NUMBER 8
Justin Morneau 07 Sweet Spot Bat Barrel AU 18/35
Ya know, one of the most exciting parts about being totally oblivious to baseball cards for well over a decade is that cards like the one pictured above when seen for the first time can cause uncontrollable fits of joy, and can even cause a person to ruin his or her lucky pair of Wedding Day boxers (for the love of Obama, please don’t ask).
OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! They stuck an ACTUAL piece of bat (game-used or not, who cares) in a BASEBALL CARD?! And the Twins’ first MVP since Rod Carew signed it? SOMEBODY PLEASE TAKE ALL OF MY MONEY, CREDIT CARDS, AND FIRST BORN!
MUST! HAVE! THIS! CARD!!
And so I did.
The pure excitement of realizing what cool things were in store for me in my card-collecting rebirth certainly helped my decision to snatch this card up pronto. Holding it in my hands, feeling the texture of the bat, and realizing how thick that card was all for the first time is something I’ll never forget.
Now that the honeymoon is over and you can swipe up dozens of these things for under $100 (depending on the player, of course), this type of card doesn’t seem quite as amazing. Although, I suspect pulling this type of card could produce an effect not much unlike the one that may or may not have ruined some sort of undergarment.
It’s the memory of that excitement, combined with the particular player, and the fact that it remains a very cool looking card, that brings this card in at #8 on my list of personal favorites. I can buy any old bat card I want to–from one inch square bat shavings, to bat knob slices, to carved pieces, to actual game-used slabs–none of them will ever compare to the feeling of that first time seeing what baseball cards could be. The only thing that would have topped that moment at the time is if I had pulled this particular card right out of a tin of Sweet Spot.
For those of you with cards of this type, be it a bat barrel, a glove, a piece of ball, etc., what was your reaction the first time you held one in your hands? What is your opinion of the product now?
