Why I stopped collecting baseball

Let me begin by saying that I love baseball.  I love the math.  I love the rhythm.  I love the season and the long days combining with the crack of the bat.

That being said, I was soured on baseball collecting from a multitude of factors.  Now, like most people I collected as a kid and stopped somewhere in my search for all things grown-up and mature.  Then I became a grown-up and didn't like the having to be mature all the time.  So I went looking to take up a hobby that reconnected me to my youth - collecting cards.

I live in Portland OR, but grew up in Montana.  I didn't have a team to root for.  Portland's AAA team is the Beavers and they go onto play for the Padres.  After years of following the Beavers, all my favorite players became Padres, so I became a Padres fan by proxy...or something.  Either way, this love of local players led me to watching the Padres, and Jake Peavy.  Peavy was pretty key in solidifying my support of the Pads.  What a fool I was.

I didn't know that the Pads had one of the worst front-offices known to sports.  But I began collecting Padres anyways.  Peavy, Kouzmanoff, Everth Cabrera, Adrian, E-Gon, and Headley.  I watched every game religiously.  And more often than not, had a better time having a beer than watching the Pads.  Then things started to fall down in Padre Land.  Matty V, the best voice of the Padres, went to MLB TV.  Peavy got traded (I cried a little that day), and E-Gon couldn't get a foot in the infield anymore.  Oh yeah, they let Bud Black keep his job.  I cursed a lot.  And I swore off baseball.  But swearing off baseball is easy to do in October.  Now, I'm probably ready again to watch.  I'm emotional like that.

But the collecting of baseball cards....that I got turned off by my LCS and Upper Deck.  I got back into baseball and, like a fool, went to the LCS to get my first box for nostalgia purposes.  I got talked into buying 08 Legendary Cuts for $145.  I bought three boxes over the summer.  I had no idea there was a blowoutcards or dacardworld.  I got robbed.  The inserts sold for a buck or two on ebay.  The base set sold for a buck on ebay.  But....I did pull a Mystery Cut.  Oohhs and aahhhs all around.

I got my redemption (nine months later from UD by the way)....and it was Maurice Richard.  Now he's like the man in hockey.  I respect that.  But I spent all that money for baseball and got hockey?  I watch some hockey, but UD just couldn't find a way to keep Richard cut autos for hockey boxes and some other great baseballers for baseball?

I swore them off.  All baseball cards.  Even though I love baseball.  I love the flagships, the Heritage, A&G etc etc.  But no worries.  I've still got this great thing called basketball.  I'll still keep telling my daughters (I have three) about the beauty of baseball.  But I won't mind if they root for the Dodgers like their grandpa.  Or root for the Mariners like the rest of Portland.  Just as long as they know that no matter what happens, they root for the Blazers in the winter.  The rest will sort itself out.

Or maybe one day they'll grow up and just love hockey and curse the day their old man sold that Maurice Richard auto for 70 bucks on ebay to buy more basketball cards.