The Wild World of Internet Card Collecting

 The blogosphere, and the internet card community in general, is a bit of a mystery to me.  I'm always interested to see the representation of online communities, and how their representation may or may not mirror the "real world" composition of those groups.  See the academic in me just won't stop.

One thing that has really stood out during my short time blogging is that the number of team blogs is heavily concentrated on a couple teams.  Going by the fantastic sportscard blogroll, I counted 5 or 6 Dodger blogs, a few Cubs, and multiple Padres blogs all within the first few listed.  Meanwhile, I know of only one other Pirate-related blog (the wonderful piratestreasureroom), and have yet to see any related to the Steelers or Penguins.

Now I can understand that there may not be an overwhelming number of collectors for some markets like the Diamondbacks or Nationals, or that the Columbus BlueJackets might not be a popular blog topic.  But it certainly surprises me to see little to no representation for huge markets like the Mets and Yankees, while the small market Padres are well represented.

The same phenomena plays out in the forum crowds, where I have only encountered a handful of Pirate collectors, while Twins fans seem to be dozens deep.  I'm also a part of a team collector group where we share our non-team cards with team collectors who will give them a good home.  And while we have multiple collectors for some teams, teams like the Tigers and Diamondbacks have been unfilled for years.

 In the grand scheme of things, it probably doesn't matter.  I can't blame anyone for not having the addiction to cardboard to post daily, or even weekly, about their collection on the internet.  I love blogging, and have met some people who I genuinely consider friends through internet card collecting.  But I'm sure spending less time on cards certainly wouldn't be a bad thing. 

I just wonder what causes some aspects of the hobby to be so heavily represented, while others are almost invisible.

Oh, and yes.  Cards.  These are all recent TTM returns, though I already had signatures of both players.  The Giusti is trumped by the fantastic Colt .45's cards I got signed by him, which you can check out over at Returned to Sender.  Why does Steve Kemp always look so angry?