Grinding my gears

I haven't been great at posting lately. I've just been a little lazy. Haven't busted packs in a long time, but I am steadily receiving packages from other bloggers, eBay, and even Listia. Still, basically all that leaves for me is a show-and-tell post, which about 95% of my posts seem to be. Oh well. I'm not trying to impress anybody.

For the seemingly minimum bid of 499 credits, I picked up two nice Bernie Williams cards on Listia. This is the card that really caught my attention. I apologize for the dark scan, but the card is super shiny and this is the best I could do:

This is a 2000 Skybox Metal Hit Machines insert. It's a very cool card and reeks of the 1990s despite just missing the decade by a year. As you can see, it's diecut around the gear. Presumably these gears represent the machine-like tendency of hitters in the year 2000. "I'm not a machine." - Albert Pujols.

As with many cards like this, the edges catch when placing it in a sleeve or top loader. That happened the first time I took the card out, which really annoyed me...or grinded my gears, if you will. Still, it's a great card that reminds me of my collecting heyday.

I also thought that the gear looked a little like a Reese's Cup. Night Owl would never name this set, but if he did, I hope that "Peanut Butter Cup Set" would be an option.

Switching gears (last pun, I promise)...

This Pacific Latinos of the Majors card also accompanied it. It's a very "Pacific" card. I always liked this insert set because Tino was included (despite being born and raised in Tampa). I wonder how bad Topps would get killed if they put out an insert called "Latinos of the Majors" right now? I feel like Pacific had a pass since they produced Spanish-language cards in the early '90s.

Anyhow, while Bernie was never necessarily a PC-guy for me, I would never pass up two shiny inserts of him.