Blog Bat Around: Mini Collections

I've noticed another topic going around several trading card blogs I follow and I decided I'd chime in on this one. As Fuji so elegantly wrote on his blog, when I first got into collecting I didn't really have a player or a team I collected. I was brand new to baseball cards (thanks to a friend) and knew nothing about them. All I knew was each card had a number and I thought the goal was to collect them all. I never have looked at myself as a set builder, but looking back at my humble beginnings of card collecting I guess I am.

As I got more and more into collecting, I eventually adopted the Atlanta Braves as my team and started to specifically put aside those players. That led to collecting certain players, but a lot of us do that. I'm here to talk about those "other" collections.

It wasn't until I got into blogging that I realized some people had, well odd mini collections. Whether it was BA Benny (what ever happened to him?) and his collection of cards that featured the American flag or a cup, to collections that featured a play at the plate or someone bunting. That lead me to creating a few small mini collections of my own...

Being more a fan of the National League than the American League, I particularly like to see cards that depict a pitcher at the plate. There are tons of cards featuring the pitcher perfecting his craft, but few with wood in their hands. I'm working on scanning all the cards in this collection to share one day. I don't have a lot because they seem to be far and few in between. I actually did a post on this 7 years ago.

 

Another smaller collection that I have that unfortunately I haven't been able to add to much is my Cards with Kids. It seems like the 90's had more candid shots of players. I wish the Topps would use some photos of the players with their kids during the All-Star break. I love seeing the kids with their dads watching the events such as the Home Run Derby. Those would make some great cards, possibly a great insert set in Opening Day?

Outside of those two collections, I obviously collect other players that aren't Braves or Hall of Famers. Why I collect some of these players may have not been obvious, but I've recently re-branded these collections on the right side bar. My faith plays a big part of who I am so it made sense to me to find players that share my faith. It wasn't long before this list really started to grow and now I'm lucky just to get a few base cards of these players.

 

Another collection of mine are players that played ball for NC State University. The baseball side of this collection is small, but I love to pick up cards, especially football and basketball of the players in their college uniforms.

I also collect players from my hometown of Charlotte, NC. I may have added a few players that are from NC, but not from Charlotte (Madison Bumgardner - he's from Hickory which is an hour or so away). I'm really trying to expand this a little more lately and now have a few players from the late 50s and from the 60s that I'm looking to pick up.

I always love seeing what others collect and the whys behind the collections. This was a great topic and I'm glad I was able to participate.