I've got a bunch of those kind of stories, but was too cheap to spend big on anything.
Instead I'd buy big boxes of random cards and pull out all the "better but not big star" cards plus a few guys I thought had a shot at 3000 hits. Of course now I've got a nice box full of cheap cards of great players, as well as quite a few has-beens. Like Johnny Ray. Averaged 150+ hits for a few years, and I figured with a 20 year+ career he might make 3000.
Of course his 11th year he was released after a not so good season and just vanished. 1502 hits, almost exactly halfway and a .290 average, not bad. But not good enough.
On the plus side I also collected Signature rookies and got the same guy a few times for the signed card. I was a bit annoyed at the time since I figured none of the prospects were actually going anywhere. And 4 of the same guy wasn't as interesting as getting the set. Plus he was a Yankee.
Yeah, that guy Jeter didn't really stick
Fortunately I was very slow about getting rid of the duplicates and did pretty well with them.
Steve B