Card collecting both a 'hobby and semi-obsession' for Straw

TORONTO -- Myles Straw is not just a card collector, he is a connoisseur.

To a fellow collector, the shelves of his locker are like wings of an art museum. He might pull a baseball card out of his pocket and hand it to you, all too casually, before you realize that it’s worth twice the value of your car.

Straw calls this a “hobby and semi-obsession,” but card collectors share a language. We know there’s nothing “semi” obsessive about this. There’s always another grail, another 1-of-1 to chase -- but that’s not where the roots of this live. Straw, like so many of us who have come back to card collecting decades later, still remembers that first feeling. He was just a boy in Florida who wanted a Pokemon card.

“I remember being with my dad,” Straw said. “I’ll never forget going to the flea market back where I lived, and my dad bought me a Charizard. I can’t remember if it was a first edition, but now I have no idea where it’s at. Like a lot of us who used to do the same thing, we have no clue where it is now. My dad passed, but I always remember that moment with him.”

That connection to the childhood hobby is so important, even as the card industry has skyrocketed and turned into a cardboard stock market. It started with Straw and a small circle of teammates in the Blue Jays clubhouse one year ago, but now they’ve all got that bug again.

Card collectors will ask one another: “Who do you PC?” -- meaning your personal collection. Some of these are investments for Straw, bought one day and flipped weeks later for serious profits. But others are worth holding onto.

“I try to collect the GOATs of all sports, really. I even have a couple of hockey cards,” Straw said. “I mainly like to stay with baseball. I still have a lot of Pokemon cards, too. I love Tom Brady. I’m a Bucs fan and he came and won the Super Bowl for us, so I love Tom Brady and have a lot of his cards. Then, obviously, a lot of people will hate to hear this … but Shohei Ohtani.”

Straw’s Ohtani collection is stunning.

Sitting side-by-side, he has a pair of autographed Shohei Ohtani rookie cards from the 2018 Topps Chrome set, one a blue wave refractor and the other in brilliant gold, each graded as a PSA Gem Mint 10. There’s a signed Ohtani atomic refractor, numbered to 100, from the 2018 Bowman set, graded a 9.5 Gem Mint by Beckett. These are, in plain English, rare and pristine Ohtani cards, the value of which would have your jaw on the floor.

There are two centerpieces to Straw’s Ohtani collection, though, one for its value and the other for its story.

Straw owns the 1-of-1 signed Ohtani card from the 2025 Topps Chrome Black collection, the “superfractor” and only one of its kind. Any superfractor is extremely valuable, but Ohtani’s sell well into the hundreds of thousands. Just last year, one of Ohtani’s most sought-after superfractors from 2018 Topps Chrome sold for $2.5 million.

The other star of the collection is from the 2025 Topps Diamond Icons set, another Ohtani numbered to just 15 in circulation. Straw pulled that card from a pack himself early in 2025 -- and during a quiet moment of last year’s World Series, Straw sent it over to be signed by Ohtani himself. What a card, what a story.

“I will never sell that card,” Straw said.

Even for the heavy hitters in card collecting -- and Straw is certainly one -- the story still matters. Straw has started to collect his teammates over the years, and now owns Dylan Cease’s rookie superfractor 1-of-1, one of Cease’s most valuable cards in circulation.

Collectors are always looking to rope a new friend into the obsession, too, and who better than Cease? The Blue Jays’ ace already has that bug, his latest fixation being rare vintage T-shirts, and calls collecting “the innate desire to expand” oneself. If Straw gets his way, Cease’s locker will be stuffed with cards and eBay packages soon enough.

“He’s always like, ‘I need to buy me a grail,’” Straw said, doing a big, deep voice to impersonate Cease. “And I’m like, 'Cease, you have so much money. You can buy whatever you want.'”

Another of Straw’s gems -- and one he’ll never sell -- is a Kazuma Okamoto card that is already one of the most valuable in existence and certainly the most unique.

This is an “anime” card from the 2026 Bowman set, a rare “short print” variation of Okamoto’s rookie card that is already extremely valuable on its own. Straw found one of the red-bordered versions of this card, numbered to just five in circulation, but then took it a step further. Teammates are always having one another sign cards, but Straw had Okamoto grace this card with a kanji autograph in matching red ink. It is, in every possible way, an exquisite baseball card.

Everyone has their limits and budgets, but again, there’s always that next grail to chase. Smart collectors will get their partners in on the hobby with them, and while Straw has tried to get his wife, Lily, to open some packs with him and his friends, he’s fallen into the same trap that so many of us do.

“She told me to stop months ago, but the packages keep arriving,” Straw said.

These are just cardboard rectangles, though, 2 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 inches. There’s a reason these cards drive us mad -- or to the point of mild obsession, as Straw says -- and that’s because of the stories they carry. Those stories can connect seasons of your life, from a kid at the flea market to a big leaguer, or even generations.

Straw still remembers that Charizard from 25 years ago. The card is long gone, but that card had a story, and a memory with his father, James.

“I have a lot of my own cards, just for my girls,” Straw said. “When they’re older, hopefully they think their dad is cool. I can give them some evidence that I was semi-relevant.”