Anyone else remember P-town Tom's annual Card of the Year contest? It's been five years since he last held it, so no judgement if you don't.
Anyways... it happened to pop into my head when I was scanning this card last week:
2025 Topps First Pitch #FP2-3
I realize we're only seven months into 2025, but I don't envision Topps, Panini, Leaf, or any other card manufacturer producing anything else this year that would bump Rickey. This card is not only my favorite card this year, it's one of my favorite cards... period.
I'm sure some of you are scratching your heads as to why I think this card is so cool. Well... it has nothing to do with the rarity, design, or overall value... which are things I might usually take into consideration. Nope. It's all about the sentimentality.
But the sentimental part is that I was in attendance and watched him throw it out:
Over my lifetime, I've had the opportunity to watch Rickey in person on dozens of occasions. Unfortunately back in December, he passed away a few days before his 66th birthday.
As a fan of the A's and the Man of Steal, 2024 ended up being a rough year. But at least I have the memory of being at that game. And this First Pitch insert will keep that memory fresh in my mind, along with this card:
Speaking of First Pitch inserts, I have been sitting on two 9-pocket pages worth of them since May. Check out these beauties:
Thank you Kenny for sending me all of these First Pitch inserts.
2024 Topps Now #761
These eighteen cards were part of the care package I received from Kenny over at Torren' Up Cards earlier in the year. I had been saving them, because I knew I would eventually add the Rickey Henderson to my collection and wanted to share them all together.
Here's a peek at their backs:
By the way... if you enjoy seeing Zippy Zappings, he sent me another care package last week. The plan is to open it up today and publish a post either this weekend or next week.
I'd also like to thank Jim over at cards as i see them. He's the one who let me know that Rickey was going to part of this First Pitch set.
As for the rest of you, thank you for checking out this post... and allowing me to get all "sentimental" with you.
Today's question of the day is...
Do you have any 2025 Card of the Year candidates?
If so, share them down below.
Happy Thursday and sayonara!
14 comments:
Man o man, if MLB would just let only beautiful ladies throw out the first pitch, then again if that were the case.....you wouldn't have gotten Rickey. LOL.
I remember Tom's blog and Card of the Year. It's probably been at least five years since i've collected enough new stuff to suggest a candidate, but that Rickey is a good one!
Card of the year! Your selection is awesome. It's a beautiful card and how very cool that you were there at the game for it. I'm not sure about my card of the year but so far I think it's Steven Kwan's Series 2 flagship.
What a great addition to your collection! I do remember P-Town Tom’s annual posts and it inspired me to go back and create a mini collection of my favorite cards of each year I’ve been collecting. I do have a couple of front runners for this year but I’ll wait a few more months to see what else shows up.
I picked a card of the year for the first several years of the blog. I stopped doing that as I purchased less and less current product. I haven't thought about a 2025 card of the year. I'll probably do that in December.
Very cool pick for card of the year, think it's very reasonable that something that personal is your pick. I remember when Tom hosted those contests my picks were always weird New York Rangers base cards just because I liked the photography.
Nice that Rickey received almost a sunset card this year. Great choice.
Nice choice for card of the year and for some wonderful yet tearful reasons. Rickey loved Rickey. I don't have a clear cut favorite for card of the year. However, I do want to find a copy of this First Pitch card for my collection of said cards.
We should revive this! What every happened to Tom anyways?
The only current cards I see these days are the Red Sox team set and whatever I see others post on their blogs. Nothing in the Red Sox team set sticks out as extraordinary this year. The 2025 35th Anniversary Autograph cards I have seen look great though. I was never a fan of the 1990 Topps set but it sure looks good on glossy card stock with an on card autograph. Of the Red Sox ones I think the Varitek and the Nomar look the best. I admittingly have not seen all the cards from the other teams so I am sure there is a better looking one than those two.
If it wasn't an insanely priced SP I'd nominate the Darren Baker Golden Mirror as a candidate here.
That really is a fantastic card.
johnnys trading spot - lol. sometimes they do. look up jenn tran. she's pretty cute and in the set with rickey
chris - maybe someone else will take over and bring the contest back
peter k steinberg - was the kwan from a specific moment? in regards to the photo... i was actually a bigger fan of his 2024 flagship card. that being said... i'm a fan of the well cropped action shot
gcrl - looking forward to seeing some of your favorites of 2025 later in the year
night owl - it's a lot harder to pick a favorite when you don't open up stuff. i know i've only opened up a few packs myself. and this rickey wasn't in any of them :D
zippy zappy - normally photography plays a huge role when i'm choosing favorites. sentimentality is the one thing that tends to trump it for me
the lost collector - i'm sure topps will end up producing some form of a legends version using the flagship design. but that's just a guess
ohiotim - just looked it up on comc and they're pretty cheap. i'm thinking of grabbing 9 copies of this card and filling up a 9-pocket page :D
matt - maybe enough bloggers will get behind it and revive it. as for tom, he's still around. he actually wrote a post on his blog a few months ago.
adame - i totally understand. i'm in the same boat as you. most of the 2025 cards i've seen are of the a's and padres variety... along with the stuff i've seen on other blogs.
nick vossbrink - just looked it up. that card is pretty awesome!
Agreed on the Henderson card. Simply awesome.
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