A Phun Little Card

I received this card recently in a surprise package from the wonderful host of The Phillies Room. It’s both a great card, and an interesting one at the same time.

For the non-card collectors out there, those cut-outs under the pictures are pieces of game-worn jerseys. Not too long ago, card companies realized collectors were a little bored with just pictures of players. So, they started having players autograph cards before the sent them out. Then they started with the jersey pieces in the cards. These days, if it relates to a baseball player, chances are that it’s in a card somewhere. Lately, they’ve decided that if one player jersey piece is good, three must be even better, and eight must be better than that.
What I really like about the card is the player selection. Naturally, I’ll be averting my eyes from the right side of the card whenever I look at it. I always wonder how they decide who gets to be grouped on a card. You’ll sometimes see cards depicting “Speed Demons” or “Power Pitchers.” That leads to a clear selection of players to group together. It always made more sense to me when the players were all on the same team. I found it odd that people would collect ever both Pedro Martinez and Greg Maddux. Smoltz and Maddux I could understand. It happened a lot with the three AL shortstops in the 90’s. They’d have things with Nomar, ARod, and Jeter smiling away. That was especially odd since generally, if you liked one you hated the other two. Especially Jeter and Nomar.
So, what did they decide to go with here? Ortiz-Hafner-that other guy. They went with the “Great DH’s” theme, I guess. I’m sure there are all kinds of collectors out there filling up on DH’s. (Of course, they ruined it by listing that other guy as a first baseman.)
Whatever the rest of the card is, I love the Ortiz third of it. Anytime you can get a piece of his jersey, it’s a wonderful thing. It’s also a nice design to it. The fact that the jerseys spell out the initials of the card brand “O-Pee-Chee” is self-serving, but not a bad as I’ve seen it before.
I couldn’t be happier to add it to my collection.