Card Of the Week 5/05/08

Bob was my favorite player when I was a kid (favorite hitter actually, Knucksie was my fave pitcher) but I'm not going to get all into my cherished memories quite yet. Today I'm going to tell the tale of how I acquired this particular beauty. A few weeks ago I stated there was a specific card I was desperately looking for, and I can finally say I got the thing. It wasn't exactly a White Whale, just a 2007 Goudey Jeff Francoeur jersey card. I wanted this card ever since I first saw it last year, but I was lazy and didn't just get it right away when Goudey first hit the streets. Big mistake. The suckers were everywhere for about a month and then suddenly dried up. I was focusing on my now stalled Allen & Ginter Type set (I just can't find those last four cards) and figured they would be around forever. They might be a short print or something because the card actually books in Beckett, which is odd because he's normally a minor star or whatever. (incidentally the Jason Giambi card inexplicably books for $20, what's up with that??) I just wanted it because I really liked Goudey and the card has a red alternate jersey swatch which I thought was extremely cool. I later found out that just about every UD relic of Jeff from '07 has that same red swatch, but dammit, I wanted the Goudey. Problem is I wouldn't see one for weeks at a time, then when one did pop up, I got outbid on the sucker. Ok, so I was being a cheapskate with my bidding, but habits die hard even when pursuing a dream card.

So a couple of weeks ago another one popped up on eBay. I watched the auction intently and hoped to snipe it out from under someone. The seller was one of these big dealers on the Bay and had a couple hundred relics and patches up at the same time. While I was waiting for the Frenchy card auction to end, I perused the other auctions. There was a bunch of Brave relics up for bid as well. A bunch were from SP legendary cuts so there were a few vintage Bravos like Knucksie, Murphy, Gary Matthews and this Bob Horner patch. Apparently this guy had a following because there were quite a few bids on most stuff. I focused my efforts on three cards, a Knucksie patch card, the Frenchy and this Horner. The Knucksie patch got bid up pretty quick and the real goal of this adventure was the Goudey so I dropped it. I probably could have snapped up a couple of other relics for a buck a piece if I wasn't picky but I chose quality over quantity for once. For obvious reasons, I became more enamored with the Horner card than the Frenchy. The patch swatch on the card is a proper one with at least two colors on the thing. I hate when companies pawn off a solid color swatch as a patch, I wanna see stitches dammit! My favorite player and a decent looking patch card? No brainer, that. I kept an eye on it, made a decent bid and won the thing for well under what I was willing to pay. The smell of victory in my nostrils, I attacked the Frenchy card. Less than a minute to go... the bid under what I was willing to pay... thirty seconds left.... I place a bid that was actually more than I was originally prepared to go since I got Bob so cheap and......

SNIPED.

Three seconds to go.

EPIC FAIL.

I can't believe it either, Bob! I was kinda pissed at this point. The Frenchy was one of the last auctions in the group and I let a few other Braves pass by to try to get Jeff. If I didn't get the sweet Horner card I would have been really despondent. I licked my wounds and did another search for "goudey francoeur" expecting to find a few base cards but nothing else. I was wrong though, there was another auction out there for a Frenchy jersey. It even had a Buy It Now price that was under the bid I just made. Perfect, eh? Nah. The seller had a rating under 200 and the photo he used was swiped from the auction I had just lost. That's a couple of big red flags waving in the breeze there. I decided to watch the sucker and cross my fingers that no one would buy it. I was right, and I got it for the minimum bid. Good thing too, because the card showed up with a crease around the jersey cut out. You can see it on the scan, I'm not sure if it was like that before or after shipping since the card came in a plain white envelope. I wasn't too upset about it since I finally got that damn card but I would have been a bit more peeved had I paid full price for it. Plus my hunt for that elusive card got me a cool Bob Horner card in a roundabout way.

This Horner card is already one of my favorites if for no other reason than that beautiful WTF?? look on his face in that photo. It's like they took the picture at the exact moment the Braves' GM told him that they were letting Phil Niekro walk at the end of the year because they just traded Brett Butler, Brook Jacoby and Rick Behenna for Len Barker but it's ok that they gave up Butler, because Gerald Perry is the next Hank Aaron. Championship in 1984, baby! I also like the curly hair flopping out from under the hat. I have the same kind of unruly hair and it also likes to escape in a similar fashion from my hats. That's probably why I liked Bob so much, we played the same position, I had the same number in little league and we kind of look similar. The resemblance is stronger in his Cardinal days when he had those big clunky glasses, but I look more like him than say, Golden Boy Murphy. Bob wasn't a heartthrob, Bob didn't win MVPs, he just went out on that field and knocked the living crap out of the ball and I loved it. So thanks to that pain in the rump Frenchy card I now have a new best Bob Horner card and this week's Card of the Week.