General Forum

hmmm...
A collection consisting solely of all professional athletes with felonies would be kinda interesting, albeit cynical.  
I wonder how the collector would organize them ;)  

I wouldn't go for that collection, but my friend Steve and I (probably like many) used to come up with the All-Rehab Team, which consisted any baseball players who'd gotten in trouble with the law in any way. This was in the 80s and news spread a bit more slowly, but we had one helluva team, filled with all-stars. I don't remember much, but Dave Stewart and Fergie Jenkins topped our rotation....

This has been an interesting read so far, gang. Thanks for the thoughtful responses.

v3 

 I don't buy individual cards but if I did I would avoid all the PED users. All sports.   But they really ruined the stats for traditionalists.    Also,  I would never buy a Bud Selig.   He enabled all the PED users for the almighty buck and the clown gets into the HOF.   The man is a hypocrite.

I collect because I am trying to document history. That includes the good and bad. You can't tell the story of WWII without Hitler. You can't tell the story of baseball without the PED era. If it existed, it needs to be documented.

Good point Billy. As a vintage set collector, I see cards as a historical snapshot of the time that they were produced. Ignoring the bad & the ugly would not be an accurate representation of the times (or sport).

Exactly Billy.  History does not change if you ignore it, nor does it change if you try to remove memories/memorabilia of what happened.  Anything done by the individual player, even if it was criminal,  does not remove the fact that they were still one of the few that had the abilities to reach the highest level of competition.  I collect players, not people!!!

The question was "which cards would you not buy for moral reasons", not about documenting anything.   The PED usage has been documented up the wazoo on various website.     Also, by the price of McGwire's and Bonds RCs, I believe a lot of people feel as I do about owning a card  where there are questionable morals involved, such as blatant cheating.

I'm not so sure that the RCs of McGwire, Bonds, and Sosa are held back more by their PED use than just the era of their RCs. Let's face it, Barry Larkin is in the HOF, he has never been suspected of drug use, and his RCs are selling for around the same. Even Frank Thomas RCs, being they are in 1990, do not sell for a lot considering what he accomplished.

As for my personal feelings about the collecting of certain individuals, what they have done off the field (or ice) does not deter me from seeking cards of them celebrating what they have done on the field (or ice). I collect sets, and if a Craig MacTavish or Dany Heatley card was the last one I needed for a set, I'd be looking to get it. Same for Bonds, McGwire, Clemens, Sosa, Palmeiro, Rose, etc. I still purchase cords of Pete Rose with the Phillies for my team collection. (I also still have my player collections of all the aforementioned players - except Palmeiro, I dropped him a long time ago, but kept the others. Why? I never thought he was that good of a player. So what keeps me from dropping the McGwires back into the commons boxes? <shrug> Probably because I have a large collection of stuff from Star Co.)

And yes, I still collect Dale Murphy because he's a nice guy!

And for those who are concerned about documentation, don't forget to document that Sosa used a corked bat in addition to the PEDs.

If I'm collecting a set, I don't skip cards. Even if I don't like a player, person, or event that is depicted on the card. Not buying a card from a set for moral reasons is ignoring the history contained within the set. 

The card set is free of judgement or moral valuation....its just a record history.

My statement is from a set collector's perspective. I don't collect individuals. I wish more players were objectionable to individual player collectors. Then I could afford a Namath or Unitas RC....too bad they didn't use steriods