I dream of baseball cards

I had a real, actual dream about baseball cards the other night.

This, in a strange way, is mildly noteworthy since it's a first for me: I've never dreamt about baseball cards before. I'm curious to know if this is a regular thing among collectors or if I'm some kind of weird anomaly now. The dream itself is kinda vague and hazy -- I'm not often able to vividly recall dreams -- but it involved something about me being away at college and deciding whether or not I wanted to cut class and go to a local card shop. (For what it's worth, I did once cut class to open a box of baseball cards.) I went to the card shop, found a dime box with heaps of exciting stuff inside...

And that's when I woke up, disappointed it was all just a dream.

Honestly, I'm a bit surprised I'd never dreamt of cards before given how long I've been obsessing over these rectangular pieces of cardboard -- I guess they were bound to seep into my subconscious sooner or later.

At least I can take solace in knowing my real-life collection isn't half bad either, made even better by a package I recently received from Bo of "Baseball Cards Come to Life!".

Bo specifically combed through my mini-collection lists and found ones I still needed -- I certainly don't expect everyone I trade with to do this, but it's nice when it happens.

It took a few months to catalog the 8,000+(!) cards in my various themes, and I mainly did it for my own reference. Now I don't have to undertake the minor annoyance of dragging the binders out every time I'm not sure if I have a card or not! It took a whole lot of card-hours, but in the end I'm thrilled to have it all cataloged.

Still, given the scope and time of that project, it makes sense that I'd eventually lose myself in dreams of baseball cards.

I also received a nice package from longtime friend of the blog Joe Shlabotnik, whom you might know from the excellent "Shlabotnik Report" blog.

Like anyone who kinda collects a certain team, I don't feel like I pull enough Cubs from packs of baseball cards. I guess when you're looking for a specific team it'll almost always feel like you come up short. (Conversely, it feels like I pull way too many Diamondbacks and Marlins, since there's very few guys on those teams I care about.)

Mr. Shlabotnik, however, seems to have a hot hand for Cubs -- which I suppose doesn't much help him, but my collection has certainly benefited from it.

Slowly chipping away at the Archives needs.

More needs from Mr. Shlabotnik, including Reason #1,343 to love the blogs: people send you Vlad Jr. cards out of the goodness of their heart.

A surprise package from Jim (aka gcrl) of "cards as i see them" showed up on my doorstep not long ago, probably putting the number of packages I've received from him during my blogging tenure in the two- or three-dozen range by now.

People sending me '88 Donruss seems like something out of a nightmare, but not in this case -- that Garber (a sunset card!) was actually a Dime Box Dozen need that somehow slipped through the cracks all these years.

Every package I get from gcrl seems to include at least one thing I've never seen before, and this oversized oddball set of Cubs issued by Marathon in 1990 was the discovery this time around.

More for the mini-collection catalog!

And finally here's a mini-collection hit that actually looks to be something out of a dream, with all that trippy '90s Dufex technology.

My collection in the conscious world is, in many ways, a lot like a dream, thanks in no small part to all the great people like Bo, Mr. Shlabotnik, and gcrl who've helped add to it over the years. I mean, who in their right mind could've predicted I'd one day own over a thousand cards of dudes wearing throwback jerseys?

Still, I guess there'll always be that subconscious part of me that longs for the unattainable baseball cards, the ones that just now, apparently, decided to begin revealing themselves in my dreams (any therapists reading are free to tell me what all this might mean).