Jeremy Barfield on baseball cards

The eighth round draft choice of the A's in 2008, Jeremy Barfield spent 2011 at AA Midland, hitting .257 with 11 HR and 72 RBI. The son of former Yankees and Blue Jays slugger Jesse Barfield, he kindly answered my questions about baseball cards.

"Do I collect cards?

Well I definitely used to when I was younger. I had about 5 binders full of hundreds of cards each. They are all stored somewhere in my parents attic now. When I get a chance I will definitely have to go look through them. I'm sure I have something valuable in there.

I remember in 1998 when I was 11 years old and my dad was coaching in Seattle that my favorite player in the whole world, and still by far my all-time favorite, was Ken Griffey Jr. I had just gone to the local card store and Donruss had just released these new 8x10 cards and sure enough in my pack I got a Griffey one. I was so excited. A few weeks later once school got out my family went to Seattle to be with my dad for the summer. I was so anxious to get the card signed, but at the same time I was nervous. I had been in the clubhouse before and talked to him plenty of times, but I had never asked for an autograph. My dad reassured me that one autograph is fine and sure enough Junior signed it for me no problem. I still have that card to this day. The 1998 Donruss Studio with Junior wearing his hat backwards.

During the 2011 season starting about June I started seeing a new card of me. Up to that point I didn't have any Bowman cards. That's kind of disappointing considering it was my 3rd full season. So this card starts showing up every city I'm in and it has a printed autograph, so it was very weird signing my real signature on the printed one. The printed signature wasn't even how I sign my name, which was odd. Apparently Topps gets it from the $2 contract you sign when you first sign your pro contract. So all season long I was signing my real signature on top of my $2 signature with a picture they used that was over 2 years old! Better late than never I guess. So my favorite card of myself is definitely from the future because the only one I have now is and will never be it."

Thanks!