Busying myself up with my cheat sheet leaderboards updates

Maybe a summer project is to get control of the bulk cards I hoard by players - to give me illusion I am still doing a thing, especially when some days are still relatively cooler than it will be in August.

I have collected mostly dollar and less binder material of various guys as a catch-all to give me some cheap thrills - I let what I call my update piles accumulate and see if I can update my main player piles once or twice a year.

I then dig up the main player piles which separated by 1970s and before debuts - 1980s debuts, 1990s debuts, 2000s debuts, 2010s debuts, 2020s debuts onward.

I try to thumb through my player piles one by one to add any number of cards - a thing I have started paying more attention to is weeding out or just accounting for dupes that may show, where the dupes can be pushed along elsewhere so I have as many different cards per player as possible.

I have my cheat sheet leaderboards standings that list my player totals for each decade - the cheat sheet part means having something to look at as quick reference of the leaderboards, which list the most cards I have for subjects and the least number, where seven cards is the random number that triggers inclusion to be added to the cheat sheet leaderboards collection at large.

A caveat is that these are merely cards accumulated from the past five or six years - there are cards I now considered archived stored in pages and binders.

My intent was to have 'books' for all these guys like might I may have seen the OG collectors do it, where you can appreciate the sheer quantity - but my player piles from the past five or six years have been merely squirreled away in various boxes, moved around and stored according to my last cheat sheet leaderboards updates.

Cheat sheet leaderboards

1970s and before [7/4/26] - New

Häagen-Dazs Vanilla Milk Chocolate Almond ice cream bars box 
Nolan Ryan - 193 cards + two dupes
George Brett - 138 cards - including six dupes
Pete Rose - 133 cards + 2 Bart Giamatti, with six dupes from 1985 Galasso Rose set
Rickey Henderson - 122 cards + three dupes

Häagen-Dazs Vanilla Milk Chocolate Almond ice cream bars box 
Willie Mays - 91 cards
Mickey Mantle - 86 cards + three dupes
Mike Schmidt - 79 cards + one dupe
Reggie Jackson - 77 cards + three dupes
Ted Williams - 75 cards - including six dupes
Babe Ruth - 73 cards including four dupes

Under Armour shoe box
1st row
Roberto Clemente - 58 cards
Hank Aaron - 54 cards
Jackie Robinson - 52 cards
Lou Gehrig - 49 cards
Dave Winfield - 45 cards
Joe DiMaggio - 42 cards
Carl Yastrzemski - 42 cards + one dupe
Bob Gibson - 41 cards + two dupes

2nd row
Robin Yount - 41 cards + one dupe
Johnny Bench - 40 cards + two dupes
Harmon Killebrew - 39 cards
Stan Musial - 39 cards
Ty Cobb - 35 cards + one dupe
Ernie Banks - 34 cards
Andre Dawson - 34 cards
Duke Snider - 34 cards + three dupes
Carlton Fisk - 31 cards
Willie McCovey - 30 cards
Paul Molitor - 30 cards

Middle row
Gary Carter - 29 cards + three dupes
Tom Seaver - 29 cards
Ozzie Smith - 29 cards
Honus Wagner - 29 cards
Satchel Paige - 28 cards
Roy Campanella - 27 cards
Dennis Eckersley - 27 cards

Mailer box
Bob Feller - 26 cards
Dale Murphy - 26 cards
Jim Rice - 26 cards + three dupes
Brooks Robinson - 26 cards + two dupes
Willie Stargell - 26 cards + one dupe
Alan Trammell - 26 cards
Lou Brock - 25 cards
Sandy Koufax - 25 cards
Rod Carew - 24 cards
Eddie Murray - 24 cards

Missoni shoe box
Juan Marichal - 22 cards
Roger Maris - 22 cards
Thurman Munson - 22 cards
Warren Spahn - 22 cards
Steve Carlton - 20 cards
Tim Raines - 20 cards
Larry Doby - 19 cards
Ferguson Jenkins - 19 cards, one cameo on 2022 Topps Heritage 1973 Topps Pat Corrales #542 50th Anniversary buyback
Joe Morgan - 19 cards
Dave Parker - 19 cards + one creased 
2001 Upper Deck Decade 1970's #167
Yogi Berra - 18 cards
Josh Gibson - 18 cards + two dupes
Steve Garvey - 17 cards
Al Kaline - 17 cards
Eddie Mathews - 17 cards
Phil Niekro - 17 cards
Frank Robinson - 17 cards
Billy Williams - 17 cards + one dupe
Catfish Hunter - 16 cards
Jack Morris - 16 cards + one dupe
Mel Ott - 15 cards
Don Sutton - 15 cards
Lou Whitaker - 15 cards
Tommy Lasorda - 14 cards + two dupes
Tony Perez - 13 cards + two dupes
Orlando Cepeda - 12 cards
Jim Palmer - 12 cards
Christy Mathewson - 11 cards

300-count box
Phil Rizzuto - 11 cards
Keith Hernandez - 10 cards
Sparky Anderson - nine cards
Rollie Fingers - nine cards
Goose Gossage - nine cards
Monte Irvin - nine cards
Ralph Kiner - nine cards
Pee Wee Reese - nine cards
Dick Allen - eight cards
Richie Ashburn - eight cards
Don Drysdale - eight cards
Hank Greenberg - eight cards
Joe Jackson - eight cards
Bill Mazeroski - eight cards
Hoyt Wilhelm - eight cards
Luis Aparicio - seven cards
Jimmie Foxx - seven cards
Gil Hodges - seven cards
Tony Oliva - seven cards
Ron Santo - seven cards

Digging through an MIA card show pile

This might be a 'I'm still here' post for whoever is reading - where I want to churn out blog posts on the regular and think about cards on a day-to-day basis, but maybe content to let things be, where collecting has become really a personal and solitary deal.

I've let this $30 card show pile sit around loose for the past four years and maybe my intent was to list the cards out in a Google Docs file - where I would have listed my purchases over the course of a couple of months at a time.

I am trying to be a little bit more proactive in picking up for myself, so these cards have to be sorted further - I took some photo ops in order to tie certain cards to a this stack purchase.

Maybe one of the hot cards then was a 2023 Topps Chrome Shohei Ohtani #17 - he was the presumptive MVP and Topps was buying base cards [and corresponding parallels] back from participating card shops, where you could get $20 store credit for the base card.

I wasn't clued into any of that buypack business, but may have wanted Ohtani's card anyway - now the card might be just another $5 and a whatever reminder of a guy that was once an Angel.

I also found what I assume is a 2018 Topps Opening Day Stadium Signatures Mike Trout Angels SS-MT - on social media, I occasionally see collector accounts who post a value box find, with the tag line / cliche, “this is why you dig.”

I’m pretty sure this Trout find falls under that category - but I thought it was just a cool Trout card with him signing autographs.

Sadly, as far as durability and production goes, the Trout of the mid 2010s is long gone - I didn't think he would have ever had a decline, but each year he gets hurt again is a reminder of the fragility of a playing career, notably for an all-timer.

Maybe the idea of trying to round up bulk cards of star players [like a Mookie Betts] ends up silly past a certain collection age - but maybe tied to idea I'm obligated to be on the perpetual bandwagon of anyone remotely good and hoard their cards for cheap.

Through 2026, maybe Betts isn't the same superstar player four or five years ago - but he's had an excellent [probable Hall of Fame] career and instrumental in World Series winning teams, notably with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Maybe the idea of trying to round up bulk cards of star players [like a Bobby Witt Jr.] at some point ends up being a way to cover my bases - where I want to be aware of the good young players, even if it just means grabbing their random cards to have them.

Through 2026, maybe Witt Jr. has just been a very good player at shortstop, not quite that step above superstar - now it looks like he got hurt and is going to miss some time.

I didn’t realize there was a 2021 Topps NPB Roki Sasaki #112 in the pile - I know I once bought a copy for $20 online at some point when he was really hyped up, but with his share of MLB cards out, and batting some growing pains, the card might be a $5 curiosity.

The Topps Silver Pack cards like the Mike Piazza end up pretty common coming out of bonus packs in Topps hobby and jumbo boxes - but I've made it a mission to make any 'decent' ones in the wild keepers if they end up being like a dollar or less.

When I was building up a pile at the card show, I didn't know how much it might cost per card - I usually stay away from unmarked boxes or bins, but I literally get lured in by the cheap stuff I assume isn't going to cost me much to start with.

Most of the time, the cards are not going to mean much - but they are more cards I make keepers, to sort them towards my hierarchy of interests, whether it's for my mini-collections, decade / binder stars material or for miscellaneous themes.