How Carroll developed a love for baseball cards

During a relaxed morning at Spring Training last year, veteran third baseman Evan Longoria approached rookie outfielder Corbin Carroll in the clubhouse at Salt River Fields.

Longoria had signed with the D-backs during the offseason and was getting ready to enter his 16th and, as it would turn out, his final season in the big leagues. Carroll, meanwhile, had made his Major League debut the August prior and was preparing for his first full season.

Longoria had in his hand a baseball card of Carroll and, he wondered, would the then 22-year-old sign it for him? The request caught Carroll off guard and he was flattered that someone as accomplished in the game as Longoria wanted his signature.

“There was just an element of coolness to that for me,” Carroll said. “Like, wow, think about all the things that this guy's done, and he wants my signature? I haven't done anything.”

Carroll’s intellectual curiosity has been well documented so it shouldn’t be a surprise that he asked Longoria about his motivation behind collecting baseball cards, something Carroll had never really been interested in.

Longoria explained that during the pandemic in 2020, he began collecting the cards as a way of collecting memories from his career that he could one day pass along to his children.

“I just thought that was kind of a interesting answer, and it made me want to kind of get into it myself,” Carroll said.

Longoria suggested Carroll find a theme that interests him and build his collection around that.

So Carroll started out by collecting cards of players from his 2019 Draft class like the Orioles' Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson, the Nationals' CJ Abrams and the Tigers' Riley Greene.

Carroll then added teammates to his collection like right-hander Bryce Jarvis, catcher Gabriel Moreno and, of course, Longoria. Carroll also has a Team USA card of outfielder Jake McCarthy.

One of the things that Carroll has enjoyed the most about collecting so far is the interaction he has had with fans and fellow collectors. After posting on social media something about one of his cards, D-backs fans picked up on his interest and began gifting him cards.

“It’s been eye opening to see how nice people are that are in the hobby,” Carroll said. “It gives me another way to interact with the fans and they’ve been really gracious.”

And it hasn’t just been fans. Clubhouse attendant Shawn Moore had two custom cards made for Carroll that included the piping from a pair of uniform pants he wore during last year’s World Series as well as the Nike swoosh from one of the jerseys he wore in the Fall Classic.

“Super thoughtful of him,” Carroll said.

A big part of Carroll’s collection is Topps Now cards that chronicle his career to this point. There’s a card of him making his big league debut with a note that the game marked the D-backs' largest comeback in franchise history.

Other Topps Now cards from 2023 note different milestones for Carroll -- his first walk-off hit, his first homer, becoming the first rookie to hit 25 homers and steal 50 bases -- and the set concludes with his Rookie of the Year Award.

For someone focused on his day-to-day process of getting ready for games, the cards are a reminder of accomplishments he didn’t fully realize or appreciate in the moment.

“You don't even think about those things,” Carroll said. “But sometimes, those unique little stats pop up and you’re able to say that you've done something that no one has done before and that’s pretty special.”