This year...

OK, almost 3 weeks into the new year, its time to unveil my yearly project.  This is the third year I have had a yearly project.  In 2012 it was the Refractor project where I attempted to accumulate 1000 refractors.  I made it too!  In 2013, it was the Steroids project where I built a baseball card tribute to the steroids era.  I fell a little short on the base card component of that one, but I will keep plugging away until it is finished.

So 2014...

I liked the feel of the Steroids project.  It documented history.  Maybe a not so nice part of history, but it was important and I'm happy to have the (almost) completed project.  It might be repetitive, but this year I want to document history again, this time an undertold and very important story.  I want to document the impact of Latin players on Major League Baseball.

Last year, I knew what cards I wanted from the start.  This year, a large part of the project will be determining which players should be included and then accumulating their cards.

Last year, I knew how I wanted to organize and display the project.  This year, I am not so sure, but I will be asking for your help on ideas.

So the project will consist of the following steps:

1. Determine what countries to document.  I want this to include all of the Latin American countries that have contributed significant numbers of players.  What is a 'significant number'?  I don't know yet, but I think it will boil down to whether the country has enough players with cards to use in the project.

2. Determine who to gather cards of from each country.  For countries like Peurto Rico, this should be mostly stars.  For a country that has only sent 25 players to MLB, it might just be a few of the more significant.  Players will be picked for baseball skills and cultural contributions.

3. Determine how to organize and display the project.  Right now the only ideas are 1. in a binder and 2. like a science project with a large board.  The board would have pictures of countries and then I'd put the cards of the players around the country they came from.

Maybe there will be more steps, I don't know!

I do know that I want this to document the baseball contributions of Latin players as well as history.  I will want cards of vintage players probably more than current guys.  Yoenis Cespedes and Aroldis Chapman are great players, but probably won't make the short list from Cuba.  But we will see.

Either way, I hope to learn something and have fun along the way.  Look for a post asking for your help in the next couple of days.