The High Cost of Impatience

Somewhere along the line I've mentioned that I collect a card of each player I own on my fantasy football team. Since this is my 33rd season in the league I've had more than a few players come and go. From Tommy Kramer to Christian Ponder. I keep the cards in a huge binder which currently contains 73 nine-pocket sheets holding more than 650 cards. 

All of which brings me to William Powell of the Arizona Cardinals. That's him in the two cards above, one a homemade card 'crafted' by me in MSPublisher, the other a blank backed  'shiny' unauthorized card that probably violated eBay's TOS four different ways. I bought it anyway. Spent several bucks on it, too. And paid shipping.

Why do I have these cards? Because I simply cannot stand to own a player and not have him represented in my binder. I picked up the rather obscure William Powell two weeks ago as a possible bye week fill-in. (I have Arian Foster and Ray Rice off this week.) But being that he has no history in the NFL and wasn't a huge prospect coming out of Kansas State there are no cards of him anywhere. 

So since I couldn't wait for an update set later this year (does Topps do one of those for football?) I decided to use my horribly rudimentary graphics skills and make one. The result is the card at the top of the post. I have about eight homebrews in my binder due to the fact that I've picked up a few players along the way who never had one issued in any form.

As my homemades go it's not the best and not the worst. And it's not as crappy as it appears when it comes to the borders. My scanner rejected this one and sliced off the left side. I even do card backs. They are just as lousy as the fronts, maybe worse.

The day after I made this one I found the shiny gold Powell card on eBay. The seller made no bones about the fact that it wasn't authorized in any way. But in my hierarchy of desired cards a 'professional' bootleg ranks a notch above one of my own creations so I bit.

All because it actually bothers me to not have a card of a "Baltimore Flyer'. Pretty sad actually.