Welcome to Grading on the Curve, a sports and collectibles site that aims to answer your questions about the hobby. Yes, you, the sports fan who does it for the joy. And you, the seasoned grader who demands perfection. And you, the person out there who loves Kevin McGonigle already and wants to channel that energy somehow, but doesn't know the first thing about what's going on in the world of cards these days. And you, the person who's cornered the market on Mike "King" Kelly authentic 'Slide, Kelly, Slide!' sheet music. We know you're out there.
We're here because ... well, everyone on this editorial staff collects differently. Some are new to it. Some were born into it. But all of us are boundlessly enthusiastic and want nothing more than to help you along your journey (and, yes, collect what piques our interest as well).
Here's who we are, where we came from, and what we're after:
Introducing the Grading on the Curve Editorial Staff: What and how do we collect?
Eric Cole
Eric Cole’s collecting journey began in the backwoods of upstate New York where there was no cable and you just had to hope that there was a game that was getting good reception on any given day. However, after watching his first baseball game (Game 7 of the 1991 World Series), he was hooked and thus began quite the junk wax era journey. To this day, one of his crowning achievements in collecting was pulling a redemption for the entire 1993 Black Gold set from Topps. Better to be lucky than good.
There were a number of years where Eric paused his collecting, but came back with a vengeance as a young(er) adult. A diehard Braves fan, his focus is mainly on building out his Greg Maddux collection which currently includes over 2,000 unique Maddux cards as well as stockpiling his beloved Braves including quite the Mike Soroka collection. While he loves vintage cards, his focus is mostly on modern sets as they come out.
Beyond his personal collection, understanding where there is value in the hobby market and trying to capitalize on any inefficiencies is something Eric enjoys a lot. He has become an expert about most modern Topps baseball products, although he is not a fan of Topps Pristine and its Russian nesting doll packaging. He is never without a toploader and enjoys breaks as well as ripping packs. Basically, if it is baseball cards (along with some occasional basketball and football), Eric is interested.
Adam Weinrib
Adam Weinrib has been hooked on sports card and memorabilia collecting since the age of six, when he obtained a catalog from Mickey’s Place, the Cooperstown, NY purveyor of signed items and vintage ephemera, and read it nightly like it was “Goodnight, Moon”. It’s a strategy he highly recommends; after all, it’s the only way for any six-year-old to learn what a fair price is for a Gaylord Perry signed 8x10 photo.
Or maybe a more appropriate starting point would be the first sports card show Adam ever attended after moving from Brooklyn to Westchester County in 1998, when he walked around asking every vendor if they had any Shane Spencer rookie cards they’d be willing to unload. Not knowing the concept of “selling high,” everyone but Adam cleaned up in the transactions that took place that day.
Since these dual awakenings, Adam has been chasing collectibles and ripping packs consistently. He began with the 1999 releases and sees no reason to stop now. He’s a staunch advocate for on-card autographs, sweet-spotted baseballs, and making Bowman Draft Picks affordable for the masses. He collects Baseball Hall of Fame signatures and prize prospects, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t prone to walking back his boldest shopping declarations. Sometimes, spending money sounds better in theory.
Let’s put it this way: he’s constantly trying to chase the high of walking into a hobby shop in 2004 with $30 cash and walking out with six packs from four different products. And sometimes, losing money in that manner can hook a kid harder than winning an online auction for the exact item you were chasing (but getting what you want is pretty cool, too).
Thomas Carannante
Call him a noob, but Thomas Carannante has done the bulk of his card collecting as a grown adult man. Yes, he was introduced to the hobby at birth, when his father and grandfather purchased him the complete Topps MLB set from 1990 to be opened at a later date. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to them, they had a sunk cost on their hands from the Junk Wax era. A small price to pay for being a Yankees fan during the dynasty era, we suppose.
That didn’t stop Thomas from doing his best to get his hands on Ken Griffey Jr., Barry Bonds and Derek Jeter cards as he was growing up. Upper Deck was his preferred choice at the time … but then the Pokemon craze took over and he lost sight of baseball collecting for years.
A gambler at heart, Thomas found the perfect way to enter the hobby in his late 20s by buying into breaks for expensive products and/or hunting down bargains via eBay auctions. Right now, his favorite player to collect is Barry Zito (a fellow lefty whose autographs are affordable) and he’s recently gotten into WWE, but baseball will always be No. 1 for him. He can be tempted to buy any product if you give him exactly one (1) good reason to. He will trade just about anything with anybody. He will take a random financial risk during regular work hours. That said, he’s also keen on building his eBay seller’s profile where he tries to offload most of the unwanted junk he’s acquired in recent years.
In simpler terms, Thomas is the Wild West of collecting in just about every possible manner.
Katrina Stebbins
Katrina Stebbins is still a card novice. She was introduced to the hobby in 2024, when Thomas Carannante bought her into a mixer break in return for a Taylor Swift Eras Tour t-shirt (she thinks she got the much better end of that deal). The past year has included a very rapid descent into card sicko-dom, unfortunately (fortunately?) egged on by every other writer on this site. It only took her a year to fill far too many common area drawers with cards for her roommate’s liking.
The hook was pulling a Tarik Skubal red auto /5 out of a random 2025 Topps Series 1 hobby box silver pack at a dive bar in Bushwick, a fortunate (unfortunate?) early peak of her very young collecting journey. Skubal is her favorite PC player, but she also has a general affinity for Allen & Ginter framed mini autos and Bryan Woo.
She’s very impressionable and bad at saying ‘no’ to a break, as well as knowing when to quit in an eBay bidding war. However, 2026 and beyond is all about trying to chase better deals and put together a nice collection on a tight budget. We’ll see how long that lasts, though.
Matt Conner
Matt Conner’s descent into sports card madness began with a kid’s grilled cheese at Mattingly’s 23, the short-lived, proudly unfine-dining restaurant in Evansville, Indiana, where Donnie Baseball spent many of his offseasons away from his post as the New York Yankees’ first baseman. By eighth grade, Matt had become a novelty as the lone adolescent vendor at Ramada Inn SportsCard Expos, selling honest goods alongside several self-forged autographed 1991 Mike Mussina Upper Deck rookies. (Hopefully, there’s a statute of limitations in place.)
Decades later, the obsession has turned historical, as Matt's collection now focuses on oddities and “never seen that before” pre-war finds, with his personal grail being the eventual completion of a 1940 Diamond Dust set. While he loves vintage sports cards of any kind, there remains an inexplicable fixation on autographed rookie cards of Kansas City Chiefs center Creed Humphrey (current count: 144).
He lives in Indianapolis with his card-disapproving wife and son.
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