"I Want a Doll and Baseball Cards!"

I've had many heart-warming moments as a father, but her answer to the question, "What do you want for your birthday?" is right near the top of the list. As February 19th approaches, there's a buzz in the air around our home. Constant questions of, "When will I be 3?" and "Am I gonna get baseball cards?" can be heard every waking moment.


Hailey's current collection is up to 17 cards and she's thinking of putting them in "books" like Daddy's cards. Her cards have been laid out and counted now about 75 times and she can give each player's first name and the team they play for. James Loney now plays for the "Durgers" and while she loves her Billy Butler card and always wants another "Billy Dada!", she can't seem to keep track of the team name Royals.


When not counting the cards, Hailey likes to show them to her doll, "Ketchup". Ketchup isn't allowed to touch the cards, because "babies can't have baseball cards, only big girls and daddies".


Although she's at times a bit fickle and asks about Billy a lot, her two favorite players at this point seem to be Troy and David...of the Tulowitzki and Wright varieties. Luckily, she's following in Daddy's footsteps for now as a die-hard Angel fan. Jered Weaver's card always brings about fits of excited and heightened voices as she shouts out "Angels Daddy!! Go Angels!". This April she'll finally be attending her first game and whenever we drive by Angel Stadium on way to see her grandparents she busts out and tells me all about who plays there. The downside is on the way home she spends an hour pointing at every open field and telling me that's where Angels are.

So that's where my little collector and I are as of today. Hailey's collection will most likely grow by leaps and bounds on her birthday, although I'm not sure in what direction I'll go in for her. She just helped me rip into some seriously sweet and cheap packs from the late 80's and early 90's (evidence below), so those are up next on my blogging hitlist, although I still have some Bip cards to show off and a stack of late '90s Angel cards that I'm still trying to figure out.


Go Halos!

The Collecting Habits of a 2 Year Old

Hailey, collector of all things baseball card like.

My collecting addiction really began to kick up again at the time of the birth of my daughter. I've never been accused of being the most mature fella around, so maybe this shock of responsibility led me to revert to my childhood passion. From very early on, Hailey was all over the wrappers she found on the ground and enjoyed the crumpling of all that shiny. I knew I had a future collector, much to wife's dismay. Did her overgrown child really need a partner in crime? Shouldn't her daughter be more passionate about ballet than short prints?

Hailey has always been after my cards, whether snatching a couple from my desk or just asking what they are. Whenever she is at a restaurant like Chili's with cardboard like coasters, she grabs them all and calls them her cards. So, with a couple of weeks off from work and Daddy with some much needed time to organize a couple of sets, Hailey's collection was born.

She watched as I filled my binders with '07 and '08 Masterpieces, she echoed "Ahh crap!" as I realized I was three cards short of the '07 set, despite having triples of a few cards. And that's how it happened. In her sweetest, knee buckling voice, "Can I have some base-ah-ball cards Dada?" I melted and my triple instantly populated her collection.

Instantly she began laying them out in a long row and counting them over and over again. After that she wanted their names and eventually their teams. After a couple of weeks now she knows the name of every player and even knows the teams of about half of them. She quickly had a favorite...a Met...allow me a moment to sigh. It's not that I even dislike the Mets or her new favorite player, but I was hoping her lone Angel card might be her favorite. Unfortunately Jered Weaver was the Angel and my daughter likes her young men more clean cut, less shaggy.


So there it is, my daughter's favorite player, for now, is David Wright. She instantly wanted another David and I was all too happy to oblige. In the span of a couple of days she was already becoming a player collector.


But of course, it didn't end there. She instantly wanted more cards. Every time she made it around my cardboard she was asking for a new card. Just like that, she wasn't just a player collector, but now she was an, "I want it all and I want it now collector". She truly is my daughter.

So here it is, her current collection:


I love going through my cards, but it's a whole different world going through her cards. Watching her take great care of them, lining them up, naming the players and telling me that every player plays for the Angels. Apparently Arte Moreno has some moves to still pull of this winter according to my girl.

Of course no collection would be complete without a centerpiece, that was found in a box of commons from the early 90's.

Hailey: "Oooooh, it's Arielle!!! What team does she play for?"
Me: "Uhhh" (stammering and trying to think of something clever.)
Hailey: "I think her team is the ocean!"

A more organized collector and smarter than her father. She makes me proud.

Go Halos!