Baseball card stories from Reed Secrist

Reed Secrist played twelve years of professional baseball, hitting over 100 home runs for teams in the Pirates, Blue Jays, Cardinals, Rangers, Reds and Indians organizations, as well as Hanshin in Japan, between 1992 and 2003. He is currently a PE/health teacher and head baseball coach at Snow Canyon High School in Utah and runs MVP Showcases, which spotlights Utah high school baseball stars. He kindly responded to my request about his baseball card stories.

"I remember in 1995 being told I was going to be in the 1996 Fleer Excel series I was excited because I really hadn't had a decent card yet and it was my first big step into a card that you could actually purchase at a store. I remember waiting to see it, I received a phone call from a friend in Virginia that had seen it and he said I don't think that is you, he was right! On the front of the card was Rob Leary it makes me laugh now but I was mad back then so that basically sums up my career the rest of the way! My favorite card of myself is the 1997 Japanese card, the only thing is I can't read the back. My favorite card of someone else is George Brett's rookie card. I've been a collector since I was young. I remember getting .25 cents and running to the local drug store to get a pack. As I got older I got away from it for awhile and then decided to start collecting certain players which I ended up just collecting George Brett cards. I remember going to the park as a player and fans knew I collected George Brett and they would bring me cards of him all the time so my collection of him grew."

Thanks, Reed!

Oddly, considering that he played twelve years of pro baseball and, according to Beckett.com, was on 16 different baseball cards, I couldn't find a picture of one of his cards, and found only this picture from his playing days.