A part-time player collector's milestone

As someone who is a player collector third, after set-collecting and team-collecting, my player collection will never be as vast as those of collectors who do nothing but collect players.

I don't even have a separate binder for any of the top Dodgers that I collect. And I don't know if that will ever be a goal of mine.

Another thing contributes to my relatively low player collection totals: there is only one current player that I actively collect. And everyone knows there are countless varieties of cards you can purchase of current players.

But I choose to stick with one: Clayton Kershaw (although I won't turn down your Kemps, Ethiers, Billingsleys, Martins, etc.). The '09 Topps Tribute Kershaw card featured here, sent to me in another great assortment of cards from Max, is just my 58th Kershaw card. Pujols and Jeter collectors snort at that total.

But because I don't care to go broke chasing Kershaw cards, and because I'd rather collect the team than the player, I'm happy with that total. And I'll continue on my merry way.

As for retired players, that's where my heart lies. Four of my top five favorite Dodgers - Cey, Koufax, Hershiser and Nomo -- are retired. And recently, I hit a milestone when I obtained my 200th different Hideo Nomo card.

Again, that's not a lot, especially when it comes to Nomo, who has an insane number of cards and generates an even more insane number of collectors. But I'm comfortable to go at my own pace. To me, 200 is a big deal. And 215 -- the total I'm at currently -- is an even bigger deal (I only count my Dodger Nomos in that total, although I do have Nomo cards of his Mets/Brewers/Red Sox/DRays days).

In that same lot from Max that brought me the Kershaw card were 35 Nomo cards. I needed 22 of them. And one of them -- I don't know which -- gave me my 200th Nomo card.

So, let's see them all, shall we? (Damn, I love having more image uploading memory):

1997 Stadium Club: I should've had this card by now.

1997 Fleer Sports Illustrated: I think Nomo must hold the record for the most times having his pitching motion mentioned on the back of his cards. Luis Tiant would have given him a challenge had he played in the era of having 53 cards per year.

1998 Stadium Club: Topps likes to show you the number on the back of a player's jersey. It still gets a kick out of that.

1995 Score Summit Edition: Cool, a rookie Nomo. Near as I can tell, there are 17 Nomo rookie cards. I might have half of those. Probably not even half.

1998 Donruss Elite: Shiny. Donruss did love the foilboard.

2003 SPx: Lots of SPx in this batch.

1998 Collector's Choice gray/silver border: You say silver. I say gray. Captain Canuck says grey. No, I can't explain that last part.

2003 Fleer Platinum: This looks very '80s for a card from the 21st century.

1997 SPx: It just dawned on me that the card is die-cut in the shape of an S, a P, and an X. But considering it took me two decades to figure out the old-school Brewers logo formed an M and a B, I'm starting to catch on.

1997 SPx copper variation: Or is it gold variation? Anyway, it's quite snazzy.

1997 SP: According to the 1970s version of Crayola crayons, I believe that color combination is cornflower blue and burnt umber.

1998 Topps Gallery: I wouldn't mind seeing Gallery return.

1998 Pinnacle: Pinnacle makes me nervous. I have no idea if this is regular Pinnacle or New Pinnacle or Pinnacle Express or Pinnacle with Crunch Berries. Why does it have to be so confusing?

1998 E-X 2001: The fanciest card out of the bunch. That white portion you see on the right is actually the underside of the scanner lid. The right half of the card is translucent in real life.

1998 SP Authentic: I like this year of Authentic. Maybe too big of a frame for some people, but I like frames.

1996 Topps Gallery: Another photo of Nomo batting. There are a lot of these for some reason. I don't know why. It's not because of his hitting talent. He hit .134. And I saw him twirl around after swinging on more than one occasion. That's an instant sign that you don't know how to hit.

1998 Flair Showcase: These cards are confusing.

1998 Flair Showcase Style: See what I mean? I don't even know if that's the actual name of the card set. All I know is Nomo is hovering over the ground watching himself bat. It's very strange.

1998 Upper Deck: Nomo hit two doubles in one game! Alert the presses! No, better yet, print a card of it!

1998 Fleer Ultra subset: This card certainly has pizzazz. If you rub the card vigorously (and why would you do that?), little sparkles will flake off.

1998 UD3: This card scares me, only because I'm quite sure there is more than one version of this item. Perhaps a half-dozen or more versions. And "the establishment" sounds a bit odd. The '90s was crazy.

1996 Pinnacle: I'm going to say this photo was taken during spring training. It's on my mind because pitchers and catchers report in just 12 days. Woo-hoo!

A great big thanks to Max for giving my Nomo collection a boost. It's all that a part-time player collector can ask.