You didn't have to be so nice

It's been a dry week at the mailbox. Not a single card.

A lot of this can be attributed to me scaling back on trades. Cash is tight again and after shipping some cards out yesterday, I don't see it happening again for another week. Believe me, I want to send out cards. I live for someday seeing a clean card desk.

But even when I was transacting quite a bit a couple of weeks ago, it had been a long time since I had received a Matt Kemp card. I started to keep track and I noted a grand total of three Matt Kemp cards in the mail from a number of trades in the last month.

This is not a complaint, this is an observation on how popular Kemp has become as a player.

I've mentioned this before, but it was mostly in relation to his mammoth 2011 season. A bunch of new Kemp collectors cropped up after that. These days, Kemp is not hitting for power at all and is perking up at slow, almost undetectable pace. But he is just as collectible a player as ever.

That's because he's a good guy. Always has been.

It just takes things like this ...



... to make people realize it.

When I saw that video a couple of weeks ago, I was instantly proud of my team and the fact that Kemp is one of my favorite players. His gesture connected on such a level that the video was picked up all over the world.

That made me happy.

And then the collector part of me -- the selfish part of me -- spoke up:

"Do you know how many people are going to start collecting his cards now?"

That made me sad.

Yes, I know there are plenty of Kemp cards for everyone and I should dwell on the positive. But I work hard for my collection and I like nice cards of a great player on MY team. I want some of those cards for myself -- meager budget that I have. The same with Kershaw. Another good guy/great player whose drawn quite a few additional collectors the last couple of years. I WANT THOSE CARDS.

But I won't whine and complain anymore. There are plenty of goodies for everyone.

There are also lots of other Dodgers players to collect. I have 275 cards of Kemp already. I should concentrate my efforts on those other players, while everyone focuses on Kemp.

Maybe I'll focus on one of the new, fun players that the Dodgers have. There are a few of them around.

They're well-liked. Good players, too.

You know, maybe that Hyun-Jin Ryu. Somebody cool like that.

I think that's what I'll do. Start early. Get in on the ground flo ...



Uh oh.