Rod Poteete, '69, knows how many trading cards he has, more or less. The former Stanford baseball standout estimates that the most meaningful chunk—dedicated to one particularly earnest theme—totals about 100,000. Along with tens of thousands sorted into other categories, the collection has taken over big portions of a Las Vegas house that his wife would prefer to reclaim. But all that sliced cardboard is about more than yet another fan's fixation with sports memorabilia.
Poteete's No. 1 focus is any kind of card depicting anyone with a Stanford history. Including duplicates, that's what has mushroomed to the 100,000 mark. Most are sports cards, ranging from megastars (think John Elway, '83, and Tiger Woods, '98) to names suited for trivia contests (baseball player Dave Meier, '81). Squeezed among them, though, are charming strays, such as a "First Couple" card of President Herbert Hoover, Class of 1895, and his wife Lou, Class of 1898, who met, as the card notes, "in a geology lab."
A retired high school teacher and baseball coach, Poteete was a clutch pitcher at Stanford. Among his teammates was future major leaguer Bob Boone, '69, who has received many awards and honors, but perhaps none as heartfelt as this: There are 5,000 cards just of him in Poteete's collection.
Poteete, who suffered a burst appendix in 2009 and has been slowly recovering, has a list of hard-to-find cards he's still chasing. No surprise, he wants them all.
Mike Antonucci is a senior writer at Stanford.
