Saturday, December 6, 2025

Get Into Position

I'm going to skip a day on the Topps Holiday Advent calendar, You'll see why in my double post tomorrow. 


I have some blog news for you. This series, revealing a small pack of cards every day? It's a warmup. 

Another blog series is coming soon. Something similar to my All-Time Teams posts, with an element of Sports Card Tour. 

At first, I didn't want to publish it. It's going to require a lot of work, and my free time is much more limited. Fewer folks are reading this blog now than they were when my other series launched. That's totally understandable.


I dont think it will be a daily series. Maybe 2x a week, on specific days if I can. But it's coming...

In early 2026 The Collector will launch a new blog series, counting down the all-time greatest players at each position in the four major North American Men's pro sports - baseball, football, basketball...


...and Pokemon. 


I had the idea one day while thinking to myself where Nikola Jokic ranks among the NBA's greatest centers of all-time. Is he ahead of Patrick Ewing? David Robinson? Shaq?


Back when Craig Kilborn hosted the Daily Show, he asked his guests Five Questions. One question he had for Snoop Dogg was "who is the greatest small forward in NBA history?" Snoop incorrectly answered Dr. J, and was about to jump out of his chair and strangle Craiggers when he said the answer was Larry Bird. 

Guys... guys... you're both wrong!


There will be some callbacks to the Top 100 Players Not In The Hall of Fame list. I've mentioned an affinity for catchers in my card collection before, but second basemen will be particularly intriguing here. 

Football will be a bit tricky. I'm not sure what to do about offensive linemen or kickers, since they have so few cards and it's harder to rank the top tackles, guards, and centers by position when they have no stats. I might make one combo post for linemen and another long post for special teamers. We'll see.


Finally, the fourth sport. I was kidding about Pokemon - that was a callback to Arena club.

Nope! I will watch the World Cup but I do not know nearly enough soccer to rank players by position. 

You know what it is.
 


Which one of these legends will rank as my all time #1 goalie? 


None of the above. It's Duncan the Walrus, duh. 

Spotlighting the greatest players by position will also help boost my collection. In each post I will show off my best card of each player - which will reveal to me where I need to upgrade. 


I'll start those posts in early 2026. Back to the Topps Advent calendar tomorrow.



Thanks for reading!



~


4 comments:

  1. Yay! NEW SERIES NEW SERIES NEW SERIES! I've really enjoyed the ones you've previously done and this sounds fun too.

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  2. I'm super stoked for this new series. I love sports rankings of any kind. I understand not including Pokemon. But if you want to do something non-sports... how about Star Wars? You could rank droids, bounty hunters, jedi, etc.

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  3. You're not actually looking for an answer but Patrick Roy.

    Looking forward to all the new series!

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  4. Your series posts are always well researched and well written! Looking forward to it!

    ReplyDelete

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