In Case You Didn't Get Your Fill of Jeter Last Week...

If you watched the MLB All-Star Game last week, you might have heard a word or two about this guy Derek Jeter.  He plays shortstop for the Yankees, apparently.  I guess he's retiring after this season or something.  Oh, and Adam Wainwright served him up a couple of meatballs at the beginning of the game, so if the Cardinals lose the Series in 7 this year you can blame him for allowing Derek Jeter to get a double and thus losing home field advantage for the NL.

Anyway, I may be a Red Sox fan but I don't discriminate against the Yankees when it comes to my collection.  In fact, as a fan of baseball I can appreciate that they are one of, if not the, most significant franchises in baseball history.  I decided that after all these years watching him play (pretty frequently too, as a fan of another AL East team), it was high time to add a Jeter rookie card to my collection.  Here's what I ended up with:

I'm not even sure if this qualifies as a rookie, as it's from the 1994 set, and he had numerous cards issued in '93.  I can tell you that it features a young, fresh-faced Jeter in a classic baseball pose, indicates that he's a top prospect, and was issued long before he ever appeared in an MLB game.  That counts as a rookie in my book.  Throw in the fact that my copy is an "Electric Diamond" parallel and I couldn't resist picking this one up.

This card is a shining example of why I'll probably never finish half of my card-related collections/projects.  If I had unlimited time and were to list out in chronological order every single card I would want to own, this guy would probably come in somewhere around number 8,479.  Yet I went out of my way to spend $3.01 of my monthly hobby budget on it.  At least I got free shipping.  Besides, I think keeping things varied is what keeps me interested in the hobby and coming back for more year after year.

So, I gladly welcome this card of Red Sox nemesis Derek Jeter to my collection.  He's been scanned in, put in a toploader, and is now sitting in a monster box alongside my Nomar Garciaparra rookies!