I can take him or leave him...

We all have players we like. Some of us have players we actively dislike.  And I would think that most of us have players that we are just ambivalent about.  Maybe we know they are a good player, but we don't follow their team.  Maybe they beat your team with a walk off.  Or maybe we just don't know a lot about them.

I look through my keepers and see that I have a number of players that I only have a couple of cards of.  I am pretty sure they are good, and really, that's all it usually takes for me to put a decent number of keepers in my collection.

However, lately I have been reading several posts both on card blogs and regular baseball blogs.  These posts were lauding the careers or accomplishments of baseball players that I didn't really have a strong feeling about.  And I found myself being persuaded.  An example is this one about Adrian Beltre.  I never disliked Beltre, but never had a strong affinity for him either.  But the article definitely made me feel like I wanted more Beltres in my collection.  I went through my non-keepers and added 2 right off the bat.  And if I see nice Beltres in the future, I will add those too.  I didn't turn into a Beltre collector or anything, but I definitely feel like my collecting horizons were expanded, and I liked that feeling! A couple of others that I have recently been reminded of by a blog are Andruw Jones and Scott Rolen.

Go Adrian!

So here is what I am hoping.  Below I will make a list of players who I know are pretty good.  Maybe not Hall of Famers, but good players.  And these players are some that I could take or leave.  I'd certainly put their RC in my collection, or a beautiful colorful insert or die cut, but maybe not a lot of other cards.

I want you to talk me into loving these guys!!  Here's how it works.  You don't just comment that this one guy was awesome and why would I not love him.  Nope, here's where I get a little crazy.  I want you to guest post on this blog about the player you are passionate about.  You write the post and provide any images you want and send them to me.  I will put your work into a post and add my response at the end of it.

Is it presumptuous of me to ask you to write my blog for me?  Yes.  Will that stop me?  No.  I'm not forcing anyone!  But I am hoping that you will find a player you love and give it a go!  I don't plan on posting these more than once a week, so if I happen to get a good response, your post might have to wait a while.

Here are the players available.  If you want to claim one, either email me (my email is available in my blogger profile) or comment on this post.  I will try to mark the players who have been claimed.

Lots of these players are current guys, who, I am ashamed to say, I have been kind of ignoring in favor of the past.  I'd like to remedy that though!

Jose Altuve
James Shields
David Price
Manny Machado
Fergie Jenkins - taken
Cole Hamels
Alan Trammel
Don Sutton - taken
Roy Halladay
Andrew McCutchen
Chris Sale - taken
Carlos Beltran
Barry Larkin
Mike Mussina
Matt Holliday
George Springer
Gary Sanchez
Freddie Freeman
Nolan Arenado
Charlie Blackmon

And hey, if you have a player not on this list that you want to spotlight to drum up some love in the hobby for, feel free to suggest it to me!  Any method of making me love your player is acceptable, laud their accomplishments, talk about their uniqueness, show cool baseball cards of them, I don't care!