Your hobby doesn't do anything.

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

A long time ago, when I first started buying cards in packs, I found a book which had the yearly statistics of old ballplayers. Although my friends seemd to have no interest in those guys, I was fascinated by the stats.

I quickly discovered that Cobb was not alone with unbelievable accomplishments (I mean in the 50s players infrequently had a season as good as Cobb's average performance) but there were the previously unknowns such as Speaker, Hornsby, etc.

This book taught me, through comparing stats, much about baseball history. At that time, nobody ever went to the library, or bought books - mine was a soft cover freebie, advertising some product, I presume.

Now I go to the library and buy books, and I continue to be fascinated by the history and accomplishments in baseball. Occasionally I purchase a card to commemorate some specific accomplishment which I find worthy of note.

So my hobby is not simply a one dimensional compilation of drawings and photographs related to baseball, it is a portrayal of the history of the game which I design by myself. That is, my collection is a piece of art which I am creating through the use of the art of others.

This is no mere simple collection, this is a Gil Maines original piece of art, and a testament to a historical occurance, still unfolding.

See? I am way more full of crap than you thought. But I do see my collection as my creation. And I know that someday it will be parted out by some seller. This is why the Vogner collection should have been labeled. It too was a creation, not simply the assembly of cards.

Ok, send the men in their clean white coats to take me back to the looney bin.