A few months back, I received a free hobby box of Bowman. This was back when it had just been released, and none of the Stephen Strasburg 1/1 cards had yet to be discovered. The only trouble with this prize was that it was sent to my parents' house, not mine. In the end, however, this turned out to be a good thing, as you'll see.

Of course, we know what happened next. The Superfractor was found fairly quickly and the red parallel followed soon after. But I held on to the hope that the 1/1 red autograph was waiting for me somewhere in that box sitting at my parents house. Like Willy Wonka's last Golden Ticket, the red auto card caused hordes to swarm any and all Bowman products.

Until mid-June, when the card was pulled. Oh well.

Somewhere between when I got the box and when that last card was found, I realised that I didn't really like the Bowman set. Maybe it was my thoroughly uninspiring 2009 Bowman box that caused it. But the truth is, I didn't want the box once I found it there was not chance at the Golden Ticket.

For some reason, the price of Bowman boxes remained pretty crazy, even after all the 1/1 cards had been found. It wasn't as inflated as before, but still pretty high. So I decided to sell my box. Since I got it for free, my profit margin was, well, infinite.

By mid-July, a month after the last Golden Ticket was found, I managed to find someone on eBay who took the box off of my hands for nearly 160 bucks. But what to do with the money?

I thought about getting a box of Ginter, or maybe some Obak, or both. But instead, I decided to use the money to buy some singles. Cards that I need for collections and sets, or just plain cards I want to own. This was a chance to put a dent in the Griffey Project, and get some cards for my other PCs as well.

Over the coming weeks, or months, however long it takes for my funds to run out, I'll be posting the cards I buy as they arrive in the mail. I'm calling the $160 my "Strasburg Money" because, let's face it, if it weren't for the hype surrounding Stephen the Great, I never would have gotten that much for that Bowman box. So thanks, Stephen - you've helped me grow my collection.

I'm writing all this because the first card showed up at my house today. It's a 2009 Upper Deck Spectrum Swatches card of Ken Griffey with a nice pinstripe. Pay no attention to the jersey on the front - the logo on the back means it's part of the Griffey project: