2002 Bowman #126 Eric Valent

The problem with the Phillies cards from 2002 is there's just too dang many of them. I'm slowly chronicling and checklisting my Phillies cards from the early '00s, as these years had been previously woefully neglected. Going through my 2002 Phillies binder and putting together a 2002 Phillies wantlist, I'm beginning to wonder if this year should continue to be neglected.

Amazingly, I have 677 different Phillies cards from 2002, and 208 of them are minor league cards. In a normal year, you'd think 469 different Phillies cards would get me close to having a complete run of cards from the year. In 2002, I'd estimate these 469 cards put me at less than half-way to the total Phillies baseball cards available. There are sets released in 2002 I have never heard of nor encountered, such as Donruss Fan Club, Fleer Focus Jersey Edition, Topps Ten and Upper Deck Ballpark Idols. Nevertheless, I'll be posting my 2002 Phillies wantlist shortly.

The other problem with the 2002 Phillies baseball cards is the dreadful crop of prospects dropped throughout the various card sets. I already have way too many cards of Anderson Machado (7 cards), Franklin Nunez (3) and Eric Valent (6), not to mention multiple cards of Eric Junge, Elio Serrano and Pete Zamora. But the sickness of being a team collector means my wantlists will feature requests for even more of these guys.