Admittedly, I don't love countdowns. I especially don't love year-end countdowns. I don't know why, just never have. Maybe it's because the Letterman Top 10 got so overblown and overdone. In high school or college, I'd listen to a presentation by a dean of "Top 10 Reasons to Stay out of Trouble" or something, and it was always so lame. Older people tended to use "Top 10 Reasons..." as a way to relate to young people and show how hip they were. It always bugged me.
Then, last week, I was in Maryland for the holidays, and the local guys were doing "Top 10 moments in DC sports for 2013." I just felt like the guys mailed it in because they didn't want to be working the day after Christmas. I don't blame them one bit. I care nothing about DC sports, so perhaps that's why it rubbed me the wrong way or just reaffirmed why I don't dig Top 10s.
Anyways, I'll be extremely hypocritical and do a Top 5 TTMs of the year post. I'm doing this because I'm lazy, but feel like I should do one more blog post this year. See? I'm mailing it in.
5. Eric Jagielo, Yankees Prospect
Eric Jagielo was the Yankees first round draft choice this year. A 3B out of Notre Dame, he was one of the draft's most polished hitters. He was assigned to short season Staten Island. I didn't have a Yankee card of him yet, but still wanted to try him TTM. I started sending these Yankee Stadium cards as a solution for that. I don't love the "signature" cards or an index cards, so I thought this was a cool solution.
4. Jerry Lumpe
Really, this card is on here because it's a 1958 Topps card. I love getting TTMs on vintage cards (eeek, or defacing them!), and I only got a few of them this year. Lumpe's signature looks great on the card, and his turnaround time was very fast. Just a really, really nice success.
3. Shane Spencer
Spencer, to me, really embodied those great Yankees teams of the 1990's. He came up and won a job on the magical 1998 team with a torrid September. I feel like many of the Yankees fringe OF prospects refuse to come up and win a job. Spencer played like he never wanted to go back to the minors. He was a key contributor in the playoffs as well, and was a very likable guy.
2. Bucky Dent
Memorable moment, on a fantastic card. Enough said.
1. Andy Pettitte
This is my first Pettitte autograph. I figured I'd never see this card again, so I sent a crappy Pacific card that I figured I'd never see again. Well, I did see it again, this time with Andy Pettitte's autograph on it. Damn! Regardless, I'm extremely thankful to add this to my TTM collection, as it's one of the best successes I've ever had.
There you have it, my best TTMs from 2013. I'll probably do this again in late December of 2014 because I love countdowns.
