I got a notification Thursday morning announcing the terrific news that Topps had selected Mike Trout to be card number one in their 2016 set. Being the first card in the set is a tradition that baseball card companies have followed to honor a special player. Topps decided to let fans choose by way of an online vote this year, and Trout was declared the winner.
“It’s awesome. I appreciate the support from fans across MLB,” Trout said in a statement released by Topps. “It’s pretty special to be the No. 1 card for Topps.”
It looks like it will be a great card, featuring an image of his legendary climb-above-the-wall catch at the Big A in September to rob Jesus Montero of a home run. The card inspired me to rummage through my baseball card collection and see if I could come up with a top ten list of my favorites.
Here they are, in chronological order:
This 1970 Jim Fregosi Topps card has the best shortstop of the 1960s looking a little like Danny Zucko. It has the bonus of the oddity of a pick-up truck somehow finding its way to the background of a baseball card.
I bought this 1973 Nolan Ryan Topps card from a vendor on Beckett’s website a few years ago when I realized it was affordable to buy cards you thought would be out of your price range if you were willing to settle for less than a mint-grade card.
Love this chisel-jawed, boldly mustachioed, Popeye-forearmed 1983 Topps Bobby Grich All-Star card. The look on his face reveals the nothing-is-going-to-get-in-my-way style of play he embraced all throughout his exceptional career.
Sorry for including a photo of a Dodger in this post, but this 1994 Mother’s Cookies card represents, for me, the turning point in the Angels’ journey to its first World Series championship. When Tim Salmon won the Rookie of the Year award, it was a feat no other Angel had ever accomplished, and it would foreshadow another, even greater, feat that was hitherto unknown in the franchise’s history.
On the heels of Tim Salmon came Garret Anderson in what would become a flood of exceptional talent welling from the Angels’ farm system in the 1990s. This 1993 Topps Future Star card shows Garret smiling, something fans would rarely get to see from the serious, highly professional GA.
Well what do you know, this 2003 Troy Percival Upper Deck card can still send shivers down my spine.
The magic of number 27. I hope the Angels never retire that number. The great Leon Wagner wore it in the early sixties when he became the first American League player to win an All-Star game MVP award in 1962; Vladimir Guerrero, the best hitter I have ever seen, wore it in the 2000s; and now Trout is continuing to make number 27 a special number for Angel fans everywhere.
For eleven straight years, Darin Erstad did amazing things for the Angels at the plate, on the bases, and as a defender. In addition to that, he was the epitome of the always-give-it-your-best-effort work ethic. So it is fitting to see him in this 2007 Upper Deck card, with his old-school socks, leading the team onto the field.
Jered Weaver, one of the greatest pitchers in Angel history, is such a mysterious contradiction. On the one hand, he seems so calm and in control, like when he gets into a jam and then he pauses to focus on some distant object in the stadium before he sets up for his next pitch, or the way he slowly walks off the field after the third out of an inning. But then, underneath all of that is the heart of a fierce competitor that will explode out of his cool exterior at any moment like it did in the photo for this 2012 Topps card.
The final card for this article is my 2013 Topps Mike Trout Rookie if the Year card showing the phenom with dirt all over his pants and his face caught in a moment of youthful exuberance, making all of us wish we had that much fun when we were working at our jobs.
What are some of your old favorites?
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