Today I got started on a couple too-long-delayed projects, both of which were quite enjoyable. I built my first binder page of Miguel Cabrera cards from an impressive (to me) stack of the things I have accumulated; there will be many more of these in the future.
I also am composing this post on a brand new laptop. Hooray Me! Technology is always the most enjoyable when it is cutting-edge bright & shiny. This is my first laptop with a solid-state drive so I am hoping it will be an extra extra long time before I need to migrate into an expense like this one - I would rather be buying Baseball Cards, natch. This will also help out quite a bit with Blogger as I am back to using my preferred browser after The Google declared my preferred browser on my previous laptop to now be too old, for "safety."
OK, now that we have all hands and feet inside the vehicle again, let's see some cards!
The Card That Started It All
2012 Topps
This little project has a more uncertain origin in that it took me a while to build up the stack of Miggy cards enough to notice these; so there is no way to know which exact card I saw first. My best guess is this one. I knew this image was recurring in that stack and finally way back last year I managed to pull these cards from the stack and get started, though when I did that I discovered I was a few cards short of Nifty-Nine-ness so I snagged a couple more on Black Friday to get this one across the finish line. I'm looking forward to these results...
2006 Topps Updates & Highlights
This was a lucky find as I have very few Miggy Marlins cards. This is a "Home Run Derby" card in case the lack of a batting helmet doesn't make that clear - scanner no like-y the foil printing, once again.
It was even a lucky acquisition - way back in the way back I pulled a /50 Yasiel Puig Rookie Card card of some kind right while I was simultaneously participating in my first (and so far, only) "group break," which worked out poorly - for me. However the breaker had a card I didn't want to keep but could sell for a few dollars credit towards another upcoming break and since that was way before I got into selling on COMC, having him sell it for me was a convenient little plan. Just as that trigger was about to be pulled, I pulled the Puig card and asked him to sell that also and then just as the credits were going to roll in for me, he offered me a lot from another customer: some 150-ish assorted Miguel Cabrera cards. So rather than us both fooling with sending electronic "money" back and forth it just became a simple trade. One Yasiel Puig card for 150 Miguel Cabrera cards, E-Z Pea-Z. I think I "won" that one pretty handily.
2011 Heritage
I'll bet you didn't know Miggy has a tattoo on his hand. It is pretty rarely photographed, I think, and I'm not sure it can be seen on any other Baseball Cards. The photographer sent to Lakeland for 2010 Photo Day must have hit it off well with Miggy that day, to get him to re-create his iconic Home Run pause like this.
2013 Opening Day "Opening Day Stars"
I was looking forward to scanning this one, has been a while since I put a 3-D card on the glass. I knew it wouldn't come out that great, but that's great - makes me appreciate the 3-D card in 3-D, all the more.
Disqualified
2013 Topps Update "Post-Season Heroes"
This is going to happen from time to time building a little collection like this: repeats. Though I have to give this card props for the insert set theme more well revealing the World Series patch on Miggy's right shoulder there, something more difficult to notice on the 3-D card. Luckily I admired my 2 purchases so much before purchasing them that they got to me to 10 of these cards, so discovering that one had to go still worked out just exactly perfectly.
2013 Topps
2014 Topps "saberstars"
One of Topps' very first efforts at using "sabremetric" stats in any way. They picked a big one for The Big Man.
2017 Topps "Mother's Day"
I thought about declaring this one "on the bubble" but it keeps growing on me. Even without the pink bat it is one of my better Mother's Day cards so I was tempted to hunt up another one of these and let this shine on a pink page someday. But eventually I did realize this different vantage on the action here is well worth keeping it included.
2018 Topps "Legends in the Making"
These inserts have been increasing their appeal to me some years after they appeared, particularly with the variety of colors they appear in, both on the different cards and then in different colored parallels of them. Unfortunately I already got rid of many of them. The overall result only works well, for me, with the younger/newer players - putting Shohei Ohtani on a couple (iirc) of these was a seemingly bold choice but then we all know Rookies are included in everything regardless of their chance of becoming a "Legend." Here, I think Miguel was a wee bit past the "in the making" part of the concept but the explosion of ink works pretty well for a Home Run pose. Am kicking the inkwell on a thought of maybe assembling 9 more of these, will probably depend on if any manage to appear somewhere around the card desk still; not sure that is still possible.
2022 Topps Fire "To The Moon"
This was also a lucky find - on COMC, as was the Heritage card. Being able to scroll through every Baseball Card ever made can be purdy handy sometimes.
Odd trivia factoid about that last card there - it is the only one in this collection which repeats the same batting glove from another image.
The Result
511 Home Runs, one iconic image.
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