30 Day Baseball Card Challenge - Day 19

Day 19 - A favorite card form a country other than the United States.

I don't have a ton of cards from other countries.  I guess I could go with Panini stickers from the 80's and I don't collect Japanese cards so the best I can do is go North of the border, or in my case south, to Canada.  I've always dug the 83 design and I love that the O-Pee-Chee label  is prominently displayed on the front.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge - Day 18

Day 18 - A card of a player who became manager of your favorite team.

I ended up picking not really a card, but a fun oddball.  As a Brewers fan I had a few managers to choose from, but in the end it really wasn't a contest.  I picked the guy that let the Crew to their only World Series appearance.  Harvey Kuenn.  Not only that Harvey had a pretty successful baseball career.  Harvey was a ten time All-Star, Rookie of the Year in 1953 and won the AL batting crown in 1959.  While his 15 year career stats didn't earn him a trip to Cooperstown, his numbers still were pretty decent.  I won't retell the story of his coming to helm the Brewers.  But Harvey has some great oddballs from his playing days.  One of my favorites is this 1962 Topps Baseball Bucks.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge - Day 17

Day 17: A card from the first set you put together hand collated.

Day 17 and Day 3 collide as 1987 Topps was the first set I tried to complete and hand collated.  So instead of combing through the checklist of 792 cards and trying to pick one out I decided to let the fates decided which card to feature here.  I went over to random.org and had their random number generator pick a number for me.  And that number was 535.  Who was number 535?  Tony Armas from the Red Sox.  I've included the back of the card because Topps thought that Tony coming from a very large family was the most interesting thing to say about him.  A quick googling of Tony lets me know that he was one of the top sluggers in the American League in the 80's.  He also was on the DL quite a bit.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge - Day 16

Day 16 - A card of a player whom you appreciate but don't like.

Man made it half way!  A lot has happened since I decided to take Tony L's 30 Day Baseball Card Challenge.  I went on a trip to visit family in Wisconsin, I just had my gallbladder removed, we are selling our home and buying a new one.  So if I've lagged behind it's because I'm a little busy and I like to ponder the question at hand.

So for Day 16 I dig deep into my boxes.  Just kidding they're all packed away right now, but I knew who I wanted to feature and I knew which card.

Meet Derek Jeter and his 2000 Topps Tek Tektonics die cut insert card.  It's a pretty cool card.  I have no idea where I picked this up and now that every card I own is mothballed in storage I have no idea where it's at.

I'm not a Yankees fan or a Jeter fan for that matter.  But I am a fan a player that can put together a 20 year career with the same team.  That shows dedication not only on the player, but also the team.  Put behind that Derek's 5 World Series rings, 14 All-Star appearances, 5 Silver Slugger awards, 5 Golden Gloves, etc, etc.  I have no doubt that Derek will be a first round Hall of Famer.  So I can appreciate what this man was able to do for the Yankees.

30 Day Baseball Card Challange - Day 15

Day 15: One of your favorite cards from the 2010s.

Maybe the hardest decade to choose from.  So many cards, but in the end I picked one of my favorite modern Robin Yount cards.  Not a relic or autograph, but just a simple base card.  This card also happens to be a parallel, but that's just because I couldn't find my scan of the base.

It's funny when this card showed up I was a little taken back seeing Robin decked out for one of his other passions.  But after looking through the set this card is unique.  It's the only card in the set featuring a player doing something not related to baseball.  Sure there are a few picks with players in suits and not on the field, but not doing anything else.  Fellow Yount collector Tony L and I both joked that we'd love to see a combo card of Robin and Paul Molitor playing golf in Allen and Ginter this year.  The photo was taken from a session that produced the card image for Robin's 1992 Pinnacle #287 Sidelines subset card.

I really like the overall look of the set as well.  With a borderless, full-bleed front, a nod to the Fleer sets from the late 90's, and great photo choices it all works well for the set.

It's coming!!

I know I mostly post about cards on here, but I know we have a few comic collectors too.  Just a friendly reminder.

30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 14

Day 14: One of your favorite cards from the 2000s.

If there was one product I would snag in a heartbeat if I could find it reasonably priced it would be 2005 UD Artifacts.   Back in 2005 I did open quite a bit of it and pulled some really nice cards.  A couple of cards I call my keepers.  Cards that don't really fit into my collecting strategy, but are really cool.  One such card is this sweet Rod Carew Patch card.  And while I'm not a Carew or a Twins collector it's still has a place in my Keepers collection.