One player collection I don't add to often enough is my Josh Reddick PC. He hasn't been with an MLB team since 2021, and I reckon that means he's retired now. He spent most of his career in the AL West, with Oakland and Houston, although he started out in Boston and had a couple of brief stints in the NL West with the Dodgers and Diamondbacks. He didn't put up huge numbers for the most part, but seemed to be a locker room and fan favorite. His cards are one of the reasons I have considered leaving collecting, and also one of the reasons I am stubbornly clinging on to my collection.
This printing plate from 2015 Topps Finest recently popped up on eBay. Even at $20 it was probably overpriced, but how often does a 1/1 pop up for a guy you collect? I decided I needed to have it, and so I hit the Buy It Now after a few days of watching it. One eBay trick is to add something to your watch list, and often within a few days later you'll get an offer from the seller for a discount. The risk, especially with a 1/1 card, is that someone else will pay full asking price while you're waiting for a bargain. That's why I eventually jumped on this card.
Why have Josh Reddick's cards nearly pushed me out of the hobby? I happen to own the 2013 Topps Chrome Superfractor of Reddick's card, as part of my 2013 Topps Josh Reddick Super Rainbow. Topps used the same great image of Reddick across Topps and Topps Chrome that year, and I was able to collect nearly every variation of the card across three products. There is another collector out there who wants the Superfractor, and he hounds me on Twitter about it pretty frequently. I don't want to sell or trade the cornerstone of one of my crowning collection achievements, so I ignore the advances, but as a guy with social anxiety it stresses me out to hear from that guy.
I know it must be frustrating for him to know where that big card is and to be unable to get it, but I also want it for my collection and there's only one copy to go around. Anyway, any time I get a new rare Reddick card for my collection it stresses me out a bit because I know I'm going to hear from that guy, and the stress of it is almost enough to make me quit this hobby. The other part of me is stubborn enough that I want to gather all of the rare Josh Reddick cards I can out of spite, and that's not exactly healthy either. I guess I could block the guy, but that feels like confrontation and escalation. I don't really want to make enemies in this hobby. It's a lot nicer to make friends and enjoy sharing my little pieces of cardboard with like-minded individuals.
