Back at it again

After hearing a few quiet whispers I had to stop and think about it. Cards. Cards. "Atlanta has this kid Heyward.....blahblahblah." A few weeks go by. I had it contained. Then the mania began. Then the Strasburg Superfractor story was plastered all over Yahoo news. "Whats wrong with buying a few cards, maybe you'll get lucky" I tell myself. "it will only be a few packs, nothing more"........ damnit where is the shutoff switch for my brain.

I had no idea where to buy baseball cards. I hadn't bought so much as a pack since the craziness that was the '98 McGwire-Sosa home run-fest. "I know, swing by Target since you have to head that way" was what my uneducated brain began blurting out. Sure enough they had a small card section near the checkouts. "Where to begin?" I asked myself. They had some Topps products, a few assorted packs, nothing that begged to be opened.

I ended up buying a few of the combo packs that contained 10 packs from assorted companys
and assorted years, along with a couple of the Topps '10 series 2. Seemed like a nice well rounded start to an evil habit. And as I walk up to the checkout lane a stranger approached me.

"Whatcha doing with those cards?" he asked.
"Just helping my 'cousin' start his own card collection" I replied tongue-in-cheek
"If you're looking for real cards go to this place up on 34 in Aberdeen" he retorts. "Speak to my buddy Bob"

Damn that random man and his enabling ways. Damn him. Without his interference I could have just bought my crappy cards and been done with it in a few days. But no. He sends me to
a baseball card Mecca. I walk in and introduce myself to the sports dept. manager and tell him of my plight. He introduces me to the wonderful world of '10 Bowman. lol.

It turns out, that in my 13 or so year sabbatical from even looking at cards, that a lot had changed. Gone were Donruss, Fleer and Score. Replaced by Bowman who I thought went out of business sometime in the early '50s and Topps. And not just plain old Topps. 897 varieties of Topps in every color of the rainbow. Old looking Topps. New looking Topps. More Topps than you could shake a stick at. I asked him what was up with all of the Topps and he explained how they were pretty much it anymore. I asked what was up with the Bowman and he let me in on all of the details and showed me some of the set and the inserts.

"Oooooh, shiny!" is what the little voice in my head exclaimed. "I'll take 6 of the Bowman and some of those and some of those and a couple of those" Grrrrrrrrrrrr I replied to the little voice.
Grrrrrrrrrrrr indeed.

A few weeks and countless packs and visits to feebay later here I stand. I've decided to stick with the cards but in a more controlled way. No more just buying cards to buy them. No more shopping 'til all hours of the night online. I've come to the conclusion that I really like the '10 Bowman purple refractors and that they will be a nice little subset to collect. To hell with it, I'm trying to put together ALL of the '10 Bowmans sets up to the purple. Maybe even the blue refs if the purple prove to be "too easy". lol.