Bid Board Pickup - An Auto of the Mad Hungarian

While my collecting interests are fairly broad they are also fairly well defined.  I collect any and all SF Giants and USC Football Trojans.  I have quite a few player collections (Willie McCovey, Vida Blue, Rickey Henderson, Reggie Jackson, Dave Winfield, Ben Petrick, Dave Parker as a Pirate, Chris Webber, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Roger Craig 49er version, Dwight Clark).  I collect new sets and go after at least the flagship sets each year and other sets sporadically that I seem to enjoy.  I collect vintage Topps sets, hoping to complete a run from 1970 to 1972 to complete the run since the year I was conceived.  I also collect HOF Autos.

One great thing joining the blogging community has done for my collection is also broadened my collection into picking up cards that don't necessarily "fit" but that I just think are cool.  I can recall trading some cards on the message boards that I really liked while thinking they just don't fit into my collection.  Times have changed and this recent pickup is a perfect example.

I picked up this autographed version of Al Hrabosky's 1978 Topps card for a dollar off the bid board at my LCS.  I remember hearing stories about Hrabosky as a kid. I don't know if it was stories from the Game of the Week, Baseball Bunch or some other TV show or just articles I read in Sporting News or Baseball Digest but I remember always being a fan. I am sure his cool nickname of the Mad Hungarian humored me as a kid and all the stories made him out to be a great baseball character.

This card doesn't "fit" into any specific area of my collection but it will be a treasured card and part of my collection forever.  The broadening of my collecting spectrum is another reason I am thankful for this blogging community.