Who is a player you collect that nobody else probably does?

teammaddux said:

Chris Heisey and Nate Bump.
Heisey is the only person from Messiah College (where my wife, sister and brother in law graduated from) to make it to the majors. He currently lives in the area and is friends with some of my co-workers.

Bump was a local guy from back home...spent a few years with the Giants and Marlins before touring the minor leagues.

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Weird to see Messiah College get a shout out! One of the lacrosse teams I coached played our district semi-final there years ago.

Met Heisey at a local autograph show - was a really nice guy to talk to.

katester44 said:

Weird to see Messiah College get a shout out! One of the lacrosse teams I coached played our district semi-final there years ago.

Met Heisey at a local autograph show - was a really nice guy to talk to.

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He goes to church with one of my fellow teachers; he told him about my collection and I'm going to get to meet him and show it off to him.

Sabrina Ionescu who plays for the New York Liberty in the WNBA. My niece and I are Liberty season ticket holders; she's been following Ionescu since her days at Oregon. It's been a fun way to bond with my teenage niece and get her into collecting at the same time.

We also collect a bunch of the other WNBA players as well.

katester44 said:

Moyer went to high school about 25 minutes from where I grew up. He was more than a couple years ahead of me, but know that he pitched against our school back in the day.

The "behind the scenes" collection I have is - Phil Hughes (Yankees/Twins). When the Trenton Thunder was a Yankees minor league affiliate, my dad worked for them for 6 or 7 years, so I followed just about everyone that came through the system at that time. I hitched my wagon to Hughes as the guy I thought had the most long term potential.

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I'm a Yankees fan, so I have a little Hughes collection. The Hughes hype was crazy back then. It's cool to see how he is super into sports cards now and does the YouTube breaks and everything. That probably led others to collect him nowadays.

teammaddux said:

He goes to church with one of my fellow teachers; he told him about my collection and I'm going to get to meet him and show it off to him.

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I always liked Heisey. I expected him to stick around longer. He played over here in Louisville with the Bats.

mike91net said:

Todd Hollandsworth -- he and I share the same last name...no relation. I thought he was the only Hollandsworth to play the game (and technically he is) - and then I see Leaf cards for a Ty Hollandsworth show up on eBay.

Welp... there goes my budget!

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Probably his son.

mgm37 said:

Tom Henke, Joe Crede and Sam Lecure

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Loved watching Joe Crede and the Soxs in '05. I remember watching LeCure pitch in AAA with the Louisville Bats. Now he's one of the analysts for the Reds.

cardinals-colle said:

I went to Greenville, in 1989-90 Wesclin won the Class 1A Basketball championship we beat them during the regular season.

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I am friends with a woman who played basketball at Greenville HS in the mid/late 80s. Very good ball player.

Ed Delahanty

I chase guys with funny names.. most of them are obscure players nobody remembers or has even heard of.

I like to collect cards of any player who has played for the Hartford Yard Goats, the AA affiliate of the Colorado Rockies, particularly those who played in 2017 when I attended over 50 home games. Brendan Rodgers and Ryan McMahon are the two with the most cards and look like will have good major league careers, and guys like Josh Fuentes, Rico Garcia, Yency Almonte, Dom Nunez, Ryan Castellani and still others who never made the majors - Omar Carrizales, Roberto Ramos, Parker French, Drew Weeks, Max White, Correlle Prime, and a few others.

It is what got me back into collecting and it's fun to hunt guys few others are chasing.

Chris Hoiles of the Baltimore Orioles...drafted by the Tigers. He went to our rival school, but we bought eggs from his grandfather growing up.

I'm friends with his brother Matt who is a HOF high school softball coach in Ohio.

Depending on how hardcore one goes in for a specific player and how popular that player was, I think the idea that nobody else collects them is unlikely. I also realize that it was probably not meant literally. 1000s of people collect the very best players like Jeter, Griffey, Trout, etc. Fewer yet will collect popular, star players that might be a bigger regional draw. Some guys popularity transcends their career numbers/stats and other guys may have a single draw to them such as a story or an event, in which case you are again probably not close to being alone.

I look at it this way, if you are collecting someone who no longer plays and did not have much in the way of a career or was very under the radar, then you may be one of the select few who are collecting that player.

I can say that I don't fall into that category, simply because my collecting interest & budget does not support run of the mill guys. That is not to say that I only collect highly popular stars. I would need a strong personal connection to a lifelong common to even consider collecting them with any sort of passion because otherwise I see it as a waste of money and I don't have that with anyone. Perhaps the closest I came was collecting all of the Brock Stewart cards from when he was in the Donruss Chronicles set, at least I think that is what it was called. Stewart was a 4 year career guy, from 2016-19 and had a lifetime record of 6-3. I only did it because he was a Dodger prospect though, and I collect all Dodger autos. This was his first auto offering, but after grabbing several low serial numbered cards for relatively cheap, I decided to see how many different I could get in hopes that i'd luck into buying a guy who had potential to explode in popularity. I guess the affordability should have been my first clue! However, he left the team in the middle of 2019 and after completing as many different cards from this one set, I was done. He went 4-0 with Toronto to wrap up the 2019 season and has not pitched in MLB since. I did similar exercises with a couple other guys (Jose Fernandez & Tim Locastro) then decided that was a fools game to play. Oddly enough, Locastro set a MLB record in 2021 for most SBs without getting caught to begin a career (28), but otherwise has not done much to brag about. Tim Raines was the previous holder of that distinction. I can't find if Locastro extended that streak or it ended with 1 more than Raines though. That is how odd and obscure the record really is.

My more "obscure" player collections that I have put more than just a basic effort into, although I don't even begin to think I am alone, are Willie Davis (60s/70s Dodgers) and Al Oliver.

Bob Forsch & Rick Ankiel