Is this a problem?

So, I am taking a break from the sportsworld and dealing with its other aspect, sports cards. I don't know how many of you collect, or have collected cards, but I think I may actually have a problem. I might say that tongue in cheek but I might be serious. Card collecting has represented two things I love, and love a lot, history and sports. The back of a baseball card includes all of the vital statistics that a player has compiled over the years. Every hit, every pitch, every out, every touchdown, every play is neatly recorded on the back of a small 3.5"x 2.5" piece of a cardboard. Growing up I would wonder what was behind the picture on the front. Was it a hit, a touchdown pass, did the layup go in? I thought I grew away from my hobby right around the time my dad sold his house in 2003. Then I went to Iraq. Cards were nowhere near the top of my priority list. However, when I came home and moved to PA I found a comfort in my cards, and a comfort reliving my childhood with each pack I opened. I would find boxes of late 1980's Topps cards on eBay for dirt cheap and rip into them, only to put them in another box after taking out the great rookie cards and the like. Then I discovered another passion, sending these pieces of cardboard out to the players to get signed.

Enter my new hobby. I still collect cards (though I have slowed down due to life) but I have mostly been collecting autographs on these treasured pieces of cardboard. I have sent to home addresses, scoured the internet for ways to get the most evasive stars, and have filled the pages of binders with thousands of autographs. Currently, I am on a hiatus from this hobby as well since I am currently living in an apartment that my wife and I never considered a permanent residence. I didn't want to trust the U.S. Postal Service to keep trying to forward on my potential autographed-filled self-addressed stamped envelope.

My main focus in collecting autographed baseball cards is to collect the autograph of every living Yankee and New York Giant, and maybe NY Ranger. The Ranger collection is the toughest because of the international flavor that is so prevalent in hockey. My Yankee collection has exploded and there might be fewer players I don't have than do have. That's a slight exaggeration but isn't far off.

One thing I am looking forward to is thumbing through my collection once more, maybe selling off some doubles for dirt cheap or trading with other people passionate about collecting as I am. Either way, it's my hobby. It's my addiction. And I can't wait to get back to it. I wonder how many others are out there like me. Do you feel the same way?