Guest blog post: Chasing the Texas Rangers -- from Pennsylvania

All those years of subscribing to Beckett – studying the price guide, reading the articles, feeling pangs of jealousy over people’s awesome pulls – and I’d never read the table of contents.

Now, it’s the first place I turn. My girlfriend Sooz’s name is listed there.

As a two-decade collector of baseball cards, I always hoped to date a woman who wasn’t repulsed by my collection. Someone who could stomach the terms refractor, rookie card and top loader.

And somehow, I got really, really lucky.

My collection started in earnest in 1993. I was 9 years old then, the product of Phillies-Reds parents.

I hated the Phillies, even though I grew up in Lancaster County, Pa.

And the Reds didn’t have much beyond Barry Larkin and Chris Sabo – although Sabo’s Rec-Specs were magical.

No, I needed to find my own team. A team that was uniquely mine.

I stumbled onto a newspaper article about Nolan Ryan, the ageless hurler for the Texas Rangers. Dude was 47 years old and still playing! Fifty-six hundred career strikeouts entering his final season.

About that time, a family friend gave me and my brother packs of Upper Deck. We peeled them open. There was a shiny card in my pack.

Hmm …

Pulse increasing …

It was a “Then and Now” hologram card of Nolan Ryan. The card showed two pictures of Nolan – one as a rookie for the 1966 Mets, the other a forty-something for Texas.

I stared at the card for hours, mesmerized.

This Nolan Ryan guy was pretty cool, I thought. So I started watching Rangers games, during those rare occasions when ESPN showcased the team.

The All-Star game was held in Baltimore that year, and my brother and I stayed up late to watch the home run derby.

Everyone remembers Ken Griffey Jr. hitting the warehouse during the contest, but he didn’t win – Juan Gonzalez of the Texas Rangers did.

I became a Texas Rangers fan that night, unwittingly setting the stage for 17 seasons of frustration.

My collection grew along with my support of the team. The Rangers reached the playoffs for the first time in 1996, then again in 1998 and 1999 … each time against the Yankees. The Rangers won one game – the first one. Gonzalez hit two home runs.

Then, nine consecutive losses.

No matter, my team was stacked with stars such as Gonzalez and catcher Ivan Rodriguez, giving me lots of collecting opportunities. After Nolan Ryan retired, “Igor” Gonzalez was my guy, and I collected every card of his I could, from 1990 rookie cards to 1997 Upper Deck short prints to a 1998 Donruss tin numbered to 200.

We had a hobby shop near our house, and our mom would take me and my brother each week or so.
Or to K-Mart to check the card aisle.

One time our mom bought us boxes of 1999 Stadium Club. I studied the inserts beforehand, and noticing there was a Juan Gonzalez autograph (odds – 1:877 retail), told my brother that one of us was going to pull it.

I was right.

He pulled the Juan Gonzalez autograph.

My favorite player. Signed. The. Card. You could have opened 10,000 packs, and not pulled that card again.

And my brother got it, not me.

After some hours of griping and bitterness, he gave me the card, and it remains my favorite card in my collection.

My player collection, 250 cards strong by the late 1990s, was rocked when Gonzalez was traded to the Tigers after the 1999 season. I cried that day. I despised the man who replaced him, an up-and-coming prospect named Gabe Kapler.

I softened to Kapler after pulling his autograph from a pack of 1999 Upper Deck Challengers for 70. Then Kapler had a 30-game hitting streak.

Eventually I met Gabe Kapler before a Rangers-Orioles game, with the muscle-bound outfielder signing my baseball.

Who knew that a decade later, I would be showing off a Gabe Kapler autograph on a first date?

(Note: Sooz likes Gabe Kapler for different reasons than I do).

My collection slowed after I went to college in 2002, but I’d always find myself busting packs here and there – every apartment I’ve ever had has contained a baseball card drawer, those drawers full of various Rangers, from Alex Rodriguez and Hank Blalock to Michael Young and Mark Teixeira.

I had special reasons to fill my baseball card drawer last season, as my Rangers reached the playoffs for the first time in 11 years.

I savored each game of the playoffs. Given my team’s 1-10 all-time playoff record, with zero series victories, I didn’t know if the opportunity would pass again.

So I hoped. I wished. I tore through packs of 2010 Topps Update, searching for cards of midseason acquisition Cliff Lee in a Rangers uniform.

Another Ranger caught my eye from that set – a rookie first baseman named Mitch Moreland, a Mississippi native who could also play outfield and pitch, if necessary.

Moreland had been overshadowed in the system by fellow first base prospects Justin Smoak (traded for Lee) and Chris Davis.

But here were my Rangers in the playoffs, trotting out this Moreland guy. And he could hit better than anyone else the team had at first, so I believed in Moreland.

I believed in my team. On the strength of Cliff Lee’s arm, Texas defeated the Tampa Bay Rays in the first round to move to the ALCS against … the Yankees.

The freakin’ Yankees.

The Yankees, who’d won 27 total World Series rings to my Rangers zero.

Despite a game one collapse, the Rangers took three of the next four. Three to two lead, headed back to Texas.

Oct. 22, 2010. Ninth inning. 6-1 lead for Texas. Two outs. Rookie reliever Neftali Feliz dealing to Yankee slugger Alex Rodriguez, the guy who used to suit up for Texas.

The guy who left town because he wanted to win.

Strike three. Looking.

Confetti. Celebration at the mound. Ginger Ale showers.

The Rangers lost to the Giants in the World Series, with one of their few bright spots a three-run homerun by Mitch Moreland in game three, the Rangers’ only victory. Eventually that homerun made a card of 2011 Topps Heritage, titled “Rangers Retaliate.”

Like the Nolan Ryan “Then and Now” from two decades prior, I was mesmerized. Here was my guy’s biggest moment captured on cardboard.

I became a Mitch Moreland player collector soon after, with the help of my girlfriend, the only woman I’ve ever met who knows more about baseball cards than I do.

She’s done this player collection thing before – ahem, Derek Jeter and Kevin Kouzmanoff. I bought a binder and sleeves. She wrote Moreland’s different releases on slips of paper, slid the slips into the missing spots in my binder, and the search was on.

As I began my search, I expected to find a couple dozen minor league cards, some autographs, some bat cards …

Mitch Moreland might have the most unorthodox card career for any current Major League Baseball player.

1. Only seven minor league cards, almost all team issues and no TRISTAR (his minor league teammates appeared on TRISTAR, but not Mitch).
2. No Major League cards prior to his 2010 rookie year.
3. Even after a World Series home run and flirting with the league lead in batting average, he still has no game-used or autograph issues.

Due to the lack of assortment, Moreland’s short-print cards are at greater demand – his collectors are forced to fight over the same cards, specifically various 2010 Bowman issues numbered to 50 or less.

I currently have 40 different Mitch Moreland cards, from his 2007 Spokane Indians card to 2011 Topps team issue. I should be receiving the rest of the 2011 Topps series two parallels in the mail this week.

And as I slide new cards into my binder pages, I have someone to show my collection to, someone who understands the difference between black parallels and Wal-Mart parallels, who encourages me to pursue Moreland’s Gypsy Queen stamp card and Bowman International with the same enthusiasm – because that’s what player collectors and supportive girlfriends do.

My new favorite Yankee and I'm changing my team name

Last night, the Yankees -- and their fans -- had a night to forget. They didn't pitch well, hit when it was far too late, and one of their most expensive acquisitions hasn't played in three games.

It wasn't fun, except if you were Nick Swisher (or Dave). The Yankees first baseman (and outfielder at times) pitched an inning of relief, doing better than starter Chien Ming Wang. In fact, he even struck out good ol' Gabe Kapler.

Good. Ol'. Gabe.

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Swisher pitches scoreless inning as Yanks fall, 15-5

BY KAT O'BRIEN kat.obrien@newsday.com
12:33 AM EDT, April 14, 2009

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - The Rays pounded the Yankees so handily last night that all you have to know is this: Outfielder/first baseman Nick Swisher pitched the bottom of the eighth for the Yankees.

And Swisher was the best pitcher the Yankees put on the mound in a 15-5 loss to the Rays, as he threw a scoreless inning.

OK, maybe Swisher - who last pitched as a freshman in high school and said he believes he gave up a couple of home runs that day - was not the best, but he was the only one of five Yankees not to allow a run. He even struck out Gabe Kapler.

"I wanted to try to compete, even though I am out there pumping 78 [mph] or whatever," he said. "You've got to find something to laugh about in that moment. If I'm the guy everybody's laughing at, I'm OK with that."

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He didn't give up one run in a 15-run game (that was the last I looked at the score anyway).



Is it too late to change my fantasy baseball team name? Gabe's Babe doesn't really seem to be cutting it anymore -- in a number of ways. Despite that my team is in eighth place in the blogger league, it's a bad omen when the guy you name your team after strikes out against a guy throwing batting-practice fastballs.

If he can't hit 80 mile-per-hour heat, how is he supposed to inspire the rest of the team through the season.

How about Swisher's Babe?



Or Swisher's Sweetheart?



Candy of the Week?

Still catching on bubble mailers: Old School Fun

Old School Breaks had a lovely free group break where he was giving away the hits from the box. I got the Yankees and hoped, prayed, begged and pleaded with the baseball card gods to get me something Derek Jeter.

Apparently, they didn't like that and I was one of four people in the break to get nothing.

However, I think I won anyway. John sent along some consolation gifts and I got some really great cards. It's always fun getting Jeter cards that I don't have as I slowly, but surely build my Jeter collection to greater heights.

In case anyone is wondering, I have 1,213 unique Jeter cards now. I'm getting there.

Here are three Jeter cards John sent along:

But that wasn't all. There was also some Gabe Kapler goodness sent along.

And that's always fun too.

My Secret Stash

It's not something I proudly admit. I like to look at it when I'm feeling a little blue - sad blue. But I have this secret stash of baseball cards that only my boyfriend and Marie knows I collect.

Now, you.

As you have realized by now. I'm a woman. I have eyes and I can't help what I see. So that one fateful night while working at The Sports Authority as a 17-year-old girl when I picked up that issue of Muscle Fitness that fell on the floor changed everything.

There was Gabe Kapler, ripped muscles and all. It was the baseball issues with him, Brad Fullmer and, I think, Royce Clayton.

So, I did the only thing I knew now as a girl with a crush.

I collected his baseball cards. I probably have over 100 of his cards right now. I recently bought a huge lot of them on Beckett, but haven't logged them in yet.

Kapler's was the first auto I bought off eBay when I finally got a job to promote my habit of cardboard.

He used to come often to Yankee Stadium and play right field. I used to scream at him and had my (male) friends yell to him since they were louder than me. It didn't even matter when he went to Boston.

I joined the Gabe Kapler fan club back then too. Apparently, it was an unofficial fan club, but won a signed photo of his. I still collect his cards as you can see by the photo. That card just came out in the Heritage High Series.

There's a good chance after reading this, you think I'm a tad bit crazy. But even though I love sports and baseball cards, I'm still a woman. I have eyes.

My Kapler Problem

Everyone has different reasons for collecting certain players. They were your childhood hero or you loved the way they pitch. Perhaps the guy is from your hometown or went to your college. I collect Jeter because I was 16 when the Yankees beat the Braves in 1996 and he became my baseball God.

I collect Kevin Kouzmanoff because he is from Macedonia (or Serbia depending on who you ask) and my family is from that area of the world and I felt a little tie to him because of it.

Gabe Kapler - there is really no good reason to collect his cards other than the fact that I think he is hot. When I had season tickets to the Yankees in Section 39, I used to scream to him like a retard because I thought he was awesome. Well, awesome looking.

My Kapler card collection is up to 70 cards and he is on the bench of my fantasy baseball team, the real fantasy baseball team.

Obviously, I have issues and just thought I would share since I added a ton of cards to my collection today.