The 30-Day Baseball Card Challenge: Day #1

Tony, the wonderful writer of the “Off Hiatus Baseball” blog, started a fun activity based off the “30-Day Music Challenge” that Twitter users were taking.

The idea was to take a list of challenges, and find cards that meet those challenges. Along the lines of a scavenger hunt. You know I like scavenger hunts! The list of challenges looks like this:

Thankfully, Tony said the challenge didn’t have to be completed in 30 days. That might be a bit much for me to take on. (Plus, I’m already several days behind.) But, being able to take my time is very appealing. I’ve done long-term lists before like A-Z and 1-36, so this one should be fun. I’ll take a shot at doing these once a week, but we’ll see how that goes.

Today, we start with Challenge #1: A card from the current year with a photo you like.

Interesting. I don’t see where Tony said whether you need to personally own the cards, or not. But, I’m going to assume it needs to be a card in my collection. So, I went to my 2017 binder to find a card with a picture I like. Right away, I saw a problem.

I didn’t know how to define “like.”

Two cards came immediately to the forefront. The one that many people would pick is the Mookie Betts card shown below.

It’s a fabulous shot of Mookie doing everything he can to make a catch. You can even see the ball nestled in his glove. My issue was that as great a picture of a catch it is, it’s not like it’s the best picture of a diving catch ever. Which means there wasn’t really anything special about it. Even though I “liked” it.

Then I saw this card.

Now, I really “like” this picture. After all, as a Red Sox fan, was there a single part of the off-season that was better than learning that the Red Sox traded for Chris Sale? Not to me. Chris Sale would be pitching in Boston, and here’s the proof. Here’s Sale mid-windup showing off that Red Sox uniform he will eventually wear. 

What’s not to like?

But, obviously, this is not a remarkable picture at all. If this card showed Rick Porcello, or Tyler Thornburg, or Pedro Martinez it would be easily overlooked. But, it doesn’t show those pitchers. It shows hope. It shows expectation. It shows the path to the World Series.

I really like that.