First Post - Intro

As my first post, I just wanted to introduce myself and give a little of my background. My name is Robert Menard and I currently reside in Minnesota in a suburb of the Twin Cities. The purpose of this blog is to chronicle my passion for collectibles related to the Chicago Cubs.

I was raised a Cubs fan by my dad who apparently didn’t care much about my emotional well being. Either that, or he just needed someone to share the misery. Either way, I ended up in a lifelong love affair with a baseball team.

I picked up the collecting bug when I was growing up. I remember my first pack of cards. It was pack of 1980 Topps and I remember that there was a Jim Rice in the pack. I was 7 years old and I was hooked. Grabbing packs at the checkout counter became a staple of our trips to the grocery store. Of course, as I got older my interest in collecting evolved beyond just grabbing some packs at the checkout. In 1989, I began to focus in on a certain area of collecting. The Cubs.

My collecting has continued to evolve over time, but the central focus is still the Cubs and pretty much only the Cubs. At this point, my purchases tend to focus on base set cards from current issues and pre-war vintage Cubs stuff. So I don’t buy a whole lot of the shiny new game used and auto stuff that dominate the hobby these days. But I do enjoy following all of the new issues that come out and I do occasionally buy something shiny and new if it catches my eye.

This blog is intended to be much more of an online diary for my own personal catharsis than it is intended to be an entertainment tool. But hopefully some of my insights and some of what I have to say will prove useful in some way. Comments and suggestions are always welcome. Thanks for reading!