Just one card to evaluate for the buyback franken-set tonight, but it's a good one!
2002 Topps #225 - Ichiro Suzuki
Second-year Ichiro featuring the All-Star Rookie Cup logo! I snagged this one on eBay, because $2.00 plus a buck for shipping seemed very reasonable for an early-career card of one of the best pure hitters of his era. I'd love to get this future HOFer into the binder, but there's a competing card for this number:
Wow, tough match-up here. A nice Stottlemyre with an interesting backdrop and a nice bold Heritage buyback stamp against a pale blue sky. I hate to give this one the boot, but...
...the combination of Ichiro and the Rookie Cup was just too much. Mel here getting tossed really illustrates just how hard it's getting to be to make the binder now as I close in on 1,000 total buybacks.
It just so happens that card #225 falls on one of the few pages I've completed to date. Here's the previous incarnation, with Stottlemyre in the lower right corner...
...and here's the new look with Ichiro in his place.
Some real star power added to the binder tonight, hard to imagine this one ever loses its spot!
Franken-set Progress: 512/792 (63%)
"Rejected" Buybacks: 377
Total Buybacks in Collection: 889
I dont think I've ever seen that Ichiro before. $3 total is a great deal, and I agree with your decision: a '67 Stottlemyre was a tough match-up, but that page had enough vintage on it.
ReplyDeleteIchiro bumps a Yankee. Like Ice Cube says... today was a good day.
ReplyDeleteNo wrong choice here but my nostalgic side remembers how happy my father was when Stottlemyre broke into the Yankee rotation with a bang in 1964. So chalk me up as the dissenting judge writing the minority opinion on this panel.
ReplyDelete