Has reading caused your wantlist to grow?

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Posted By: Jason L

Since I found this Board last summer, I have slowly increased my reading on the players of the era (now finishing "The Glory of their Times", and just ordered the Deadball Stars set from SABR)...but I thought it might be an interesting thread to ask:

Has any of your reading on the history of the game fueled specific card collecting?

For instance, I now want to obtain an Ed Rousch card simply because of the way he stood up to McGraw at the team hotel when he wanted to re-sign him to the Giants after his stint with Cincy... (according to his own re-telling, anyway!)...My point is, I have had no interest in him before reading about him - and indeed, before reading that one specific story...but now, it would be neat to see a card or two in my collection

Do any of you also have parts of your vintage collection that are the result of reading interests, but don't otherwise fit in?



edited for spelling and various other dangling participles

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Posted By: Bob

Jason- Yes, definitely. After reading a couple of books about the prewar PCL and its players because I was collecting Obaks, I became enamored with the PCL and started collecting Zeenuts and D311s. Also, several books I read about a "later" era, the 1930's, spurred me to break out of my "1909-1919 only" collecting and go after Tattoo Orbits and DeLongs.
Bob

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Posted By: Jeff Mohler

Yep. I just finished "Baseball, When the grass was real" and Eldon Aukers book. I started picking up some Goudey Wide pens as a result.

I collected autographs as a kid in the 1980's. I had most of the HOFers from the 30s and 40s (and even a few prior to that). Too bad I sold them a number of years ago!

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Posted By: Steve f

Jason,
Buying books certainly increases my spending on cards. GOTM is a great read and I'm told the CD is even better.

There are many good book reviews if you do a search. There are several used on my desk that I can't wait to pop open, bought on Amazon for very short $.

I highly recommend 'A Prince at First' (Hal Chase), 'The Celebrant' (Matty) and 'DiMaggio' by Cramer. There are so many more too.

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Posted By: Mike

I started collecting cards as kid, beginning in about 1960. I still have many thousands of the cards from the late 50's and early 60's. If graded they would all be 2's 3's but who cares, I love em. Will never part with them. I then got back into cards and pre war in about 88, when extra cash flow permitted. I love baseball history. I started reading every book I could get my hands on. I bet I honestly read 50 or more books. Now I have a nice library of baseball books. Bio's on players, price guides, books on pre war cards. Of course different things start to stand out. Era's, players, teams, personalities. At first I was buying any and all pre war I could get my hands on. Luckily my wife was ok with this. But as time goes on you have to narrow your focus, or you go broke. So how it has ended up is, I fell in love with the depression era, or from the mid 20's to the mid 40's. I eventually started collecting any and all Jimmie foxx cards and ephemera. My goal is to get all cards and variations. Which also led to a love of the depression era A's team. Which I collect. I still have many items left over from the prior chase. T cards, Black sox, which I love. Gehrig and hack wilson. I got interested in Jimmie foxx, because he seemed like a nice guy, I thought his cards were undervalued, and I was writing back and forth with his step daughter. So yes, reading about all the different players and eras definitly plays a huge role in what I ended up collecting.

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Posted By: MVSNYC

yes, absolutely! i saw the documentary "the glory of their times" about 15 years ago, right around the same time i started collecting, the names from the movie/book are so inter-twined (barry-sp?), it is so cool to buy a card and then read about the players history...

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Posted By: Darren

ABSOLUTELY

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Posted By: Chad

The Pitch That Killed made me want to collect a lot of different sets. I'd love to get a Chapman and Mays to go along with my Joe Sewell card. The three of them together make for a hell of a story. That book sparked my interest in Duster "The Great" Mails, too. Reading about Ed Delahanty made me cry as he and many other 19th century stars almost made a tour through Cuba, a country that had a habit of cemmemorating such things with tobacco issues. I wonder how close we came to having a Cuban issue from the 1890's with Delahanty, Connor, Burkett, Hamilton and so on. Holy Toledo!

--Chad

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Posted By: Frank Evanov

Definitely. "More Than Merkle" inspired me to do a T206 HOF set and "The Glory of Their Times" led to my "TGOTT" PSA Registry set which has a card for each player in the book.

Frank

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Posted By: Justin

I just finished the new Edd Roush biography: Red Legs and Black Sox, and it made me want an Edd Roush
Cracker Jack card as well as rekindling my interest in the Black Sox. It was cool to hear about the scandal from a different perspective, that of the Reds. My interest in the deadball era came primarily from Shoeless Joe and The Glory of Their Times, so yeah reading has definitely shaped my baseball and vintage interests.

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Posted By: ErikV

Absolutely. One good example is from an article I just recently finished reading from the Smithsonian Magazine (Oct. 2004 issue). It was a very interesting read about Eddie Grant. Briefly, Eddie was a attorney, ballplayer and World War I soldier that died searching for the lost batallion in the Argonne Forest just weeks before the war ended. Since finishing the artice, I picked up a T205 Grant and think about his courage and sacrifice every time I look at his card.

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Posted By: John S

Without a doubt. Information regarding the players makes collecting the cards all the more interesting.