On the topic of my infamous mini-collection

I picked up a 1975 Topps Mini John Milner #264 off the quarter bin scrap heap - it's kind of pretty looking, but an otherwise nondescript piece of cardboard of a rank and file ballplayer who made his MLB debut in the early 1970s and played through 1982.

Stumbling upon Milner on the internets, I learned he testified about his drug use in the Pittsburgh drug trials of the mid 1980s - Milner also threw some shade at icon Willie Mays for having amphetamines ["red juice'] at his disposal.

I didn't know much about Milner, but after everything was said and done, maybe Milner was more of a sympathetic figure who just got up in the times - but I had to add his card to my rather dubious mini-collections.

Maybe there hasn’t been as much emphasis to seek out cards of guys who’ve done some bonehead things [either on the field or off the field] - since I don’t want to glorify or endorse bad behavior, especially the more serious, morbid and fatal offenses like sexual harassment, rape and murder.

However, pro athletes are my ‘celebrities’ to 'gossip about' and this mini-collection was probably inspired by Jim Rome’s radio show [from the early 1990s through early 2000s] - when he’d mock all sorts of pro athletes [he loved to ridicule and pick apart the black eyes] who messed up.

With Twitter and other social media, everyone has to insert themselves into someone’s controversy / drama and it’s kind of depressing reading all the instantaneous hot takes - it’s all overkill and it’s not shocking anymore when professional athletes are arrested, sharing pizza in a hotel room, caught for a DUI, shoplifting, blackballed for a number of things, et al.

Cards of presumed offenders will still be added, but there is the caveat that it’s all negative and while I don’t want to sugarcoat things - having a card for ‘ha, ha’ value doesn’t really put my collection in a positive light or make it particularly better [even if it’s all kind of superficial at best].