Making baseball count, one card at a time
"You can find me on Facebook under Paul Ferdinand Jones," or dig a little deeper and you'll find him in the Guinness World Records.
The Modesto Nuts recently had a very special visitor at John Thurman Field. Paul Jones, baseball card collector extraordinaire, stopped by the merchandise shop to further his collection of over 2,000,000 baseball cards. "Once I hit 2 million it was too hard to keep counting," he said.
"It sort of brought him out of his shell," said Barry Jones, Paul's father. "Pauly's met over 50 Hall of Famers, been to Cooperstown 9 times, has signed jerseys, bats, balls, pens... anything that has to do with baseball."
So where does he put two million baseball cards?
Barry explained, "He keeps them organized by name in ABC order and they go in 3500 count boxes. If he has a picture with you, you go in the filing cabinets. He has 12 filing cabinets of pictures and then your cards go in there. If he has more than 800 of you, well then you go into the 800 count box on TOP of the filing cabinet, then if he has less than that you go in the 3500 count boxes in the garage."
Due to Paul's learning disability, he processes information differently than others. Certain things mean nothing to him but something like baseball, his father explained, means everything to him.
"We took him to a game when he was 10 and it sort of brought him out of his shell," he said.
Baseball was then used as a learning tool.
"You can learn so much through America's Pastime-math, spelling, reading, geography," Barry Jones said. "You can buy a map that lists every team in the country, and by doing that now you can learn what states they're in… that sort of thing."
Paul knows everything there is to know about baseball. His goal is to be a professional batboy someday. Maybe he will even get his own baseball card.
Natalie is the Public Relations Coordinator for the Modesto Nuts.