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Thursday, January 4, 2018

Card #9: A Rare Feat of Feet

On July 25th 1956 Roberto Clemente was the first and only player in MLB history to hit a walk-off inside the park Grand Slam.

The rare event is celebrated on Topps 2015 Rarities insert as seen below.

Details of the event are on the back.

I really like the entire concept of this insert series.  The cards feature unique moments that many Hall of Famers have done.  Strange things like Ken Griffey Jr towering in 44 different ballparks or Rod Carew stealing 2B, 3B, and home all in the same inning.

Unfortunately Topps also included not so rare events which are still impressive in the set by non Hall of Famers.  Asdrubel Cabrera completed an unassisted triple play (14th in MLB history) and got the cardboard love.  Anibal Sanchez' 4 strikeouts to start an ALCS also got the production of a card for the rare but not 100% unique event.

The cards design is perfect as the background matches the player's primary team color as evidenced by the yellow in the Clemente above.  The back of the card giving a description of the rare event is perfect as well.

With so many unique things that Hall of Famers have done I think the only thing that could have made 2015 Rarities insert set better would be to limit it to strictly Hall of Famers and the rare and unique things they did in their careers.

Only 1% of all players become Hall of Famers.

The concept of a rarity should begin and end with only Hall of Famers.   Not Asdrubel Cabrera and Shawn Green.

2 comments:

  1. Not a big fan of all of the different insert sets that Topps floods our hobby with, but I gotta admit this was a pretty cool concept.

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    1. I love the design and concept. The checklist is great except a few strange ones like already mentioned.

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