Saturday, July 18, 2020

Calling it. My card of the year.

It's early and there are approximately 300 2020 issues yet to be released. But I'm calling it early. My card of the year is this:
This is a 2020 Topps Finest The Man insert card of Gleyber Torres. It's not a rare card, except for the fact that it comes from Finest and I still don't understand where people find Finest. So in that sense, it's rare to me. All 2020 cards are rare.

From the 1998 design, with vibrant background colors and an ESPN2-like "The Man" graphic, to Gleyber's too cool for school pose after likely hitting a homer (something he did 38 times last year), this card really does it for me on so many levels.

If swagger had a card, this would be it.

It's not perfect. It's a reprint. Gleyber is covering up some of the graphic. And the Finest logo is oddly placed directly over his foot, although that is where the logo originally fell.

It's a little silly of me to pick a reprint production for my card of the year. We've seen this design before, 22 years ago. And we're all sick of seeing Topps reboot designs. But I'd rather see a design like this come back to life than another Topps base issue where we're celebrating...some arbitrary anniversary, as Dan Good touched on in his recent card chat piece.

Maybe a card will come along and knock this one off its perch for me. I'll keep an open mind. But for now, it's going to be hard to beat this card.

Plus, if I had to describe Gleyber, "The Man" would certainly do it.

8 comments:

  1. It's awfully gaudy. But I'm glad that you like it. Hey. When are we getting your 1000th Tino card post?

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    1. Ha I do owe that one. I've been a bit busy with work and out of town this coming week, so not for a bit.

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    2. Sorry to hear you've been busy; but I'm very glad to hear you're going to be out of town and hope it's for vacation. I'll try to be patient.

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  2. You nailed it with this perfect description, "If swagger had a card, this would be it."

    I believe there was a lottery held to choose buyers for the on-line only purchase of Finest. I think I screenshot on Twitter that said something to the extent of, "Congratulations, you have been selected to purchased two boxes of Finest."

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  3. This is in your face and I like it.

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  4. Very nice card. Pretty colors. Those 1998 Finest inserts and the refractor parallels were tough pulls back in the day.

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  5. I need to track one of these down for my Gleyber pc

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  6. I love this insert set. I picked up the Bryan Reynolds.

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