You Can't Do That to a Baseball Card!

 

When I received my very first "manufactured patch" card over a decade ago, this reproduction of a 19-aughts Cleveland "Naps" cap logo (whoever they were), I immediately had a question in my mind: what am I supposed to do with this THING?

I mean, it wasn't going to fit in a binder page, I knew that. At least, not without irredeemable damage and struggling and frustration and becoming essentially worthless from mangling the corners. Can't have that in a baseball 'card' collection. (Can we?) So, then what? Where do I put this THING?

I felt very unlucky with this new memorabilia item in my hand, reading the checklist of possible cool cap logo patches I could have scored instead, there on the side of the blaster box. I got, a letter "C" - way to go, Charlie Brown.

It is, sort of, a Bob Feller "card" I guess, technically. A Hall of Famer, that's cool and all. But that card probably has one of the smaller pictures of a baseball player on any of my quite overly numerous baseball picture products. Some day, I would be squinting down at Bob to see him, and that wouldn't be any good. Plus, he's not even wearing the same cap logo on his photo — even super old man Base Set would still be able to tell that, because no one puts a navy blue patch on a navy blue cap. Though if you gave Topps a chance...

It didn't take me long to realize what I could do with the THING, if I wished. Patches, after all, are supposed to be applied to clothing. So I thought someday when I had finally won the lottery and could buy a whole pile of blaster boxes full of baseball cards and spend a delightful couple three days not going to work but instead reading and sorting all the new baseball cards I had purchased, all at once, I could then turn to all the cool baseball logo patches I now had and create the ultimate baseball card nerd cap, or vest, or, I don't know, something. I would have so much flair even Jennifer Aniston would be impressed. Where the heck I would wear such an item, I had even less clue about. I just thought, these things, except for my super boring letter "C" version, were going to be pretty cool, when I finally got a good one from my good buddies at Topps.

Naturally, scoring another one didn't take long. I was back in the "Big Box" store to buy a little box of baseball cards soon enough, and I got: another letter "C" - there's two of these snoozers on this checklist? Are you four-letter-wording kidding me? The new one was an even more boring block capital letter "C" featuring Grady Sizemore on the card. Navy blue again, too, possibly the most boring of all so-called 'colors.'

Nevertheless, I persisted. At least, in my thought of getting a cool baseball memorabilia patch out of one of these blaster boxes, and putting it on something, somewhere. I still wasn't sure what I would somehow apply one to, but that didn't dampen my desire to get a really cool "manu" (ewww) patch.

I don't think that ever really happened, to me. Topps kept making them and sending them to me, but I could just never get a really cool one. They were always for some team I didn't like, or some weird concept like an All-Star Game when I was 4 years old, and all manner of Why Do I Own This? gimcrackery that just never had a cool-ness factor, for me. Why couldn't I get some bad-ass Pirate, or a hip Maple Leaf from one of the Canadia teams, or a classic orange Tiger, or even just a simple MLB "Logoman," please, Topps?

It took several more years of accumulating these ever more useless THINGS from all the blaster boxes I was buying before I figured out a way to put one of the little patches to work, without having to somehow wear one out in public anywhere except a Major League Baseball stadium, which are far far away from where I live, anyway. But then, since Topps had moved on from really cool baseball iconography things on these THINGS to naturally going back to celebrating Topps itself, instead, I was now faced with a bit more of a dilemma. Because even in an MLB stadium running around with a miniature patch copy of a Josh Hamilton Rookie Card somewhere on your attire would probably still draw some looks. I mean a mini patch of Hank Aaron's Rookie Card - Dude, where did you get that cool THING? But Ryan Zimmerman - who the heck is that?

For some other fans and collectors out there, elsewhere, I'm sure each one of the THINGS I had would delight somebody, somewhere. But you are probably already thinking - to apply one of these patches, I would have to take the card apart. It would be fully ruined, destroyed, no longer a collectible item, once it was permanently attached to my used clothing, which you wouldn't want to collect, I hope. -1 of them, in the world. Some other collector would thus have that much less chance of ever owning one of these basically odd memorabilia products.

And that, is something you just can't do to a baseball card. But last night, that is precisely what I did.

So eventually, a blaster box coughed up this THING:

Though by this point, Topps had moved on to "medallions" and I just knew that none of them would really hang on the end of a chain around my neck, just exactly perfectly, cuz Topps stupidly forgot to include any place on the "medallion" to actually attach a chain.

But for this little piece of probably fake metal baseball card "medallion" gestalt, I had the perfect mission:

Now, now, don't freak out here people. You didn't really think I would put Ryan Braun in the Official Spot for the 2012 binder, did you? 

And that's not an authentic Platinum 1/1 copy (way back then the 1/1 version quite appropriately shines like the Sun so if you are ever so lucky to see it, bring sunglasses) of the single most famous baseball card of the 2010s, #US175, possibly getting completely wrecked being stuck in the Official Spot for my super cool binder full of generally completely worthless Rookie Cards. Not Rookie Card cards - the real deal, only one (err, not quite) RC logo Rookie Card officially blessed by the Commissioner in a secret ceremony every year the day after the All-Star Game when everyone is asleep, for each and every newly minted Major Leaguer from 2011 until, forever and ever. Or, at least, most of them. Believe it or not, Topps does still somehow occasionally completely miss the appearance of a Rookie in Major League Baseball. I know, I know, I'm just making up lies now. 

So I must confess the honest truth — that Mike Trout Rookie Card seen there is a, gasp, reprint. Don't tell anybody.

Now by this point people who just scroll on by all these tl;dr wordy words are about to start scrolling again so it's time to look at some cards and make people stop scrolling. I recently got my Rookie Card binder much further along the path to real collector organization and installed page 2, so I scanned that one, since I already posted page 1 last week. Let's go to the tape:

Do you have a Rookie Card wearing shades?

2011 Topps is a pleasant set to gaze upon. It will be a nice way to kick off paging through a binder mostly full of baseball players you can't remember any more, or just never ever heard of ever before anyway, like those two fresh fish from Miami. 

Until just tonight, after all these years of owning it and even finally bindering it up last week, it had escaped my notice that that Brandon Snyder RC is a really good Lead-Off card - there aren't too many of those in the Topps Baseball oeuvre. And every Brewers fan knew Jeremey Jeffress was just basically squirrelly even before you finally saw his Rookie Card card. Meanwhile it looks to me like Jeremy Hellickson might have been easy to run on. This binder is going to be chock full of fun. 

Now that hole there in spot #4 illustrates a small dilemma with this ultimate cool project: what do I do with those rare, once-or-twice-a-season, maybe, pretty actually valuable Rookie Card cards? Which in turn illustrates the dilemma with putting a Face Card in the Official Spot in the Rookie Card binder - US175 might well be the Face of the Franchise, here, but you just don't want to use an actually valuable card in the Official Spot.

Here is some real news you can use: have you ever tried to take a card back OUT of the Official Spot on the spine of the binder? That, is not pretty. Sliding it in there is as easy as pie, but the reverse, yikes! I almost had to go get a pair of needle-nose pliers to pull that #US175 reprint back out of there. And that, is not good; like, Andy Pafko levels of not good, though not for Ryan Braun card #1 in Topps Baseball card sets, unfortunately, especially since there are TWO of those cards. In my case, it was not good because even reprints of #US175 fetch a pretty penny, these days, eleven years after its original issue.

That missing card here on Page 2 is where the 2011 Topps #145 Freddie Freeman RC would go. But even with that not well centered, PSA 7-8, no-soup-for-you copy I scanned in last week, I'm not sure I want to put THAT card in a binder. Freddie seems on his way to the Hall of Fame, if you ask me, but Roger Bernadina, bunking with Freddie forever after over on page 1, is not, for one. So for now, I am equivocating on that spot on page 2, expecting that Topps will finally issue a reprint of #145, as they so much like to do with their famous, actually valuable Rookie Card cards, over and over and over again for decades yet to come. But so far whenever that idea has presented itself, they have picked #US175 to represent 2011 Topps in the Rookie Card reprint parade, even though #145 now has more rings, as they say, than #US175. But #145's day will come, and my copy will be living in a much safer plastic tomb than this one, which is designed for pleasant shiggles, really, as well as basic Baseball history appreciation. I am also fortunate that reprints of #US175 exist, and that I just won't have any qualms about the Jose Altuve RC card, for some reason, or, the Alex Bregman issue. To the binder tomb they will go.

I do have an ultimate dream for a card to put in the Official Spot of the Rookie Card binder. That would be finding a Rookie Card logo card for a player that ultimately never appears in Major League Baseball. I know it's going to happen. I know it already happened or, I think it did, anyway, on one of those floating head Rookie Cards in the 60s, or one of the four-way Rookies in the 70s, back when each player (well, almost) got one and only one Rookie Card - didja ever wonder just how did collectors survive in those dark days before Fleer and Donruss rescued us all by finally creating Rookie Card cards? 

I want a never happened card from the Modern Era, the one I actually live in, and I feel certain I will find one, eventually. Lately, the Tigers have been so bad that Topps just has no idea what to do with Tigers spots on their checklists any more - they have already issued 2 RC Tigers cards for players that never actually sported the olde English "D" in an MLB game, though those guys did make it onto the field of play for other teams. Those make for great RC trivia, but are just close but no cigar as they still aren't as epic as RC Zero will be. It almost finally happened last year, when a Tigers Pitcher injured his leg during warm-ups before what would have been his Major League Debut, with a Rookie Card already under construction back at Topps HQ. Luckily for Topps, he eventually did make it into an MLB game, though I have my doubts he will ever appear on Topps cardboard ever again, otherwise.

This year, I think I found my lowest Rookie Card card MLB participation level yet - just 4 At Bats. The 0 AB, 0 IP RC card is coming, I can feel it. Maybe it even already exists, and I just haven't coughed up enough subscription fee to Baseball-Reference dot com to find it. Or stayed awake long enough. Those auto-load ads on there are just so annoying, they are going to wrangle that subscription fee out of me if I ever hope to complete my RC Zero quest. Topps sure isn't going to be the entity that tells me which Rookie Card card is the Grail, here.

Now until that card appears, I have a back-up plan for the Official Spot on the spine in case the binder fills up with players with 2.2 IP and 13 AB and it's time to start up a second binder, before RC Zero finally arrives. Plus, it's time to show a card again before people start looking for links to click away from this craziness. So the following is Plan B, & easily my all-time favorite Rookie Card card with essentially no 2nd place (until RC Zero arrives to dispute things). Though I have posted it before somewhere on this herky-jerky baseball card blog, here yas go:

The GOAT Rookie Card card

Plus, it's a Bubble Gum card - betchya didn't even notice that, right off the bat. Singleton didn't even notice the batter swung the bat, he is busy chillaxing with his bubble gum. Priorities. Find me another RC Bubble Gum card - betchya can't. I have a whole binder full of the things. This one looks at that Sunglasses RC card up there and says: "Trump." Plus, Jon Singleton is like the Ricky Williams of Major League Baseball, except Ricky Williams might could be a better baseball player, not sure. How good you are at actually playing baseball isn't really all that important for Rookie Card card collecting, when you collect the players who never got a single vote for the All-Star Game, that nobody else collects. I mean, who else plays First Base like this, out on an MLB field? Who? C'mon now. GOAT. '51 Bowman Mantle, step aside. That one doesn't even have an RC logo - lame.

So probably I should just put that Jon Singleton RC on the Official Spot on the RC logo binder, but, I just like it too much to ruin it up in there (down in there?), since it's the GOAT and all. But I might, some day; after all I could just buy an extra copy of the GOAT RC for just one whole dollar, which seems sadly underpriced for a GOAT card, but that's the way she goes, boys, when it comes to Rookie Card cards, that's just the way she goes. They ain't making more of 'em. No, wait, they are, actually.

Thus until I resolve this existential dilemma of which card to put in the Official Spot in the all-time greatest Rookie Card card collection anyone has ever assembled (the decision is a heavy one), this is where that Tony Gwynn RC "medallion" comes in.

Or, did, before I found a much more pleasing RC logo baseball card memorabilia product for this mission, than that chintzy little "medallion" Topps sent me. "Medallions" should be big, bold, and beautiful, like the ones on Pascual Perez baseball cards. 

I don't remember precisely how it happened but I somehow stumbled upon the ultimate Rookie Card "manu" (eww) patch card, from 2010 Topps Finest:

The official deployment of the official RC logo there on the left side is the best part. Why didn't they do that on the Tony Gwynn "medallion" RC card? Topps is always screwing up these key details, we all know that. If it doesn't have the official RC logo, it's just not a Rookie Card card, is it?

Now you probably already know what is about to happen, so make sure no kids are reading this. There will be scissors involved. But before we break a cardinal rule of baseball card collecting, let's read this card it's Last Rites, err, Yeah, I Read the Backs. Always:

Gah! It's a real card back, like a real baseball card, not just the "Congratulations! You have just received a valuable baseball memorabilia product from the Topps Chewing Gum Corporation Incorporated" totally phoned-it-in cheese that adorns the back of all the "manu" (eww) patch cards I have ever luckily received, for free, in my blaster boxes, thank you very much.

An actual "real" baseball card? I totally didn't see that coming when I coughed up my $3 (worth 3x more than the GOAT? What's up with that?) to order this one. 

Even more oh-my-garsh-what-next is something hard to see in the scan, because it is printed with foil text: this card has a serial number! Its #10, of only 50 copies! "They" will know precisely which card I am about to break rule #1 of baseball cards with, forever and ever. Leave no trace of the crime, they told me. Oops. Luckily, #10 was not Tommy Manzella's uniform #, which just might have derailed the whole gosh durn project completely.

Plus, it has a fiendishly clever baseball Trivia question on the back that all you 2022 smart-alecks will get wrong, I guarantee it:

Among pitchers who have never yielded a walk-off HR, who has the most saves?

A. Eric Gagne

B. Mariano Rivera

C. Jonathon Papelbon

D. Jeff Reardon

Mariano, that's an easy one, you say? He's the GOAT Closer, whatever that is. Sounds difficult. Don't ever mess with Goats, would be my advice.

WRONG!

That would be Eric Gagne. This is a 2010 baseball card. But really, Fanatics, whoever wrote that trivia question - put them back to work, right away.

Now I have a sorta real baseball card holding on to a cool logo patch, and I wants it. But who is this Tommy Manzella guy, anyway? Never heard of 'em.

Of course you are holding this thing in your hand, right now, that answers all questions, ever, if you just ask it, out loud. Just say "Alexa, what was Tommy Manzella's career WAR?" Use your outdoor voice so Alexa gets it right on the first try.

I know, I know, it's still kinda weird to talk to an inanimate object, out loud at least, though SkyNet will probably animate things soon enough, like it or not. So I went ahead and asked them for you. After being drafted after college, looks like from his birthdate, it then took Tommy four more seasons to get a crack at the Bigs - not an encouraging sign, so far. Manzella had a thoroughly authentic Rookie Card career of a first season (remember, that's not his "Rookie" season) with a whole 5 At Bats in 2009 - qualifying him for the creation of a whole bunch of Topps Rookie Card cards, automatically, followed by a near perfect average of the genre the next year, when he appeared in 83 Games or essentially half of one season, somewhat authenticating the trust Topps placed in him when they created Rookie Card cards for him in no less than 9 different products, including commissioning 2 distinct paintings of him for National Chicle and a full load of autographed Rookie Card cards in Topps Chrome. 

Manzella managed to hit above the Mendoza Line, about which it is important to remember - hitting the baseball successfully more than 1 in 5 times in Major League Baseball is an incredible human achievement, facing Pitchers currently ranked in the top 250 in the world, as certified by their presence on a Pitching mound out there in front of you. No one reading this could even manage to hit the ball into a real Hit, facing any one of those 250 guys with a world class fielding defense of the top 485 Fielders in the world behind them. YOUR only chance at success would be a super lucky dribbler down the baseline while an overly tired Catcher is behind the plate, most likely. Tommy Manzella had a very good baseball career arc, if you keep things in the proper perspective. Not that I ever lose that perspective, nope.

Now beating the Mendoza line is more than can be said for Jon Singleton (the GOAT RC, don't forget), but Singleton bested him in WAR with a -0.9 mark to Manzella's -1.4, so maybe there is some hidden strategery to playing the field in that cop-a-squat position at First Base, possibly. Since Topps for some reason didn't memorialize Manzella's actual 2010 Rookie campaign with further cardboard, I had to ask Alexa/BaseballReference for all the deets. I maybe would have rather had another baseball card to check out, but then I probably would have one less 29 AB 2011 Rookie Card card in my cool RC binder, and therein lies the rub, or something.

Now while you were trying to remember just where Mendoza was when he drew that Line, I just went ahead and finally liberated a manufactured patch like I've wanted to do ever since I pulled that Bob Feller card for the Cleveland Naps, a team he never actually played for and is quite possibly the very worst Major League baseball team name, ever, in a sport that puts people to sleep way, way too much for it's own long-term good. Go, Naps! Though that does sound kinda good, to me at least.

I thought about shooting some video, but I would have to charge extra for you to see that, and, remember, there might be applicable baseball card laws at play here. This is the result:

Houston, we have a winner.

err, well, however Houston now can only drool over somehow finding the other 49 copies of the 2010 Topps Finest RC MLB Logo Patch [Memorabilia] (see, it's official Memorabilia, or, was), so Houston is a slight loser on this one. The vast majority of them haven't surfaced for sale lately, but they still might. Don't give up hope. Keep up the quest. We love you.

And that's how I finally put one of these "manufactured patches" to an actual use, rather than just have it float around my card desk for all eternity, which is what is happening with that Cleveland Naps cap logo patch THING, since COMC deemed it too damaged for them to sell to anyone cuz USPS somehow scuffed it up on the way to Washington, and then COMC sent it straight back to me so it could float around my card desk for all eternity, or until I find a Cleveland Naps fan who actually wants this exciting piece of baseball memorabilia, knowing that Topps will congratulate them and then has to figure out some way to make it stop floating around their card desk for all eternity, which is quite a challenge. 

Unless, you have a pair of scissors. And you really really want to put a script letter "C" that is just kinda trying too hard with those curly-cues, on something, somewhere. Got any ideas?