Collect by team: what team and why?

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Posted By: J Levine

I love this question and being able to tell this tale....

In 1981 I was ten years old. My grandfather, the main reason I love baseball, used to get great seats from his job (Sears and Roebuck) right behind the visitor dugout. My grandmother would always come with us and bring a paper and pen or a ball for me to get autographs. I loved catchers and was always bugging them for autographs. One afternoon I went to see the World Champion Phillies take on my Dodgers, I was leaning over the fence with my ball and pen screaming at Bob Boone for an autograph as he was warming up a couple of players along the side. After about 5 or 6 minutes of calling I was getting desperate. The batting practice cages were coming down and the players were heading inside. I yelled one more time at Boone as he went into the dugout. The player immediately behind him grabbed my ball and pen and walked into the dugout as well. I turned around and must have looked shocked and defeated and I remember my grandmother dryly saying, "well, maybe you were too loud." A minute or two later the player who grabbed my ball came back and handed it to me saying, "Here, maybe this will keep you quiet." The ball was signed by Boone, McGraw, Schmidt, and the player who grabbed it, Steve Carlton. From that moment on I became a Phillies fan with Boone and Carlton my two favorites. Still have the ball in the safe.

In 1989 I decided I wanted to put together a Phillies colleciton. I started out with Topps issues and worked my way backwards. An off-hand comment by a fellow collector started me thinking on a Phillies master list. I spent the next two years putting together a list of every Phillie card ever issued between 1886 and 1989. The list was 21 pages long with a 7 font. Over the years I have whittled the list down to 13 pages and, thankfully, a 14 font. The listed still contains 3 full pages of Old Judge cards, 1 full page of 19th century, and a whole bunch of oddball and rare stuff. I have been fairly fortunate over the years to get some great pieces and type cards for my collection.

When I am not focused on my Phillies collection, I work on T205s.

Joshua