Baseball fan or just a collector?

[perezfan]

When you're a Reds fan, it's hard to be both. Many many lean years have turned me into 80% collector/20% fan. But if the Reds could get it together or if Manfred were to leave, I suppose I could get back to 50/50.

[Yoda]

For better or worse, Ohtani certainly has jacked up interest in the DH this season.

[JollyElm]

Baseball card collecting is a nostalgic man's game. That is a huge part of it for me.

As an old man yelling at sky (there are no clouds in California), the game of baseball has changed so much that it is almost unrecognizable. I can get past the ridiculous celebratory pageantry of home run trots, but it's the smaller things that annoy the living h*ll out of me.

One example:
In watching my Mets in the playoffs, every single pitch is ridiculously framed by the catcher. EVERY PITCH. Their mitts are never still, and are always in motion!!! The pitch comes in, and with a quick wrist movement, he obviously and fraudulently moves it inside the strike zone.
A ball is two feet outside, NO PROBLEM!! A snap of a wrist flip and it's in the strike zone...held there waiting for the ump to call it a strike (thankfully, it doesn't ever seem to falsely sway him).

I want just one umpire to say to a manager, "Every time your catcher tries to frame the plate, I will call it a ball. If his mitt moves after the ball hits it...BALL!!!"

[Bigdaddy]

Originally Posted by perezfan

When you're a Reds fan, it's hard to be both. Many many lean years have turned me into 80% collector/20% fan. But if the Reds could get it together or if Manfred were to leave, I suppose I could get back to 50/50.

Preach it brother; the last time the Reds were in the Series, I was a year out of college. I'm now retired.

Still a fan, though my ability to sit through a three hour game on TV is not what it used to be.

[bmattioli]

In order:

Redsox

Baseball

Cards

[bk400]

For awhile, I was turned off by new school baseball for the reasons that others already articulated. When I got back into the card hobby over the past couple years, I felt like an old man reading through a stack of old newspaper clippings, wistfully pining for the good old days. So I forced myself to start following the game itself, and I have to say that I've come to really enjoy baseball again. And that enjoyment has also fortified my interest in cards -- even some modern ones!

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

Baseball history fan.... I lost complete interest in the modern game over 30 years ago. You couldn't drag me to a game.