Spring Training, Spring Cleaning

...for my baseball card collection, that is.

I was lucky enough that my mother did NOT throw out or give away my baseball cards from when I was a kid, but they've been living in dusty boxes for most of their time in my possession. This year, I finally bought a baseball card album:

...and went to town...

I sat down in front of some Grapefruit League action...

Organized...

Alphabetized...

And finally, albumized...

***

Some highlights from my modest collection:

Hatteberg draft pick, Mo Vaughn, Ellis Burks (1992 Topps Red Sox set)

Dwight Evans, Wade Boggs, Tony Pena (1991 Fleer Red Sox set)

Roger Clemens, Jim Rice (1990 Topps Red Sox set)

Bo Jackson, Lenny Dykstra, John Kruk (1990 Donruss MLB set)

Sandy Alomar, Cecil Fielder, Ryne Sandberg (1991 Donruss MLB set)

Kirby Puckett (1988 Topps MLB set)

Then there are the MiLB cards my Dad's been putting in my Christmas stocking more recently, which include a Clay Buchholz Lowell Spinners card. I'm not saying I'm planning to work the baseball-card-collectors' circuit or anything, but I'm happy to have the ones I have.

Anybody else rockin' a card collection these days? What are some of your crown jewels?

Comments

[RJP]

Very nice indeed. They all look like they are in mint condition. Very important. I understand that the overall value of cards may have gone down a bit from their hay days--still some value to them.

[COD]

Every time I think about doing this I remember that I have 5000+ cards, probably 90% of the Topps cards released between 75 and 79 are in my closet in boxes.

Maybe I should at east organize the Red Sox. Unfortunately, we didn't baby our cards back in the day, so anything I have that could be valuable is not going to be anywhere near mint.

[Beth]

LOL, yeah... I only have about 500...

[E. Christopher Clark]

It occurs to me, do you know of my friend Scott's 83F Project? This post reminded me of it. Check him out at http://83f.blogspot.com/

[Iain]

For obvious reasons, I don't have a baseball card collection from when I was a kid.

In the UK we had albums in which we collected soccer stickers, so the concept of sports cards was not foreign to me. The odd baseball card (or pack of cards) would pop up occasionally at school, brought in by friends who had visited the US. At the age of 7, I didn't know the teams or the players or any of the history behind what was on the cards, but for someone brought up on rugby and cricket, the whole thing just seemed so exciting and exotic.

I think the cards were one more reason (along with the pace of the game, the uniforms and the baseball parks) why this weird and mysterious American sport got lodged somewhere in my subconscious, only to pop out again 10 years later, when I happened upon a highlights broadcast of the '86 World Series.

I don't own a single baseball card, but I do now have an ongoing, 25-year love-affair with the game...