General Forum

Just from a numbers standpoint, it's probably only even possible in baseball and maybe hockey.  A lot of players never get a major league card, so you're going to be forced to go to minor league sets or regional releases to get the lesser known players.  In baseball, the back of the rotation guys, the middle relievers, and the utility players are going to be hard to find.  Then too, some of these teams have been around so long that it won't be possible just due to the lack of cards for so many players.  Luckily for you, your team is both in a sport where it's possible and relatively new.  

Personally, I'm a team collector, so I shoot for every card from a player on the team (Cleveland Browns in my case), but in football there's no way I'll ever find cards for every guy that suited up for the team (or even played in a game).  In football, the cards skew heavily toward offensive skill position players and defensive stars.  Want a card for the nickel back who was drafted in the 6th round out of a small school?  You can pretty much forget about it.

  I've tried to do it for Buffalo Bills cards.  As most have said, it's going to be almost impossible to nab a card of every player who played for that team.  As Glennchannell noted, a lot of lesser known players don't even have cards.  Even if you put restrictions on it, such as, only cards which have players in my teams uniform, it's not likely you'll get them all.  It's easier to just pick up cards of players that you like from your team, without the completion idea as a goal.

I'm doing a pretty good job on the Mets. I've got all but 17 of the 1,165 all-time Mets, and to go even further, I have autographs (on card, index card, or photo) from 1,086 of them. (Only 79 to go!)

I'm also doing this with the Mets. I got over 1200 different players, but I also have been getting all the minor league guys. But I can't even touch your auto count, (not that I'm after them lol.) As for the Twins it's impossible at the moment as Hank Izquierdo has no cards in a Twins uniform. Unless we are talking just a card in general.

Nice! I have an additional 58 autos from non-players (coaches, managers, broadcasters, phantom Mets, minor league guys) too.

Is there a way to sort on the database to find a list of players on a team? Or is that a year by year hand made list? Now I am curious about how many Expos I have and need...

I'm doing it for the red Sox. It's a tall order with 122 years of players, and babe ruth and cy young in there. But it has really been a fun project! Id recommend it for that reason alone. 

I have my Braves cards in binders by year and set, but having a seperate binder with players in order of debut would be cool. I would like to have an autographed card of every Brave but that would be a tall task. I wonder how many Braves I have cards of vs don't. I dont have a lot of pre 1970, and there are always those random sets that included the entire roster.

Not sure if I would pursue an EVERY player collection, but at least if I did I would have the advantage of having relatively "young" favorite teams...Bucs/Rays/Magic. 

I have had the thought of generating a list on BBR or PFR, like all-time games played, points, rushing yards, total bases, or something like that, and starting at the top of the list and working my way down -- making sure I had at least one card of each player -- and seeing how far down the list I can get. You could do that with a team, too. 

I haven't put any specific goals or targets out there for myself, but I will say that I have been more interested in collecting players over the last couple years than completing sets.

Regarding Expos players: 1006 guys have played for the Expos / Nationals. 620 of them played for the Expos (1969 thru 2004). The remaining 286 made their debut for the franchise in 2005 or later. www.baseball-reference.com/teams/WSN/bat.shtml