Kaline Versus Cobb: Making the Player Collection Official

So, I'm finally following up on my posts about my Cobb conflict. For many of you collectors, and especially you Dodgers guys, you don't have such worries about the questionable characters of the legends from your team. Us Tigers guys, we have Cobb to contend with. But we also have Kaline. And I'm grateful for that. This last year, I've been getting to work on my Kaline player collection, which has become somewhat respectable. And, from what I understand, Kaline was a pretty decent fellow. Let's examine the cardboard testimonials.

According to the back of his '55 Topps card, Kaline was one of those "Bonus Babies" going to the highest bidder straight out of high school. What's more dangerous than a high school kid with a huge wad of cash? But it wasn't pimp cups and  Cadillac tail fins for Kaline. This is what he did with his money:

As this 1992 Front Row cards says, Al used his $30,000 bonus and "gave it to his parents to pay off the mortgage, and to finance a much needed operation to save his mother's eye-sight." Now that's a pretty stand-up guy. I have heard that Kaline can be a grump when it comes to autos, but, hell, I think we can forgive him. At least he isn't strangling his fans like some Tigers legends.

So, to go along with this post, I'm officially breaking out the giant-sized scissors to open the Kaline player collection page. On the page I list all of the Kaline cards I currently have. If you have anything not on there, I'm interested in trading for it. I'm putting this on the right side of the blog, near the top, where I'm also now linking all my other player collections, and the lone set I'm working on, 2007 Bowman Heritage, which is finishing up at a snail's pace.

OK, back to the above Front Row card pictured above. As you likely noticed, there's a mysterious certificate of authenticity below the card. And why is that there, you ask.

Because I recently acquired my second Kaline autograph, from Carl Crawford Cards. He sent this along to even up a trade we made months ago. I sent him some Johnny Gomes autos and some other goodies, and he sent an awesome Kaline bat relic. I guess he figured that one relic wasn't enough to complete the trade, so he sent this. I was completely happy with the bat relic, but that just shows you what an awesome trader he is. But that's not all he sent this time around. He actually sent a whole slew of Kalines that he'd put in order of awesomeness, with this in the back.

Here's a few more he sent.

More autograph-grumping, stand-up guy Kaline cards.

And if a bunch of awesome modern Kalines and an auto weren't enough, some well-loved vintage.

This trade added enough weight to my Kaline player collection to be able to get the page going, so thanks, man. Awesome cards. If you have any Carl Crawfords or Johnny Gomes cards, be sure to check out Carl Crawford Cards and make him a nice trade offer.