Saturday, February 28, 2015

Do You Have a 2nd Favorite Team - I Guess I Do

Many of the sports card blogs around the blogosphere have a team centered focus, it seems we all have a favorite team.  Mine obviously focuses on my love of the Giants and while I do collect other things and share them here, I doubt anyone would question where my loyalties stand.

My boys are 10 and 7 and are always asking me all sorts of sports related questions.  Every game we turn on the television is followed by a "Who do you want to win?" to which I usually reply "I don't care, I just want to see a good game" unless one of my favorite teams is playing (or one of my least favorite).  My 10 year old spent the entire Super Bowl asking me questions about the rules of the game.  This excited me (that he is starting to take more of an interest in sports) and annoyed me (can I please just watch and listen to the game) at the same time but the excitement won out and I patiently answered every question.

I bought each boy a pack of 2015 Topps recently and as they were going through the packs they asked who my second favorite baseball team after the Giants was.  They have asked before and I always say I am all in for the Giants.  However, I was thinking through my collection, my player collections and a couple new random pick ups and have decided that I do have a 2nd favorite team - the Oakland A's.

I grew up near Sacramento, CA and our local paper The Sacramento Bee had fairly equal coverage between the A's and Giants.  There were years where each team had better TV contracts and we could watch more of one team over the other.  I attended games at both Candlestick and the Oakland Coliseum. When they played each other in 1989 my extreme disappointment in the outcome made it clear who my #1 is.  But thinking through my card collection, the A's seem to come out as #2.

First off, my player collections come to mind.  These are all recently acquired Rickey Henderson cards:


 Rickey played for a bunch of different teams but is most remembered as a member of the A's and my affinity for him definitely started when he was a member of the Oakland club.  BTW, the Stadium Club Legends die cut inserts are amazing and I have been considering going after the entire insert set since I cracked my first box of Stadium Club.

Another player I collect started his career in Oakland and had a couple stints on the team:
This great looking relic card shows Reggie Jackson in his early years with the A's.  I remember Reggie more for his time with the Yankees but clearly recall my dad sharing stories about his time with the A's while watching the 1977 & 78 World Series games.  I also enjoy his cards from his Oakland period over any other uniform.

These two player collections alone didn't result in the conclusion that the A's are my second favorite team but these last 2 cards I will share put it over the top:
I was drawn to this relic from 2005 Topps Pristine Legends for its 1983 inspired design and the presence of HOFer Dennis Eckersley in his Oakland uniform.  I will casually keep my eyes open for other cards from this set as I really like the design, but this Eck card has a permanent place in my collection.

This is the card that sealed the deal. When I started watching box breaks of 2014 Topps Tribute and saw cards of Dave Stewart with the A's popping up, I knew I needed one in my collection.  I may never add another Stewart card to my collection but I am really happy to have this beauty.  This card has a great design, this Yellow version parallel matches great with the A's colors and takes me right back to watching Stewart's stretch of years where he was one of the most feared and dominant pitchers of the game.

Time to tell my boys that upon review of my card collection, I do have a 2nd favorite team.

4 comments:

  1. I find it a little funny how a lot of Giants fans say they like the Athletics, but a lot of Athletics fans don't seem to like the Giants. Then again I live on another coast so I'm not sure what life is like really in the Bay Area, but this is what I've been told by people who live there.

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  3. I can relate. My oldest son will turn 9 at the end of the month and my middle son is 7. They always ask me who I want to win when we watch a game and I always say the same thing as you about wanting a good game. My oldest also spent the Super Bowl asking question after question. They've never asked me about a second favorite team though. I was a Dodgers fan before the D-Backs arrived in 1998, but given their rivalry they aren't an option. So I guess I don't have a second favorite team, at least yet.

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