My Favorite Baseball Card of My Favorite Baseball Player

Peter at Baseball Every Night is celebrating his one-year anniversary as a blogger. To mark the occasion, he is holding a contest: write a post of any length, content, or whatever about your favorite baseball card of your favorite baseball player.

If you haven't interacted with Peter before, you should at least follow him on Twitter. Well, you should so long as you appreciate erudite conversation in which he discusses the ins and outs of game theory as it relates to Sylvia Plath.

No, not really.

But you should follow him if you appreciate discussions of good beer, a dislike for the overkill of love shown to David Ortiz last year by Topps, and a complete hatred of 1995 Fleer cards. From time to time, I've been known to ruffle Peter's feathers by saying that, contrary to reality, he actually loves  1995 Fleer. Believe me -- he really does. Not. I mean does not.

So, it should not be a surprise that his contest rules state clearly that:

Any entrants selecting a card from 1995 Fleer will be automatically disqualified. But please do still post as I'll then forward your entry to a psychiatrist so that you can get the help you need.

I can see his point. There's very little to like about that card set. I've stated my dislike for it in the past. But then, it got personal:

Any entrants that select a 1995 Fleer card that I deem is intentionally trying to get disqualified (Tony L.) will be re-entered into the contest and will have their name added to the randomizer 18 times.

Whoa. It sounds like I can tip the scales in my favor in a major way here! But I hate 1995 Fleer. What's a guy to do?

How about a custom "card"?

 

It's just a prototype for Peter's very own 1995 Fleer card, featuring his position of Blogger and Sylvia Plath Scholar and highlighting the baseball that he stole from a crying 7-year-old kid. Or, rather, that he got by beating out a surly 13-year-old kid. One of those two.

In reality:

The reality is that most cards of my favorite players are cool but never really approach the level of being "THE" favorite. Yet, every time I think of my favorite card literally in my entire collection, I always seem to come back to the same one:

I come back over and over again to the Cardsphere Hero custom card from Christmas of 2015 that came my way courtesy of Gavin at Breakdown Cards. Gavin has a far more popular and much more interesting blog than mine -- I mean, come on...I'm a one note wonder and his collection is as eclectic as it comes -- and he's a much more talented artist and card maker to boot.

Gavin deserves the thanks and praise that all in the blogworld give him. And I haven't thanked him enough yet for this incredible card that remains my favorite baseball card almost 18 months after I received it.

Thanks go out to Peter for both the contest and for being a good sport for putting up with my chicanery and once again to Gavin. And, also, thank you for reading -- I appreciate it.