Cubs Shortstop Has A Very Unique Card Collection

Anyone can collect baseball cards. Addison Russell is collecting Pokemon cards with a baseball theme. 

ESPN - It began with his own team in spring training. Russell brought binders of laminated Pokemon cards with him to Arizona and started asking his teammates to sign them. With quizzical looks, they happily obliged.

It seems the Cubs shortstop and youngest member of the team has taken his childhood love of Pokemon and brought it up to the big leagues.

Addison just started this tradition and already has over 25 cards signed. It's customary for memorabilia to be sent over to the visiting clubhouse for players to sign but it's usually your standard bats, balls and gloves. It catches some players off guard.

It was unique, man, and I was like, 'OK, so what is he trying to do?... They asked for Pokemon [to be signed], and that meant he might like Pokemon, one of his favorite things. I think it was pretty awesome'

-Kenley Jansen, Dodgers reliever

Addison doesn't just pick out random cards for his opponents to sign. He wants the cards to relate to the player signing. Kenley Jansen is a reliever for the Dodgers that famously throws very hard, Addison found a card with fireballs on it for him.

One of the byproducts is a good jumping off point for a conversation when they run into each other on the field. I can only imagine what's being said at second base during the fourth inning.

Just another cool thing this Cubs team is doing. There's so many good guys on this team it's almost too good to be true.