Respecting the elders

You might already know this, but I turned 21 this year.

It's nice to be at what most would consider "adult" age, but I'm still just a kid when it comes to baseball cards.

I mean that in more ways than one. Yes, the hobby does indeed make me feel like a kid again, which is one of many reasons I've taken to this collecting thing so much.

In aggregate, though, I really am just a toddler in comparison to most other cardboard enthusiasts. The majority of collectors have a few years on me. I'd say I was younger than about 95 percent of the people I saw at the National. (If not more.)

While you'll still see a fair amount of kids at shows, the elders far outweigh them. And, although that slims my chances of ever meeting a fellow collector my age, I'm okay with that.

In some sort of bizarre way, I kind of feel like a grown-up when I indulge in this kid's hobby because of all the adult and middle-aged people I get to associate with.

Still, I'm sure most of us would say that it's quite refreshing to still see younger people collecting cards. Weston of the great blog "Fantastic Catch" is one of the few bloggers who I have a few years on. In fact, he recently sent me a nice little assortment of cardboard.

Since he's a Cardinals fan and all, I guess it's appropriate that he'd be the one to send over a new Bo Hart card. Nowadays, Hart is a relatively obscure player who has long been the focus of one of my most beloved player collections.

It's not every day you see him pop up in a trade package.

Weston also sent along this beautiful blue Casey Kotchman parallel, one that is much appreciated by this collector.

My impossible task for the year is to try and build the 2013 Topps Kotchman rainbow. As of this writing, I have his base, red, emerald, gold, and now blue parallels in my Indians binder.

I'll have a heckuva time trying to track down the pinks and camos and other impossible-to-find colors.

I guess that's part of the fun of a rainbow.

No one really expects you to complete it.

I guess another one of my impossible goals is to find every "pitcher at the plate" card ever made.

Now, I don't have the first clue about how I'd research such a thing, as I'm not aware of any big databases dedicated to the subject.

For now, I'll just take any the dime box gods bestow upon me. Oh, and any my fellow bloggers can manage to find, of course.

Weston sent along a couple great ones to help ease my never-ending quest.

There's another one with the Beckett.

Unlike Gallardo and Francis, though, his is of the ever-rare American League variety. (For the record, Beckett did hit two homers during his seven-year tenure in Boston.)

On the right is one of the more epic "broken bat" cards you'll ever find. I think I actually used to have the Hernandez at one point, but I traded it away for some reason.

What an idiot I was.

Ty Cobb A&G mini?

Yes, please!

Cobb has always been in the top tier of my player collections. Taking the good and bad (but mostly bad) into account, I've always felt that "The Georgia Peach" was the most interesting player in baseball history.

Not to mention one of the greatest.

As far as I'm concerned, not much can better a Ty Cobb mini. Much like my rainbow quest, it's darn near impossible.

But Weston did it.

He did the impossible.

This magnificent card of Ichiro and the "prez" managed to take top honors.

Until about a month ago, I never even knew such a card existed. Once I saw it, I knew I had to have it. Up onto the "Dime Box Dozen" list it went.

And there it sat...

For about three days.

Unbeknownst to me, Weston slipped it into this assortment with a few other Ichiros.

From what I know, President Obama is a big baseball fan. Seeing this pre-All-Star game meeting between him and Ichiro on a baseball card is nothing short of awesome.

It's great to see younger people like Weston still excited about the hobby. That's always been one of my favorite sights at card shows.

It never hurts to have a few more collectors in our age demographic.