Nine.

In the past two days, three envelopes have come in the mail bearing cards. One from Capewood with some 87 Topps, and 2009 Topps from Doug at Topps Baseball Cards and GarveyCeyRussellLopes. Not a big haul, all together there were six cards. But I realized that with these six, at this moment in history, there are only nine baseball cards that I need.

Sure, there are plenty that I want. My 1981 Topps collection is growing, there are plenty of Steve Averys out there, but there are only nine cards needed to complete to two sets I'm currently focusing on. Three '87 Topps and six '09s.

When I got back into the hobby last summer, I never expected there to be such a strong trading community online. I figured I'd be spending time and money on ebay looking to complete sets, but I haven't.

The final fifteen cards I needed for my 88 Score set came from Sportslots but most came through trades and generosity. The same is true with my '87 Topps set. Not too long ago, Christmas maybe, I was still in need of close to 100 cards, now I need three.

I stopped buying '09 Topps when two jumbo packs resulted in 17 new cards. At that point I needed close to 100 cards, and that was less than a month ago. I now need six.

I've been part of online communities in the past. Ten years ago I made a lot of friends playing Diablo on Blizzard's Battle.net. It was great fun but everyone moved on. For a time I was active in music communities, but the classical music world is so fractured arguments get started easily and then the fun is gone.

When I bought my car back in September 2007 I discovered an active and passionate community of Subaru Impreza owners.

But none of them have been as rewarding as this baseball card community. And I don't really know if my interest would have stayed as strong if there weren't all these blogs to read and people to trade with.

So thanks to everyone that's sent cards my way and I hope this community stays as strong.

Now I'm finished.