I am a long-time (back to the days of Kev & Scott) lurker and very infrequent poster. This will be by far my longest post ever. I moved away form Houston at 11. There is really nothing about me that would suggest my formative years were spent in Texas. Nothing except my connection to the Astros.
I think the connection for me was in part so strong because a boy growing up in Houston in the mid-80's who was named Glenn and played first base in little league had a pretty obvious target to idolize. NLCS Game 1 really solidified that. Anyway, to the point....
I started collecting baseball cards. I could actually walk to a local card shop on Braeswood -- my memory says it was something like RKTH Sports, but Google maps tells me there is now a JCC where i think that store used to be. Who knows how sharp my sense of direction as a 10 year old remains today, but the memories of cutting through someone's backyard to get to that store remain crystal clear. I was always more into cards than my neighborhood pals, Clay and Russel. But my best friend at school, David his passion matched mine and he even had a dad that collected and kept his old stuff. It was great, and that interest remained for a few years after i moved away - i guess until about the time i figured out what girls were. I'm not sure that was the reason, but seems like it may have been. My old collection, which wasn't half bad for a kid with no allowance got packed into boxes and stuck in the garage only to be ruined years later by a flood.
about 10 years ago a new friend mentioned he was into cards and took me to a shop. It was a whole new experience going to a card shop with an income. I decided it would be cool to have a small collection, and what if i focused only on the Astros. I made a few purchases and then forgot about it. And then my kids started being born. I dutifully wore my rainbow gut in the delivery room for all three so they would get imprinted - and it worked. Even here in North Carolina, my oldest, a 5 year old girl, is a major Astros fan. I thought again about the card collection but took no action. Then in August 2015, my third and final kid was born. A boy. And something clicked. This collection became important to me. I don't know if it was because now i had a boy - i don't think so since his big sister had already been into baseball for years. i think it was because i was done having kids and now i wanted to build some kind of legacy they could grow into with me.
I started voraciously collecting Astros cards. Card shows, card shops on all my travels, and then online as i realized that hard to find cards are really only found online. Online felt like cheating, but i was impatient. My rules are simple. 1 card of every Topps base set ever issued for the Astros/Colts. Don't get distracted by so many brands and so many varieties, keep it simple - same stuff i grew up with. I am please to say that today i completed that collection (well, up through present day anyway). I made a spreadsheet.
And the whole point of this post - if anyone has bothered to read this far, is to say that if anyone would like an excel file with every single Topps base set card ever produced with an Astros player on it, I am happy to share it. I also indulged a bit and included the rookie card for what i deem to be all the most significant Astros ever, even if they came up with a different club.
I gather there is some PM component to this website - though i have never used it. I guess send me a request there, or post a response here.
Also, quick note that this project taught me a fair amount about the organization before my time. And i came to appreciate quite a few of the handles on this site that i didn't know about before - props to Julio Gotay and friends.
