Some PWEs, P-u-i-g's and the worst Kershaw card I've ever seen

It sucks being a slave to a budget. It's a necessary evil but it doesn't make me feel any better when I put a stack of envelopes on the "to be mailed table," consult my checking account, and then return the envelopes back to card desk limbo.

That's what happened earlier today to five unlucky packages that will wait a few more days to head to their destinations. Sorry, boys. Food and paper towels comes first.

But I do have some cards here that others found a few pennies to send. Interestingly (to me), they were both PWEs and they were both mailed from fellows named Jeff.

And, like almost every card package I receive these days, they both featured PUIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGGGS!!!!!!!!

This one is from Jeff.

And these two are from Jeff (sorry, no blog, but he's a very visible commenter. You probably know him by his Dallas Cowboys avatar).

In traditional Topps fashion, it has flooded the market with Puig cards a mere five months after people were selling their right eyeball for one. Now, almost everybody is disgusted with seeing Puig on cardboard. I wouldn't want Topps handling a food drop for a poverty-stricken nation. No telling what overkill tragedy would take place there.

Both packages also contained what is now my least favorite card of my most favorite player:

Thanks to the bizarre face Kershaw is making, the photo looks nothing like him. The weird narrow eyes, the extra chin/neck parts, the hair that looks recently coiffed. This is not the Kershaw I know. He looks like one of those Dick Perez paintings from the early '90s when Perez got sloppy.

This unfortunate Walmart blue card came from 2x3 Heroes Jeff, but both Jeffs sent this card:

Now the Bizzaro Kershaw is pitching in a sea of algae. Someone get that tank clean, and scrape this version of Kershaw from view.

Here is a more respectable likeness of Kershaw that was also in 2x3 Jeff's envelope. As you can see, Kershaw does feature a grumpus look on his face when delivering a pitch and does narrow his eyes.

It's likely all in the angle of the photo that makes the horizontal card look so strange.

I'd like to think that Topps would consider things like "that photo doesn't look like him at all" when choosing photos, but I know better. And I know I'm pickier about this than others.

I suppose if you're going to rank your favorite Kershaws, one card has to be the best and one has to be the worst.

I have a new worst.

Everyone's gotta have milestones.