Awesome night card, pt. 230: nominated for its first Bip Award

Hey! Awesome Night Card has just picked up its first award nomination! Selected for a 2014 Bip Award in the category of "Best Recurring Subject", I better put some effort into these things now!

Well, maybe next post.

I'm just trying to squeeze in some baseball card love amid my third straight work night this weekend. Yeah, yeah, you've all enjoyed the three-day weekend-wasn't-it-wonderful-blah-blah. Well, I have Tuesday and Wednesday off! HA!

I offer this night card not because a blog operated by a Yankee fan is showcasing the 2014 Bip Awards and my blog is selected in two categories, but because it was up next for the awesome night card series as an example of a recent Yankee card that does not disgust me.

This is no easy feat. I'm not one of those fans who is easily won over by a pleasant bit of humanity on a baseball card regardless of the team. I have no desire to see Yankees hugging. And those cards of Giants celebrating in 2011 Topps and 2011 Heritage are among the least favorite cards in my collection. I WILL burn them someday.

But this card, recognizing Mariano Rivera's 500th career save achieved against the Mets, does not make me hesitate. I like it and I don't feel bad about that.

Part of the reason is that Yankees that I like much, much, much less than Rivera, Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada, are all facing away from the camera. I don't have to see their mugs. It's pretty much the opposite of this thing:

But, yeah, aside from that, I like the Rivera card because it captures baseball camaraderie among teammates and it is framed in such a way that Rivera does not look like a Yankee but like a little kid, beaming as a 10-year-old would after dad embraced him and told him "good job!"

This is one of those rare cards that extends beyond rivalry and rooting interests and even above that overflowing, nauseating gushing that you get from some baseball fans and media during milestone moments that makes me want to run screaming the other way.

A lot of walls have been built between myself and the Yankees, whether it's their doing or my doing.

That's true achievement when a card can overcome all of that resistance.

(Go Vote!)

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Night Card Binder candidate: Mariano Rivera, Season Highlights, 2009 Topps Update & Highlights, #UH180
Does it make the binder?: Yup. Mariano's in.