Some discombobulated card show digging

What I've noticed is that I don't have an idea what is going to catch my eye at one table - where there is a certain lack of focus when it comes going through rows and rows of cards.

This doesn't mean there isn't satisfaction in my keepers - but perhaps I wonder if my purchases mean anything after the fact or any of number of cards jumbled together end of being misfit toys in my collection?

I kind of feel like I'm in my own little world when it comes to standing at a table and seeing what cards may have enough eye appeal - so I feel like there is plan and I'm just seeing what may compel me to flag cards I entertain taking home.

If nothing else, I like a more old school vibe, so I try to salvage loose cards that may not be the latest and greatest - but binder material that may add some diversity to the types of cards I may have in plastic pages.

Harold Baines gets unfairly panned as an undeserving Hall of Famer, but I wanted his 1981 Topps rookie card as a centerpiece to the loose cards I plan to display in a binder - it maybe a case where I actually still have to give him his proper due and make page for him.

I found a 1992 Donruss The Rookies Phenoms Tim Salmon insert card I'm sort of familiar with, but never really had in-hand - go figure it's been at least 30 years, but it's still fun finding the occasional prospect / rookie era cards for the Angels franchise Hall of Famer.

A rookie year parallel of Roy Halladay and another minor league card of Orel Hershiser are keepers as a little more different than the typical cards I'd end up with - while neither might be top tier guys in my book, they are decade stars, so I do collect them to a certain extent.

I'm indifferent to slabbed cards because it's $$$ impractical to send in cards myself, but generally prefer graded singles compared to raw cards when available - I already had a graded 1986 Donruss Jose Canseco rookie card in my collection, so I was only picking up a 1992 Fleer Update Jeff Kent rookie card, along with the loose cards.

I presented my cards to the seller without the Canseco and after getting a half off discount [for at least the loose cards] and $5 off the sticker price on the graded Kent rookie - I figured why not add the Canseco as well, where it was a totally junk wax era thing to covet that card at one point.

Even if the era is ancient history, there maybe something about coming back from a card show - knowing I brought back the rookie card of one of the brightest, controversial superstars of the times.

I don't know if a Jeff Kent rookie is particular unique, but I may have seen an ungraded copy in a random box and passed over it during a card show trip last year - it sort of became a scratch the itch card and I wanted to pick up one just because it's from a seemingly mythical junk wax era release.

Even if it's not really the case after the fact, I associate the Fleer Update set as being harder to find - a set I never got to see ever, though I was able to pick up a copy of the key rookie [Mike Piazza] years ago after Piazza retired but before the Hall of Fame called.

Kent has a Hall of Fame case but he wasn't the friendliest guy and is probably seen as strictly an accumulator who hit all these home runs as a second baseman - rather than be seen as generally this all-around talent who was a star from day one.

1986 Donruss Jose Canseco RC #39

If nothing else, this pickup allows me to have a copy of one the best rookies in the hobby, circa 1991 - I think about building up a collection of the hottest cards whose values have come and gone, but I'd be once proud to show off as young collector.

In real life, my youth is ancient history and I don’t know if can find others anywhere who might care - when I dig around and look for occasional baseball card 'war' stories on social media, forums or blogs mentioning this card in particular, I’ll pat myself on the back for having a nostalgic status symbol from way back when.’

As it stands, Canseco is a buffoon, a shyster and a Twitter troll - maybe long declared irrelevant, I did enjoy parts from his two books where [regardless of where one stands as far as Canseco 'ratting out' his old teammates, friends and frenemies] he exposed how the raw the Steroid Era was.

He said he wouldn’t have made the big leagues without PEDs but he had some staying power - maybe for three or four years, he might have been Mike Trout with ‘bite,’ a 5-tool player with power and speed as his prominent attributes.

Canseco was always the bad boy jock, but had he cultivated a little more of a clean cut image and a bit more discreet about his indiscretions - he might be a borderline HOFer with his numbers.

Because they were valuable commodities, I don’t know if I seriously chased after any one particular Canseco rookie era card - I still remember the friend whose house I used to go to having the 1986 Donruss Rookies as a likely centerpiece card of his collection.

Maybe in one of the first times, I splurged on a handful of singles at a card shop, I picked up Canseco's 1987 Topps - in the mid 1990s, I might have had a couple of Canseco's cards from the 1986 Donruss Highlights boxed set.

It maybe a little weird looking back, but a 1991 Score Dream Team Canseco was a card I wanted badly - I don’t think it ever was as popular as the Bo Jackson Dream Team subset card from 1990, but for a while, it was a notable card on its own.

Canseco was the ‘it’ player in MLB and he was posed swinging a bat topless by a notable fashion photographer - probably through means I’m not proud of, I might remember pulling the card off loose packs from the local supermarket.

Years later, I remember getting autographs at the ballpark in 1999 and Canseco came out of the front after a game - I must have been going batty when I spotted him and rushed to have him sign a couple of the Beckett magazines I must have bought at a card show.

He scribbled on them dismissively, but here I was seeing one the biggest stars of my childhood in the flesh - I tried asking him for a photo and he said, 'no' but I may still have it somewhere where I got the worst picture of me and him 'together' as he's walking.

1986 Donruss Fred McGriff RC #28

This may not be a significant purchase because there are too many of them - but for my Top 50 common PC, I wanted a rookie of McGriff to group with two certified autograph cards I've picked up over the years.

Here is Sports Illustrated's in-depth look at McGriff's career - the movement for once borderline HOF guys like Bert Blyleven and Tim Raines were championed by numbers guys, but because McGriff falls quite short of the advanced metrics standards for first baseman, he isn't getting the same 'after the fact' support.

While the numbers don't lie, I do think it’s time McGriff gets a serious bump for induction into the Hall of Fame - unlike other sluggers, McGriff numbers never really experienced a power surge through the mid 1990s, yet he still hit 493 home runs as a consistent, metronomic slugger.