Since this past year, the Phillies won the World Series for the first year in my lifetime (1980 was the year before I was born), I have decided to commemorate it in my own decidedly unique way. Sure, I already own the official cap and jacket and hooded sweatshirt and two T-shirts and have every newspaper clipping framed, but I wanted to add my own spin to commerorate the past and celebrate the present Phillies.
Using my baseball card obsession with an unhealthy focus on order, I have decided to undertake a five pronged collecting project involving cards (of which I am essentially starting from scratch)
1. Collect every rookie card of any Phillie who made an appearance in the postseason during 1980 and 2008. This one can be daunting. I may have to limit it to non-autographed rookie cards for awhile with Ryan Howard lurking. Rose, Schmidt, and Carlton will also not be easy to find. Also, limiting it to players who played in the postseason keeps it a little simpler. I may want to include other contributors such as Kyle Kendrick in 2008 or Nino Espinosa in 1980, but that would be a bonus.
2. Do a continuation series of each of these players careers. Start with their first card year on the Phillies and have all base cards up to and including their last year on the Phillies. Notable inserts could be pursued, though I'm not sure which would be available.
3. The Mike Schmidt Project: It is an expansion of parts 1 and 2: to pursue all cards, oddball and otherwise of Schmidt during his playing days.
4. The Steve Carlton Project: Similar in scope to part 3 above.
5. Get a game-used jersey (or bat) card and autographed card of each of these players possible. Also, can include other prominent Phillies of the past such as Dick Allen, Johnny Callison, Del Ennis, Granny Hamner, Robin Roberts, etc.
I am currently putting together the checklist. This is taking a lot of time. If anyone knows of any resources out there, especially for parts 3 and 4, please let me know. At some point, I'll post the "I'm sure I'm missing this" list for this on the sidebar.
2 comments:
I find that Beckett.com is a great resource for looking up cards of players.
I have a pretty complete Schmidt collection for his playing career. I think I have all of his major cards (Topps, Donruss, Fleer, Score and a couple of Upper Decks at the end). The odd ball cards are going to be tough to find.
It took me years to win an auction for a Schmidt rookie card at a price I was willing to pay.
Thanks for the advice. I think I'm not going to sweat it too much over the majority of the oddball cards. I also don't anticipate receiving a Schmidt rookie until close to the end.
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