I Have Never Written A Post About Hideki Matsui

Matsui-Mania was a thing for a few weeks in Durham back in 2012. I am not quite sure how I have never sat down and typed a few words about the long-time Yomiuri Giants and New York Yankees star. He was far from his prime and clinging to his professional career, but it was still fun to see him a few times in-person. One of those games was against Daisuke Matsuzaka (Dice K) who was on an injury rehab assignment for the Red Sox.  

Here is a grainy video of him launching a ball out to centerfield at the DBAP, only to get robbed of a home run. It's a tough park to hit a home run.  

Hideki Matsui only played stateside for a few years, but I think one of the biggest reasons I have never written about him is the fact that his cards were always seemingly out of my price range. It's hard to justify a three digit number for an autograph of a player who was only on the Bulls for a month at the end of his career.

I was surprised recently in an uptick in Matsui cards on social media, blogger, etc. Matsui has signed a lot of cards for Topps in 2023 and they are a fraction of the price they used to be. When you factor in his profile as a Japanese player and the fact that he was a World Series MVP for the Yankees, it's a pretty reasonable number.  

First Matsui post, first Matsui autograph.  

Hideki Matsui was easily the biggest name missing from my collection of Durham Bulls autographs. This card feels really satisfying.  

Now, That's A Name I Have Not Heard In A Long Time

Topps Pristine?  

Jack Flaherty?

The last time I opened a pack of Topps Pristine cards, I was trying to chase down some So Taguchi and Jason Simontacchi rookie cards. I do not think either of those players have appeared in a game during the past decade. Although, I still enjoy looking at their baseball cards.  

Here is my copy of the one of the Topps Pristine Simontacchi card. 

Whatever your opinion of short-lived long-relievers who get the occasional spot start, Topps Pristine were nice cards. They had a nice design, although the checklist was a little gimmicky, and the packs came with encased cards in separate packs inside the regular pack. If you could get past some of the packaging oddities, I am not really sure why Topps decided to stop making these cards.

I am also not sure why Topps decided to bring back this product line after a 15 year hiatus. I was intrigued when I saw other people talking about it, so I went and checked out some of the different Cardinals and former Durham Bulls players who had cards in the set. There were the usual selection of Nolan Arenado, Goldschmidt, Yadier Molina, and Wander Franco cards.  

They were are a little more than what I wanted to spend for a card that was as much brand nostalgia as it was trying to purchase a card of a player that I collected. I was about to move on when I saw a really cheap copy of a Jack Flaherty autograph.

Topps Pristine disappeared for a long time, just like Jack Flaherty has seemingly disappeared from the baseball diamond. It seemed like a perfect pairing.  

This Flaherty Topps Pristine autograph is one of the encased cards.

 

 

 

Quality signature as far as Flaherty 'graphs. I like the clear white space at the bottom of the card for the signature. The background design is decent, although it reminds me a bit of one of those graphics created to show the political party breakdown of the House or Senate with the blue and red dots jumbled up. 

 

 

 

Honestly, I have probably been teaching too long. 

The back design has the usual, boring congratulations letter about pulling an autograph from a pack of cards. I am not sure what is happening with the big red blob here. Is Congress being launched into the sun or is this some sort of psychological tests given to the person who pulled this $10 autograph from a $500 box of cards?

Simontacchi!

A little old school tonight for tonight's post.  I was going back through some of my old sets trying to finish off a few of them when I ran across a few holes in my 2002 Topps Pristine set.  Most notably I was lacking a Jason Simontacchi card.  For those unfamiliar with him, he played for the Cardinals in the early 2000s primarily during the 2002 and 2003 seasons.  Not the best pitcher by any stretch of the imagination, but he was popular with fans.  

So, I got my base card of Simontacchi's Topps Pristine card, or Common, but also managed to pick up a few other cool Simontacchi cards from the set.  Here's a look at the other two cards from the Pristine set:  

 

Both of the new Simontacchi cards are Gold Refractors from the set and are serial numbered out of 70.  I also like that Topps used the deckle edges for these cards.  They are shiny and bright, but the edges give the cards a cool texture too.  The best part of landing these two cool Simontacchi cards is the fact that they cost slightly less than $2.  He might not have been the best pitcher in the world, but he is still a Cardinal, and these cards are still both numbered to 70.  

Friday Five: Top 5 Sets From 2002

5. Topps Total- There were two mega sets issued during the 2002 summer: Topps Total and Upper Deck 40 man.  The boxes of Total were pretty cheap, but with a total of 990 cards collectors needed several boxes and loads of patience to assemble this set.  However, even if you are not into putting together this gigantic set, it's still a plus for team collectors and individual player collectors.  There are dozens of players in this set that do not appear in other sets and honestly, where else can you find a set with 30 players from your favorite team?  Not many Mark Little cards floating around, but he was on the 1998 Cardinals which makes it a keeper.

4. Upper Deck Vintage- If Upper Deck had decided to rehash the wrong Topps set and pass it off as a Vintage set I would have gladly walked the other way.  However, a rehash of the 1971 Topps set is always worth your time and effort.  These cards were really cool with 1971 players and they are also really cool with 2002 players.  The set is not too big and not too difficult to find at low prices.  I loved putting this set together and went through and picked up a lot of the insert sets too.  There are relic cards and autographs too, but you might actually have to spend time and money to land them.  Overall a really good set.

3.  Topps Pristine- I got a bunch of these when they first came out and just remember being completely annoyed at the fact that there was a pack of cards inside another pack of cards.  It reminded me a little bit of the 2001 Donruss cards with the "retro" packs stuffed inside of the regular packs.  Over the years I seem to have ended up with a whole lot of these cards in my collection.  A big chunk of the base set, a ton of the transparent autographs, and some of the encased rookie cards.  For me, the autographs are the real stars of the show.  The signatures are mainly younger players from that era, but that includes nice autographs from Pujols and Jimmy Rollins.  If nothing else, these are fun cards to look at and worth a little bit of your time and money to track down a few.

2.  Topps Super Teams- This was a fun little set and flies under the radar a little too often.  The set focuses on 11 different World Series winning teams and features cards of their key players and manager.  There are foil parallels, autographs, and relic cards too.  Not the most popular set, but it's one of my favorites from this year.  A lot of good names from good teams, cool pictures, and the autographs are aren't too expensive either.  I cannot remember the last time I saw a complete set floating around.....

1.  Topps Heritage- Based on the 1953 Topps set this is the second rehash set to appear in my list this week.  However, Topps rehashing their own card design in a product that is one of the most popular releases annually versus whatever Upper Deck did with the 1971 Topps set (it's beautiful) is a completely different story.  I liken the Topps Heritage sets to Godfather Part 2 with the original design of these cards being the original Godfather.  I almost liked this set better than the 2001 Topps Heritage set for several reasons.  It has the short prints and logo variations and night card variations and everything that goes into a good recreation of the 1953 Topps set, but the extras that come with a modern baseball card set were a little bit more achievable in this set.  I am still looking for the Edmonds autograph....one day.