Four figures

 

This is the first Clayton Kershaw card to appear on Night Owl Cards. It showed up on Nov. 6, 2008.

Since then, I've charted my growing Kershaw collection. If you had no life and absolutely nothing to do, you could go through past NOC posts and find mentions of each Kershaw card milestone as I reached it.

I may list "player collector" third under "set collector" and "team collector" in my hobby bio, but I admit, I've done better adding Kershaw cards in the last year or two than I have completing sets. That's mostly because of inflated prices but also player-collecting is a lot easier. All you need to do is add random cards with your guy on them, and if your player is a star, the cards are everywhere. You don't even have to sweat it until you've gotten, oh, maybe 80 percent of them, and then it gets tough as hell.

 

Also, zeroing in on a milestone helped spur me along. One thousand, I'm assuming, is the gold standard for collecting a player's cards. I reached that total with Kershaw at the card show last weekend when I bought this card:

 

This is not what I intended my 1,000th Kershaw card to be. If this was a card of anyone else, I wouldn't have even bothered to get it. "Proof" parallels that mean nothing are the worst. But they sure do help you reach counting-number milestones!

 

This is what I had intended to be my 1,000th Kershaw card. I wanted it to be something a little bit special, not that a sepia-paralleled chrome card is that awesome but we regular dudes can't afford autographed Kershaw cards anymore.

 

The shipment of the sepia card was delayed a little bit though, allowing Card Show Printer Proof Kershaw to sneak in with the prize. But I'm beyond that now. Welcome card No. 1001!

I need to acknowledge Cards On Cards in this process, too. He's sent a number of Kershaws my way over the last decade-plus, including these four most-recents:

You're looking at two big reasons why my accumulation of Kershaws has gotten easier and easier, cheap Paninis and parallels in abundance. That "Will To Win" card is my third different parallel of that insert. Gah.

But those were cards 996, 997, 998 and 999 when rejiggering the figures. I had thought -- before Cards On Cards' envelope arrived (more on the other cards he sent in another post) -- that the 1,000th Kershaw was already in the house, making the above four 1,000-plus Kershaws. But accounting is not the strongest skill here on this blog.

What I do well is making little lists (and big ones, too). So on the occasion of reaching 1,000, here are five Kershaw cards in my collection I really like, in no particular order:

I have discussed each of these cards, probably multiple times -- definitely multiple times -- so there's no need to get into detail. As far as my finest Kershaws, this list could be 50 cards strong easily before I get into something not quite in five stars territory.

Now for something more fun. Here are five lousy Kershaw cards in my collection, with a break down for each one:

1. 2019 Topps

Topps published a card of Kershaw in action apparently right after a men's room stop. This is proof that Topps has no photo editors whatsoever. Or they really like playing games with collectors.

 

2. 2019 Topps Gallery, Master & Apprentice

Gallery needs to take this M&A insert set outside and shoot it. Nothing about it looks good, either half of the subjects look like classroom sketch subjects or both of them do.

3. 2012 Panini Triple Play

We have left the junk wax era far behind -- it was at least 30 years ago -- but there is one set that was issued 20 years after the peak of the junk wax era that definitely classifies as junk. I hope no one has nostalgic feelings for this set. 1990 Donruss is bad enough.

4. 2017 Bowman's Best Clayton Kershaw/Brendan McKay

Bowman's habit of putting unrelated players on the same card is on the lengthy list of why I can't be buying Bowman. Brendan McKay has been in the minors since his brief 2019 season with the Rays. Most of this is due to arm injury issues, not exactly his fault. But for five years now, nobody is seeing Kershaw in the mirror when McKay is looking in it.

5. 2016 Topps Update, All-Star Game

The card that comes to mind first when I think "worst Kershaw card." I'm as appalled by this as I was six years ago. Somewhat related: the Padres still haven't done anything since this card was made. The Dodgers just clinched another NL West title.

 

This is the face I make when I see that card.

Anyway, those five are in the vast minority. I love 95 percent of my Kershaw cards while I merely tolerate ones like above.

The fact that I have four figures in Kershaw cards is wild. I'm assuming that's the maximum number of digits you can go for a player collection. Or maybe some nuts have 10,000 Mike Trout cards? I don't know, I try not to think about stuff like that. I get concerned.

Actually I'm up to 1,004 Kershaw cards now according to TCDB. But even at the size of my collection, I'm losing ground. Here is where I was on TCDB seven months ago:

 

 

Here's where I rank now:

It's getting wild.

But I'll be easing off the gas a little bit now that I've hit the magic number. You won't see any Kershaw buying binges like I've had a couple times this past year until a new milestone approaches, although I don't know what that would be right now.

Thanks to anyone who sent me Kershaw cards. Feel free to keep doing so for this sometimes player-collector.

Just no Triple Play.