Hobby Musings: Catch Up with Former MLB Pitcher, Pat Neshek – During his lengthy baseball career, Pat Neshek was a two-time All-Star. As much as he’s for his impressive pitching, he’s equally well-known for his endeavors as a sports memorabilia collector. I had the chance to catch up with Mr. Neshek to talk about some of his collecting origins and his take on the hobby today.
Editor’s Note: Some text has been edited for grammar and clarity.
KS: I know you’re not the first player to collect, but it feels like you were one of the first, if not the first, to be as public about it as you were. What prompted you to be as open about it as you were during your playing days?
PN: I think one of the biggest things for me was that I was an autograph collector in college, and I would do a ton of in-person outings chasing AAA teams that came into Indianapolis. My college roommate used to do trips all over the country, and it was really cool to see his collection. Guys he would get in A ball or Rookie ball would blossom into these big-time stars that would never sign again, and it was cool seeing how their autograph would change over time, or how they were impossible to get. The stories we would get were just epic.
There are so many that I can remember. For example, my roommate one time gave a ride to Alfonso Soriano when he was in AAA, and he signed over 150 cards for us on that drive to the hotel. We also gave a ride to Ryan McGuire, Joe McEwing and Jason Tyner where they also signed the entire car ride. When I was teammates with Tyner on the Minnesota Twins, I asked him if he ever remembered getting a car ride in Indianapolis and he signed 100’s of cards. He was puzzled for a moment, then said…”Nooooooo…that was not you!!!”…you’re such a nerd!
In 2003 I thought it would be a cool idea to chronicle my minor league adventures on a website, which eventually grew into a really cool message board community for all things autographs. I think this website was what prompted me to be so open about collecting, because I was kind of the outsider that was on the inside and could answer questions for the thousands of collectors that liked reading the inner workings of professional baseball. The community was incredible and a huge success. People still come up to me today and state the website was the reason they got into collecting.
KS: Nowadays, it seems like more and more athletes have gone public with their collections and desires to collect their own rare cards. What has been your reaction to seeing the explosion of player interest in cards and memorabilia?
To me, the big shift was the new generation that was raised on social media. In the 2000’s you were lucky if any of your teammates were online for anything. Most guys would have an email but rarely use it. After games guys would go out and hang out. In the 2010’s, you would see a dramatic shift. People were constantly on their phones non-stop, games like “Clash of Clans” or “Candy Crush” were huge. And now in the 2020’s, you see entire generations that were raised on the internet. Tik Tok and Instagram made it easy to share pics of collections, and you could see innovations.
It makes me laugh now that something that was seen as weird or nerdy is what makes players cool now. I also laugh when I see pretty famous guys that I know who used to bash collecting, collect! It’s kind of a full circle moment for me, and it was cool to watch the entire thing happen in real time.
KS: Did you ever imagine it would get this big among athletes, and what do you attribute the rise in popularity to?
PN: I never thought collecting would ever be as big as it has gotten. I think it was 2018 where MLBPA had the chance to buy Topps for little to nothing on the dollar and passed on it. I mean what an epic miss, but I don’t think anyone in the world could’ve predicted what was next to come. To me, there were a couple things that fueled this entire thing. The most obvious was the entire country sitting in isolation and reminiscing about life during the covid years fueled that passion. Also, the covid years led to tons of people sitting at home trying to find ways to innovate the hobby. Breakers came in and made things sound new to everyone. Internet marketers like Gary Vee led the rise in “hobby influencers.”
Fanatics also was paying tons of money to athletes to promote cards being cool and being investments. You would see the Bitcoin guys come in and bid everything in the world up at auction houses like Goldin and Heritage, and suddenly everyone was like “Hey, I could make thousands if I buy the right cards to resell…maybe I could do this as a job”. It kind of became that mentality that collecting was now accepted and cool, and if you didn’t do it, you would be left behind. I think a lot of athletes saw the $ aspect of it and wanted a piece of the action, but most had no clue of the history of the hobby and blindly chased what they thought were good investments.
PN: This may sound weird, but I absolutely despise it. I hate nearly everything Fanatics has done and miss the old days! I mean a Topps hobby box doesn’t even resemble anything from the 2010’s. The overprinting is so bad and gives me 1990 vibes all over again with a premium price tag.
I opened a case with my son of 2022 Topps just for a fun cheap break, and I was shocked at how hard it was to pull just a numbered gold card to /2022. In previous years you would get 9 gold cards a box, about 1 in 4 packs. I hit one gold card in the entire box…one in 36 packs. I got done with the case and was left with a couple cool cards, about 1/9 the amount of big hits I used to get and a bunch of junk base. It felt like a chore opening it all and said this isn’t it. Right then and there, I was done buying Topps and would only buy chase cards I wanted off eBay and auction houses.
The cool thing to me was Upper Deck didn’t really deviate from their hockey offerings, so I naturally gravitated to them because the value was much better. I also got into NXT wrestling and had a blast busting 2022 NXT. Again…the value was incredible.
KS: How did your teammates react to your collecting interest?
PN: I didn’t really talk about it in person for the first 10 years of my career. Guys knew I had the website, and it was pretty much left as that. When I had Tommy John surgery in 2009, I was sitting at home with my wife Stephanee and was kind of like my career could be over if this surgery doesn’t go well. I had a lot of regret that I didn’t get autographs of some of the guys I played against because I didn’t want to bother guys. I said if I ever got back, I wanted to try and get an entire Topps set done by everyone in the league. Yeah, I might annoy some guys, but who cares.
In 2014 I made the All-Star team and was really comfortable feeling like I could do this and started sending over cards to the other team through our awesome clubhouse guys. After a couple teams came in, this idea was a huge success. With the exception of Greinke, every dude in the league was awesome, and I still have these awesome sets to look at today as a reminder of the great guys I was lucky enough to get to play against.
Near the end of my career, I was kind of the guy to go to if anyone had a question on something related to the hobby. Evan Kaplan at MLBPA was in charge of licensing and wanted to promote cards with players, so every time we came into NYC to play the Mets or Yankees, he would invite me into his office, and I would bring some players with, and we would rip any product that Topps would put out. Like not just a few boxes…tons of stuff Evan would let us rip. It was cool, because this opened up a lot of guys’ eyes to collecting and made them big-time collectors today. I’m forever thankful to Evan for being so cool about this, and these were some of my funnest memories of my playing days.
Editor’s Note: Check back next week for Part 2 of our interview with Mr. Neshek.
Hobby Musings: Catch Up with Former MLB Pitcher, Pat Neshek – Image Gallery
Kelsey’s ability to bring hobby coverage to the mainstream sports fan has been a true asset. GTS is happy to feature his thoughts on collecting in Hobby Musings. The opinions expressed are his and do not necessarily reflect those of GTS Distribution.
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