Party like it's 2005

2005 was a strange year for yours truly.

I was 13 at the time, and despite all the other general awkwardness that comes from being in 7th grade, I made a weird & unprecedented choice to collect nothing but hockey cards that year. I've mentioned this on the blog many times, and I've thought about it a lot ever since - and I still have absolutely no explanation for why it happened. It's one of those almost farcical choices we all seem to make when we're 13.

I collected all the major sports as a kid, then went to just baseball for a bit, followed by the year-long foray into hockey, which was probably my fourth-favorite sport at the time when I actually paid attention to other sports besides baseball. While I still enjoy a hockey game with friends once in a while, I regained my senses in 2006 and went back to collecting baseball cards, which is where I've been ever since.

And it's safe to say I've never looked back.

All this, of course, means I missed out on a whole lot of baseball cards in 2005 - while nothing earth-shattering was being made that year, it's strange to have a big gap of a random year in my collection.

Enter longtime friend of the blog Mr. Shlabotnik of "The Shlabotnik Report," who contacted me recently saying he was doing a purge of a bunch of his '05 extras, and did I need any? I think I caught him a little by surprise by saying what basically amounted to I'll take any you've got! And that's how a big box of almost all 2005 cards ended up on my doorstep not long after, complete with so many of the sets and players I missed from my hiatus.

Pretty sure I never opened a pack of 2005 Donurss, and although it's not particularly memorable, it's cool to see that Zack Greinke & Albert Pujols are not only still active, but back on the teams they appeared with in this set a whole 17 years ago!

I've always had a fond appreciation for Donruss Team Heroes - it combines the deep checklists of Topps Total (Guillermo Mota?) with a few random and underappreciated legends (Tommy John!) thrown in for good measure.

Never opened a pack of 2005 Upper Deck, either, which apparently means I missed out on a whole lot of ballplayers diving at various points on the field.

I still don't know what to call this set - I think it's officially Fleer Tradition, but I've seen it referred to as base Fleer as well since the brand didn't even put out a Flagship set in 2005.

Unlike UD and Donruss, I've somehow managed to accumulate a whole lot of these in the years since, and even with the generic backgrounds I still think it's a decent effort.

Mr. Shlabotnik sent me cards from a lot of '05 sets in great quantity, but here's a few that he only had a handful of.

Always love those Cracker Jacks, and I'm starting to think Oliver Perez is gonna pitch until he's 63 years old.

I must've jumped ship for hockey right after the first 2005 baseball cards came out, because I do remember opening packs of '05 Topps.

Like it or not, there's no denying this isn't a distinct Topps design - plus it's replete with poses & full-body action shots that are rarities in today's Flagship.

Ah, Bazooka.

This set, oddly, is the main one I credit with getting me back into baseball cards in 2006. My Target used to have a small clearance rack with older packs many moons ago, and I bought up gobs and gobs of these discount Bazookas with my allowance. I did collect hockey and baseball simultaneously for a month or two, but after my energy and money both started to drain, I decided to dive headlong into baseball cards again. 

I think the comic-book design is top-notch on its own, but I'd be lying if I didn't say my love for these isn't tinged with a healthy amount of nostalgia, too (at least as much as one can have nostalgia for something from 2005).

One of the bad breaks of my hiatus was that I missed out on a pretty darn good Heritage set in 2005, one that honored the iconic '56 design.

These were probably the sweetest treats from Mr. Shlabotnik's purge - unlike the middling Donruss and UD, I lived the double tragedy of actually loving this set, but owning very little of it.

Most of this package was a 2005 party, but some of it widened the scope - including a bunch of '80s & '90s offshoot minis that I used to ignore but now find incredibly fun.

Mr. Shlabotnik also included a few nifty Cubs and a couple hits to my dwindling 2021 Archives needs.

And he continued the Archives fun with this groovy "Movie Poster" insert that features three of my all-time favorite Pirates - in what was a mostly phoned-in year for baseball cards, I'm starting to think these were some of the best things we saw in 2021.

Barring any unforeseen catastrophe, I think it's safe to say that I won't be giving up baseball cards again - especially not in favor of any of the other sports which I have a passing interest in (at best). And while I certainly question my decision to abandon baseball cards for a while 17 years ago, wrangling up all these 2005 cards I missed has been an experience that I can honestly say has been like nothing else I've dealt with as a collector. 

It's one thing to chase cards made well before I was born, but it's a whole other ballgame to enjoy cards that were around when I was alive and collecting, cards I somehow missed from the heart of my youth and can only now experience from the clarity of adulthood.