front step with gloves and a ball waiting for him to pull in the driveway. There were a lot of times when he wouldn't even change clothes and just start tossing the ball with me. 

Second, I made life-long friends from those teams. We played ball together for 13+ years. We grew up together. It didn't matter that we all went to different high schools, we still hung out together all the time. The stories we have about playing baseball or going to Ranger games are endless. We were in each other's weddings and still talk today. Best friends for life.

Third, I developed a love of baseball. When I was young, it was just the opportunity to play. Catch with my dad, practices, games, neighborhood games and playing a our own version of grounders and flyballs-just play. It moved from there to listening to Ranger games on the radio and catching a rare game on TV. Saturday mornings were reserved for watching "This Week in Baseball". I started reading about the game in newspapers, magazines and anytime I had to read for school it was a book about baseball. Baseball cards were just a natural extension for my love of the game. I'm not sure why it took until my high school years to find baseball cards, but it did.  

I've been blessed to share my love of baseball with my family. All three of my boys love baseball. My daughter too. Baseball was something that we got to do together. I coached all three of my boys as they grew up. Went to and watched so many Ranger games that I can't even begin to count. Now, none of my kids got into baseball cards, but two of my sons coach high school baseball. When my daughter got engaged, she took her non-baseball fan fiance to a Ranger game. At that game, she caught an opposing team's home run ball and threw it back! My wife was not a baseball fan when we first met, but with me taking her to Ranger games, watching it on TV all the time and most importantly, watching her boys play, she became a fan too. Now, I get to share that love of the game with my grandsons. I'm blessed to watch them play T-Ball and coach pitch and I've gotten them into card collecting... a little bit. They're still pretty young so it's a little too much right now, but they are beginning to enjoy it. I get pictures from my kids of my grandsons sitting in the floor surrounded by cards. 

I guess to wrap this up, baseball has been and continues to be an important part of my life. (I didn't even mention that I get to do baseball for a living too!) 

This started out as an intro to my ramblings post, but turned into something entirely different. I can't post this without at least a couple of pics of baseball cards. These are just some of the cards I've picked up recently.

These are all for my players collection.

   

These are all for my subset builds. 

This gets me down to 3 cards for the '24 City to City subset and the others I've really just started and don't have a clue how many more I need. I need to spend some time updating my lists.

That's all for this post. Hope you didn't get too bored with my piece on the love of the game.

Peace, 

Michael 

Isaiah 40:31