"wow, a lot of people who were born in the 80's and grew up in the early-to-mid 90's must feel really old now".
I didn't see too much of it TBH because my Twitter feed is largely New York Yankees centric. And just the day before was the Rule 5 protection deadline and during which the Yankees added pitching prospects Deivi Garcia and Luis Gil (among others) to the 40 man roster, both were born in 1999 and made many fans and even the people who cover the Yankees feel very old.
That said I'm pretty sure there must be someone who felt old realizing that Griffey turned the big 5-0. Every year we see Night Owl Cards try to rationalize how his favorite player Ron Cey is now in his early 70's, we all should have someone like that.
I guess.
See the weird thing about me is that my favorite player of all time is actually younger than me. Luis Torrens was born in 1996 while I was born a few years earlier. I'm not exactly at the feeling old stage as I'm perpetually at "Torrens is an accomplished major leaguer despite being two years younger than me while I'm still broke and dumb". Which I'd argue is worse but then again that's just me. By the time Torrens reaches an age that's supposed to make me feel old (let's just go with 50 again for example), I'll be older than him but also likely dead.
This is kind of the "down" part of not being into baseball until my late teens. I didn't grow up liking baseball, nor did I have much interest in the Yankees beyond a casual "oh yeah I guess they're my favorite". I didn't have boyhood idols. At least not in sports.
When I really got into this hobby there was a time where I tried seeing if that hole could be filled with players who were older than me and huge at the time. Actually just one player because way back in the day I used to have a Jose Bautista collection.
Unfortunately that didn't last long. I was coming in right in the midst of Joey Bats at the peak of his powers (2011), I was already behind on his Pittsburgh-era stuff, that time he was depicted as a Baltimore Oriole on Bowman Futures Game cards, and just a ton of Blue Jays cards and parallels from 2009 to 2011. I pulled out really quickly on this one.
The other players who're older than me that worked out a little bit better were Dellin Betances and Francisco Cervelli. Some long-time readers might recall that this blog even used to be called "Cervin' Up Cards".
I liked both well enough and even had a decent Dellin collection for a while, but I just couldn't get into it. By the time I was in the hobby both had had years worth of cards and development in the minor leaguers already under their belts. Their cards were more manageable obviously, but I just really didn't want to play catch-up, not even with them. The completionist in me just didn't like that I was years behind.
Thus we go back to Torrens. The one player collection that's stuck around. Why? Well namely because he's been the ideal player to collect for me. I've met him, I've seen him in action, and I've been on the Torrens train since the very early days. Not day one mind you since I wasn't exactly jumping up and down with joy that the Yankees signed him out of Venezuela in 2012, but just early on enough that I managed to get a lot of his cards in my possession (even the tougher ones) before he even reached high-A, and I am very pleased at where I am with his cards.
Note, that all describes Eric Jagielo who I was very fond of in the early goings, but I pulled out because his cards became too pricey for me. Of course they quickly became inexpensive, but still, I couldn't justify being a Jagielo supercollector like I could justify being a low-end Torrens collector. it proved to be the right call.
In the time since this blog's switched to "Torren' Up Cards", I've slowly but surely come to accept that my preference for prospects in of itself is going to lead to the players I really like being younger than me, and the few that are older than me will be intriguing to some degree (Alex Rodriguez, Hiroki Kuroda, Shigeru Sugishita, Masahiko Morino, Takuya Asao and Anthony Davis to name a few), but they'll never be that guy.
The Lost Collector has/had Ty Hensley and Clarke Schmidt, but they still also have Tino Martinez.
P-Town Tom has/had Dan Vogelbach and Rock Shoulders, but they still also have Ryne Sandberg (and Kerry Wood?).
I don't have that guy who is older than me, but I'm okay with that.
Because I still have these guys and I'm freed from the burden of having to feel old every time I learn that the newest top prospect was born in 20XX. I've already got players I like who were born after I was, the linearity of time is only going to keep that going and as long as I can keep getting autographs, I'm past the point of caring.
As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).
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