Most Recent Addition to the Brett Collection

With the start of this blog and the start of summer, I hope to be adding more cards to my George Brett Collection.  Growing up a Royals fan, Brett was just starting what would be a Hall of Fame career when I was old enough to follow the team.  When I started collecting in 1980 my main focus was to obtain more cards than my friends.  It seemed that every chance we got we were going to the store to pick up a new pack.  Once I entered college and got back into collecting, I realized my collection would need to be much more focused and since Brett was winding down his career I decided to try to obtain every one of his cards (X3).  Why settle for one when you can have three of them and it would look much more impressive to have pages with a whole row of the same card.  That was fine until the most dreaded event happened....retirement.  Of course, that was when the hobby was beginning to explode with inserts and parallels.  While I have obtained just about all of his cards from his career, I haven't even broken through with the cards that have came after his retirement.  While this keeps my chase alive, it is frustrating to know that my goal is impossible to attain.  However, we keep trying and every chance I get to obtain a few more, I will pick them up.  On a recent trip to Dallas, I ran across Nick's Sportscards.  This is one of the nicest, friendliest shops I have been too.  It was great to be able to walk into a store and be surrounded by sportscards instead of people playing some fantasy card game.  Most of the shops within an hour of where I live have either went out of business, consider sportscards a secondary business, or are just plain trashy.  I was able to pick up a few cards to add to my collection and this is my favorite purchase from Nick's, a 2008 Donruss Threads.

Tickets are Here

Our Royals tickets arrived in the mail this past week, the sign that Opening Day will soon be here.  My wife gave me a wonderful gift a couple of years ago for Christmas of a 10 game pack to the Royals games.  While season tickets would be great, we live 3 hours away so they are not very practical.  We do enjoy going to KC and the games so 10 games is just about right.

We also received our Twins tickets yesterday for a series at the new Target Field.  We are exciting to be heading up north with some good friends of ours to enjoy Minneapolis and the Royals-Twins games.

It finally looks as if winter is over as we hit 77 degrees today.  We are hoping for great weather on Monday for Opening Day at the K.  My favorite quote about spring is a great one from Rogers Hornsby, "People ask me what I do in the winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring." Well, spring is here and we can't wait.

2009 Topps - Return to Set Collecting.

Even though I have been collecting cards on and off since 1980, there was a moment after I graduated from Kansas State University in which I just didn't buy any cards.  About four or five years ago I started buying packs here and there.  For the first time last year, I actually started buying cards with the intent of putting sets together.  Even though I have not completed the 2009 Topps set, I will try to piece that together this summer while also trying to complete other sets.  The cards that I need can be found on my "Want List" page.  You will notice that I am trying to put together the 2009 American Heritage and 2009 American Heritage Heroes sets.  While I normally don't do non-sport cards, I really like these sets since I am an American history teacher.

The Summer of 1980

The summer of 100 degree heat, the chase for .400 by George Brett, and the Royals winning the pennant.  I have great memories of this summer as I began collecting baseball cards.  I remember heading to the grocery store every Saturday morning and begging my mom to buy me a pack of cards, and then whenever I was able to put together at least 26 cents I would hop on my bike and head there myself.  You might wonder why 26 cents?  Well, I learned the hard way that just because the sticker says 25 cents that doesn't mean that a quarter is all you need.  The first time I went to the grocery store by myself I had to go back home and find that damn penny to pay for sales tax.  The 1980 Topps set is my favorite because of that summer, and I hope that the summer of 2010 will give me time to go back and finish putting that set together 30 years later.