Night Owl Cards

  I don't spend a lot of time checking how many cards I have of each player but it's fun to do from time to time.   As someone who collects sets first and then my team, player collection totals are a natural subset of those and easy to categorize on TCDB or on whichever favorite counting spreadsheet you prefer. Also, unlike set or team collecting, the totals change fairly often.   When Johnny's Trading Spot sends out one of his "inventory cleanser" packages, I can't help but notice those player totals because the guys he's scrapping stand out.   Alex Verdugos   Up to 87 cards. 153rd on the list.     Dalton Rushings   43 cards. 471st on the list.     Tony Gonsolins   75 cards. 189th on the list.     Walker Buehlers (still haven't come to terms with his Padre-ness)   287 cards. 20th on the list.     Duke Sniders   318 cards. 16th on the list.      Shawn Green and (tiny) Fernando Valenzuela...

Player-collecting comes third in my hobby responsibilities. Set- and team-collecting goals far outweigh any thoughts of accumulating cards of a particular player. The easy test for this is when I go to a card show: not once have I walked into a show intent on finding multiple cards of a certain player. Still, I like my Kershaw cards, and this week I reached a milestone in the Kershaw collection. The above card, sent to me by Dave of Tribe Cards, was the equalizer. This card, also sent by Tribe Cards, was the record-breaker. I now have more cards of Clayton Kershaw than any other player in my collection. Even more importantly, unless someone drops a large stack of Hideo Nomo cards on my front porch or Kershaw suffers a career-ending injury in his next start, that is the way it will stay for as long as I am collecting. I see card companies making abundant cards of Kershaw for the rest of his career, I see myself collecting them (unless he leaves the Dodgers), and nobody e...

Times are tough for player collectors. Brian McCann's in the AL. Matt Kemp rumors are in the air. Jacoby Ellsbury is heading to the enemy. I really feel for guys like Jack Plumstead . What are you going to do with all your Ellsburys, John? True, not all player collectors are committed to that player's team. Those collectors will follow the player from team to team and scoop up his cards along the way. But I also know that a lot of player collectors are fans of the player because they play for their favorite team. And when you're a Red Sox fan and your guy goes to ... the Yankees? ... what do you do with your collection? Do you sell it? Do you burn it? Do you keep what you got and pretend the last year he played in his career was 2012? Or do you sell your soul and say, "eh, it's just laundry, I'll still collect him."? I can't handle decisions like that in my hobby, and that's why I just want to shut out the world when I hear Kemp-to-...

Remember this? Chances are you forgot about it as soon as you saw it on this post . I don't blame you. People have busy lives. Even collectors. We're supposed to send someone a pack of cards just because he whines about having no money? Well, yes, I guess this really is a thing. At least to the person who thought it up. I'm not sure what I did to get on Crackin' Wax's good side. Yes, I did send topher a Frank Viola autographed card once. And, yes, I was his first-ever winner of BoBuBingo. But really he seems to do a lot more worthwhile things with cards than I do. While I just babble about cardboard, he actually raises money with it. Man of action vs. Man of inaction. But today I opened the mail and my Night Owl Cards Appreciation Day thank you card fell out. Awwwww. Nothing says you're grateful quite like pretty colors and puke. And, of course, next out of the package was what the day is all about: One pack of 2013 Allen and Ginter. Th...

It's official. I'm a Mike Piazza collector. I never thought of myself as a Piazza collector. I don't really player-collect, per se. And Mike always had so many enthusiastic card fans that there was no way I could consider myself one of them. Not that it's a competition, of course. Even as my Piazza collection grew and grew and grew, I resisted saying that "I collect Piazza." The phrase sounds weird anyway, like I'm going to pull up to his home with a dump truck, lower the dumper thing, roll Mike into the back and haul him off to the collection. (I'd never do that, Mike. Please don't sweat it). If I collected anything player-wise, it was Cey or Kershaw or Koufax or Hershiser or Nomo. Yup, definitely, Nomo, because that's the player that appeared on the most cards in my collection. However, as I lamented before , the number of Nomos isn't that far off from the number of Piazzas I have. They're dangerously, dangerously close, fo...