Cardboard Classics - 2014 Topps Kendrys Morales

I often find that so much of my hobby time is spent shopping, or looking forward to acquiring more, and not enough is spent reflecting on and enjoying the awesome cardboard that I do own.  I also find that my own OCD often prevents me from posting a card without a good bit of research and a corresponding lengthy write-up.  This can make for very few posts in the months when life outside my hobby has me busy.

In an effort to kill both these birds with one stone, I'm going to be posting individual cards from time to time under the heading "Cardboard Classics".   These will be cards that maybe didn't catch my eye enough to warrant a post the first time around, but that I got a greater appreciation for in digging back through my boxes...cards that I think are worthy of a brief post in their own rite.  I know this isn't exactly original (thinking Night Owl's Cardboard Appreciation series, in fact thinking this is why most of us have blogs to begin with!) but as they say, imitation is the highest form of flattery.

Kicking things off is a brand new card from 2014 Topps.  Yes, despite all my railing against buying wax I did pick up a solitary blaster this past week.  I can honestly say that I bought it with the intention of trading away nearly all of it, as I owe a few bloggers cards and have precious little trade bait laying around.  Anyway, the blaster wasn't anything special, I got two lousy Red Sox base cards and the rest goes into the trade box.  The cards aren't as bad as I've heard many people say, but I don't like them as much as some do either.  I can confidently say that will be my one and only blaster.  There was one card I pulled that I didn't think much of at first, other than "hey, cool photo", but after reading an article yesterday I have now moved it over to my small keeper pile:

Back in 2010 while playing for the Angels, Kendrys Morales suffered one of the dumbest injuries in the history of sports when he broke his lower leg and ankle jumping on home plate to celebrate a game-winning home run.  He missed a year and a half of playing time before he was able to return to the game.

The photo above comes from a game on June 23rd last season.  Morales hit another walk-off home run, this time with the Seattle Mariners, and as he approached the plate got a good ribbing from his teammates.  What a great shot, a blurry Morales with arms raised in the foreground while the rest of the Mariners, most notably Felix Hernandez, encourage him to slow down and take it easy to avoid a repeat injury.

Here's the back of the card, which ties nicely to the photo on the front given that you can see just 51 games played in 2010 and the entire 2011 season missed due to injury.

A very comical photo resulted in this card being salvaged from the trade box and appreciated as it should be.  Great job with this one Topps!