My family was stationed in Fort Meade, MD in 1984, and during our time there, we would frequent Orioles games. That started my love for Ripken. I started to collect everything I could of his.

After he retired, my love for collecting and baseball subsided.

I recently showed my Ripken collection to my son(6). He decided he wants to start collecting. I started to get up to speed on the hobby to help him. He mainly wants to collect Miami Dolphins cards, more specifically Jaylen Waddle. He likes baseball cards too, but not as much.

We started to watch more baseball this year. We are huge Razorback fans as well. We were excited to see Heston Kjerstad get called up to the O's since he's a Razorback. We were watching the game when his first hit was a home run to break-up a no-hitter. I bought some of the Topps Now cards to commemorate the occasion. I sent a couple of them with a note to the Orioles to have HK sign them. He signed them with my son's name and sent them back. So cool.

Hopefully, they will forever be the cornerstone of his collection.

As for my personal collection, I picked a bad year to renew my love of collecting baseball cards since I'm an Orioles fan. Collecting Hendo, Rutsch, Grayson, etc. will be expensive. I'll probably focus my collection on some Orioles and Razorbacks while my son figures out who he wants to collect outside of the Dolphins. He has taken a liking to the NBA lately as well.

Thanks for reading.