All right, we're blog batting around again! These come in super-handy when the window is super-tight for blogging, which it is today and tomorrow. (But May is almost over!)
John's Big League Baseball Blog asks us to discuss our favorite player's final base card, the one that wrapped up his career. That card must be from a major set, no inserts, later retro cards (such as the one shown above), relics or autographs or buybacks. I like the way John thinks. Base cards never got anyone into any kind of hobby trouble. Can't say the same for a lot of that other stuff.
My all-time favorite player is Ron Cey. His career ended quite awhile ago. Here is his final Topps base card:
What's that? You say that's not Ron Cey's final base card? He has cards later in his career when he played for the Cubs and A's?
Oh come on, you don't believe those urban legends do you? This is what happens when too many people make too many custom cards and start churning out things that never happened. Such as this:
Look at how disgusted Cey is to be pictured in a polyester softball top with -- lordy, a Cubs logo plastered on it? That's some slick photoshopping, eh?
All right, fine, if you insist, a lot of people say that this is the final card from The Penguin's career:
Yeah, the Oakland A's. Wild. It's amazing what people will believe off the internet. Ron Cey in a green uniform? What? And where did that wonderful 1970s mane of hair go? Those AI images can't get anything right.
1983 Topps is Ron Cey's final card. Thanks for allowing me to participate.
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(OK, sure, Ron Cey played for the Cubs and the A's during a few dark years in the 1980s. The Dodgers trading Cey never seemed like a smart decision to me, even if his skills were starting to decline a little. I spent a lot of the 1980s adjusting to players from my childhood suddenly showing up in strange uniforms and this was the most difficult instance.
(But I stayed true to the Dodgers, unlike one person I know who actually changed his favorite team due to the team's transactions at this time. And Cey as a Dodger will always be the best Cey).
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