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rds to finish it up i know it would be easier to just buy the sets as they come out now but i love opening packs sorting the cards and putting the sets together if nothing else my grandsons will know that their papa did this for them and didn t just buy it it s not just the sets that i collect i also collect topps playing day cards of my favorite players not all of them are superstars but they re my favorites when i m able to show my cards to people i get to tell stories as to why i collect their cards or stories that i know from watching them play or stories from books that i ve read i can t wait until my grandsons are older and i can share it all with them this didn t turn out quite the way i expected but it was good to take a look back and think about why i love baseball and card collecting i know that i didn t go too much into why i love collecting cards it could be that i just don t know how to explain it i do know that i do love making friends who collect swapping stories sharing cards and showing off our collections i did hold true to my one non negotiable when it comes to this blog i did post a picture of card my boys gave me that card for father s day best most valuable card in my collection peace michael isaiah 40 31 at august 16 2026 7 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest sunday june 7 2026 ramblings of an old collector i m going to start this off with a rant i enjoy watching my rangers and if i can t watch the game i really like to listen to the game on the radio when i was kid i couldn t wait until the morning to get the paper and read about the game real information of what happened in the game now it s like we all get to hear is everyone s opinion instead of what actually happened in the game today is there anything worse than a guy who s never played before or if they played it hasn t been since they were a kid and they are offering a negative opinion about a player or team after 1 3 or less of the season already writing the team or player off evan carter for example the so called experts say that he can t hit lefties as of today he s had a total of 87 at bats against left handed pitchers in the majors yes there is no doubt he has struggled getting hits against lefties he has 071 average definitely not a good start but he s also only 23 years old 24 in august all it takes is one hot streak and he s right back on it i heard a commentator say that his at bats aren t even competitive so what are you saying he just goes up there and doesn t even try i have you watched the games evan carter competes you can t be an elite defender if you aren t going to compete give the kid a break let him learn and if you ve watched the rangers and evan carter at all i gotta believe he s going to figure it out on to the ramblings i ve seen that the mlbpa and mlb have finally thrown out their respective offers for the cba once again they are no where near each other hopefully both sides will see that baseball is in a really good spot and they won t mess it up with a strike or lockout compromise people huge shout out to johnny s trading spot thank you so much for the all of the ranger cards i m going to have to start going through all of my pudge cards and put them on tcdb i ve been blessed to be able to watch my two oldest grandsons play ball this year one is still in t ball and the other is in a modified coach pitch league let me just say both of my grandsons can play some ball my oldest son helps coach one of the team and has a really good grasp on the fact that these kids are just 5 and 6 years old he does a great job of teaching the kids the fundamentals of the game and playing the game the right way the thing that is absolutely crazy is the adults i am amazed how ridiculous some of the adults act at these games it s embarassing i understand that society is all about winning and there are a bunch who believe that you win at all costs but 5 and 6 year olds really i m a proud papa on how my kids act at my grandsons games picked up some cards off of ebay recently when there is no time to sit down and work with your card collection there s always ebay that s where i picked up these three cards for my players collection well i did it dove right into heritage again i must be nuts i really like the design there s no doubt that its going to take a lifetime for me to complete it i m ready for series 2 to come out i check walmart target and best buy all the time looking for series 1 and heritage and haven t seen a box in a really long time i know its not the smart money thing to do ripping packs but its fun plus i need 4 of each card for my set and my grandsons sets ripping packs is just a fun way to do it yes i still have lots of extra cards but i trade them and sometimes give them away that s it for this rambling if you haven t replied to my last 5 questions go check it out and leave your answers peace michael isaiah 40 31 at june 07 2026 9 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest thursday may 21 2026 5 questions for collectors part 4 i m a people person i love talking to people and learning their stories my wife tells people all the time that i am the type of person who could talk to a wall and get it to talk back that s probably the reason i really like these 5 questions i love learning about people especially those that i have a common interest with like card collecting if these are interesting to you and you haven t read the previous 5 questions you can find them here part 1 part 2 and part 3 if you haven t answered them its not too late i need to come up with a different name for this post i don t like part 1 part 2 etc gotta work on that one on to the questions question do you have a rule for your collection that you never break or almost never break when i first started collecting i wanted everything baseball topps fleer donruss etc needless to say that s not really an option when i decided to really get back into the hobby i had to make a some rules now some rules are made to be broken but for the most part i ve stayed the course with these first baseball only i really enjoy seeing guys post about their card collections of birds pirates presidents etc but i had to draw the line somewhere i m a cowboys fan and i ve thought long and hard about collecting cowboys same with the mavericks and stars but it would just be too much second i decided topps sets only i have varied a little bit on that one i have started heritage sets and stadium club but that s not an every year thing technically they are topps sets but not what i was going to do i will also pick up panini and other company cards for my player collections but i m not opening any of those cards third because i m a set collector i decided that i need to put a limit on what sets so i went with 1972 to present why 72 that s the first year of my rangers i m focusing on about 2 or 3 years at a time of those vintage sets that i don t have right now it s 75 and 78 i have picked up a couple of 79 lots and it will be my next set to work on once i ve finished one of the others while putting together sets of the new stuff question what s your favorite way to spend time with your collection this is a tough question for me i enjoy almost all aspects of working on my collection right now i d just enjoy spending any time working on my collection the two most annoying things of working with my collection would be documenting it and listing cards to sell on buysportscards com i think my favorite is sorting cards and hunting cards that i need to complete the sets i really need to start spending more time looking through my cards and appreciating what i already have question if you could build your perfect product or set what would it look like 660 card set white borders i can t stand it when the dark borders flake and show white there will be no posed shots of the players everything will be action shots or candid shots there will be all star cards and league leader cards with the top 3 leaders on it for nl and al i don t mind parallels but i sure don t want 17 let s say 4 i do like inserts but i m not a huge fan of something like the stars of mlb where there is a million of them 5 or 6 different inserts works for me i m fine with relics and autographs too numbered parallels okay i guess but no crazy 1 of 1 s i got chatgpt to make me a card i like it but i m not the most creative person either i would like this set but i don t know that i would love it it gave me an aaron judge card with the exact same pose i asked for another player and it random generated someone who was not who i was asking for i think i could have some fun playing with ai but it does scare me a little bit with how much people are beginning to use and rely on it question do you prefer collecting active players or retired players why both for my player collections it s definitely both i probably spend more time and energy doing the active players but i ve found myself starting new playing days collections of players that i really liked who may not be that famous but i always enjoyed watching them play when i went to ranger games i used to hate it when elvis wasn t playing to be honest the only cards of his that i collected were for sets i m not sure why i did that but i decided that i needed his playing days cards same thing for jim abbott how could anyone not appreciate all he that he accomplished with what he had to deal with he s another one that i m working on i guess to answer the question it s definitely both question do you think you will ever think that your collection is complete or will it ever be i m 100 sure that my collection will never be complete the second that i complete all the topps sets from 1972 to present i ll start working on an older set i m always adding players to my player collections too plus every year there s a new set to collect with my grandsons that s my answers to the 5 questions what s your answers peace michael isaiah 40 31 at may 21 2026 5 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest saturday may 16 2026 ramblings of an old card collector i finally got back to the dallas card show the dcs is over 700 tables of cards autos and memorabilia i arrived at about 11 00 am on saturday and there was no where to park both parking garages were full there were cars everywhere looking for a place to park i eventually found a spot across the street and down the block at a grocery store everyone i saw getting out of their cars were heading to the show i ve been to this show many times and i ve never seen it this crowded once i got in it was nuts there is the main room a satellite room and about 4 side rooms every room was 2 or 3 people deep at every table you could hardly navigate the floor if anyone thinks the hobby is struggling hasn t been to the dallas card show this was taken about 3 hours later right before i left the middle of the picture depicts how it really was wall to wall people despite all of the people it was fun to get back and see some friends on to the ramblings my rangers are not hitting same problem that they had last year as a fan it s frustrating as a coach and former player i understand hitting a round ball coming at you with crazy movement and speed with a round bat is without a doubt the hardest thing in sports to do i remember when i was playing ball when you re in a slump the baseball looks like it s moving a 100 mph and dipping and diving and is the size of a bb when you re on a hot streak the ball just floats to the plate and is the size of a beach ball i m ready for the rangers to start seeing beach balls i went to dcs with the plan to find myself a real mickey mantle card and a rookie mike trout i wasn t sure which mickey mantle card i was looking for but i knew i wanted one that wasn t graded quite a hard task when you don t know what you want i finally decided on the 1960 topps mickey mantle i found 3 or 4 of them but didn t pull the trigger on them only one dealer was willing to negotiate but he was so overpriced there was no way to make a deal i didn t leave the show empty handed i worked a really good deal on this evan carter auto patch card the dealer had it in his display case and when i asked about it he said he just wanted it gone i was happy to oblige my desk where i do baseball cards is a total mess i ve got to re organize everything i ve got stacks of cards that need to be sorted logged into tcdb or just put away on top of all that is the mail stacks of papers that need to be gone through i m glad school is almost out so i can get some things done another pick up at the dallas card show was the ripken rookie here s the thing on the ripken rookie i already have one but i can t find it back a long long time ago when i was pretty broke i went and pulled all of my cards that were worth anything with the intent to sell them well i never sold them but i haven t a clue where i put them the ripken rookie was one of those cards eventually i ll find it and have one for sell or trade but for now i have this one for my set this gets me down to about 5 cards to finish the set the other card i was searching for at the dallas card show was the trout rookie i walked all over that show i m sure i didn t see all of the tables but i saw most of them and only saw one rookie trout it was graded and was a 9 5 needless to say it was out of my range plus i don t wanted a graded one anyway after i get my desk re organized i have about 1000 cards to list on buysportscards com i struggle with deciding to list to sell or put them on tcdb for trade there are times that i think if they were on tcdb i d have alot more trades happening i know if i list to sell eventually i ll get some money to put into buying cards that i want or need my team finished our season 18 10 1 we struggled at the beginning of the year but played really well in district we finished 2nd in district losing only to the 1st place team we swept our biggest rival for the first time and made the playoffs for the 4th consecutive year we didn t fare too well in the playoffs and lost 2 games to 1 in the first round all in all it was a good year still feel like we should have won in the playoffs and go to the 2nd round but as one of my players said the baseball gods weren t looking down on us this year now i just have to get through the next two weeks to get to summer that s all the ramblings for now peace michael isaiah 40 31 at may 16 2026 6 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest sunday may 10 2026 for the love of the game i started playing baseball when i was 5 years old there was a church league way back then and my church had several teams in all different age groups the pastor of our church asked my dad to coach a team and that s when my love of baseball began i wasn t old enough to actually play but my dad let me practice with the team and i was the batboy we wore...