Monday, May 29, 2017

The 30-Day Baseball Card Challenge: Day #6

Tony, the wonderful writer of the “Off Hiatus Baseball” blog, started a fun activity based off the “30-Day Music Challenge” that Twitter users were taking. The list of challenges looks like this:



Today, we’ll continue with Challenge #6: A card you bought in person, and the story behind it.

Feast your eyes on this beauty!



Yup. You're right. And, yes. You're right again.

That's not a Red Sox card. That's a 1991 Juan Gonzalez card, still in a screw down protective holder.

Anyone else have one of those?

Back in the day, I was a big Juan Gonzalez fan. Not too surprising. He was an incredible hitter who just burst onto the scene. I bet lots of people gobbled up his cards. But, then he crashed. For whatever reason, his career took a nosedive, and he was nowhere near the star he once was.

But, I still had this card.

That fact made me realize something. I no longer wanted this card. A has been from another team? I didn't care about him anymore. I didn't have a personal connection. Phil Plantier? Him I still had a connection to. I remembered cheering for him. Juan Gonzalez? He was just a star from another team. A hired gun, really. I paid a LOT more for my Phil Plantier 1991 Stadium Club card than I did for this Juan Gonzalez. Now that they're both worth about a penny? I'm MUCH happier to still have the Plantier.

For that reason, it was this card (well, really, my Juan Gonzalez PC in general) that made me morph into a Red Sox collector. Why was I buying cards of stars from other teams? Even if they kept their star bright, they never shined brighter than the Red Sox cards. I was much happier with them.

So, I shifted my focus. I am now almost exclusively a Red Sox card collector. I don't have any cards of Mike Trout in my collection. Or Bryce Harper, unless they happen to show up on a card with a Sox player. Chris Sale's cards were insignificant until this year. Even Pedro's cards stopped existing in 2005. In their place, I have plenty of Shane Victorino and David Ross cards. And Rocco Baldelli and Blake Swihart.

And I couldn't be happier about that.

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