[jchcollins]

I'm of the school of thought that we should never get too close to baseball players or heroes in general. I am interested in baseball cards because of what the players did on the field. The backstory from there becomes much less important to me. If you don't approach collecting with this type of attitude, that's fine - but you have to remember that players are human beings just like the rest of us and in that regard, many come down way more on the sinner side than saint. Mickey Mantle boozed it up and cheated on his wife. Willie Mays is well known to be less than cordial when at card shows with adoring fans who have spent hours in line waiting to interact with him for about 15 seconds. Then you have the other big name athletes who are almost more famous for something they did off the field - included here would be the likes of O.J. Simpson and Pete Rose.

I guess you just have to determine what does and does not bother you. I don't need to agree with every waking minute of a player's conduct off the field in order to collect baseball cards. Were that the case, I'd probably need to go get rid of 2/3 of my collection. I will admit I don't like Barry Bonds, but I still have tons of his cards.

PS - one of my main boyhood heroes - Ryne Sandberg of the Cubs - is now endorsing cannabis products and marijuana derivatives. The jokes about Ryno the pothead have already made their first waves on the interwebs. Am I suddenly supposed to rip up his cards and give this newest turn of direction precedence over the fact that he's one of the greatest second basemen of all time? I mean, I could. But I'm not going to.