Thursday, March 11, 2021

Pablo Springs Eternal

Player collections come and go, wax and wane, surge and fall back - but there will always be Pablo Sandoval. Pablo Sandoval is to Card Hemorrhage as Tino Martinez is to The Lost Collector, as Dan Vogelbach is to Waiting 'Til Next Year.

I may dabble in Ichiro, Max Fried, even Heath Bell and others - but the guy whose cards I'll be chasing down til there are no more to chase is Mr. Pablo Sandoval, my favorite player of the 21st century (Tim Lincecum being a close second; maybe we go with Ichiro and Trout after that). I've haphazardly been adding his cards for about 18 months now, and it's a fairly solid collection but by no means anywhere near complete, not even the various base cards. 

I'm somewhat helped in this endeavor by the fact that I've yet to run across any other Pablo Sandoval player collectors.  I'm sure P-Town Tom feels the same way about his Vogelbach collection, and why he keeps scoring those 1/1s. If you happen to be a Sandoval collector, or know one, please get in touch. Sandoval was just beloved enough but just shy enough of superstar status that his cards don't command mega-premiums, so I can get relics and numbered things of his for decent prices. Some of those are scanned here.

Ideal situation? The Braves don't have room for Sandoval on their bench this spring and he gets released, setting him up for a third round with the Giants in 2021, and some October heroics again when they meet the Chicago White Sox in the 2021 World Series this Fall. Right?

Anyway, here are some of my recent Pablo pickups.










4 comments:

  1. I'm a fan of Panda. Hope he finds success in Atlanta this season.

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  2. Is it possible to give a short answer as to why he's your favorite modern player?

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    1. I think so. He came onto the team as a huge surprise and started to RAKE; he plays with total joy; he's a large-sized man with amazing reflexes and the ability to field like a guy who's 150 pounds; he helped the Giants win 3 World Series; he's struggled with adversity (his weight; some horrid slumps; living up to his Boston contract) and bounced back really well. I hope that was short enough!

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