Holiday Birthdays

Tomorrow is Christmas: a day for reflection, relaxation, and to spend time with your loved ones. First and foremost, I wish you all a Happy Holidays.

For Baseball fans, Christmas Day is almost always mentioned along with the name Rickey Henderson, for the Man of Steal will turn 61 years old tomorrow. My Twitter feed, in addition to Christmas trees and holiday pack pulls, consists of a few tributes to the all-time stolen base leader.

Whenever I think of Baseball players' birthdays, Henderson always comes to mind right away, as his birthday is on arguably the biggest holiday of the entire year. However, a few other players came to mind, so I decided to do some research on this subject.

Surprisingly, the birthdays listed on the backs of Baseball cards don't typically correspond with major holidays such as New Year's, July 4th, and Valentine's Day. In fact, there's only a small handful of players, from what I found, that celebrate a national holiday on the same day on which they were born.

Also, to keep the list relatively concise, I ignored dates such as Christmas and New Year's Eve. Rather, I concentrated on the actual holidays.

Rickey Henderson, as I mentioned, is easily the most notable out of all of these players. He's been one of the most popular players in the hobby ever since his major league debut, and his cards, particularly autographed versions, remain very sought after.

I'm fortunate enough to have acquired one of Henderson's autographs myself earlier this year at The National, a gorgeous on-card signature from Topps Tier One. Further, he's one of my platinum tier player collections, so, needless to say, I'm a pretty big fan of his.

But the 1990 AL MVP isn't the only MLB player celebrating a birthday in just a couple of hours (EST). Former Red Sox pitcher Hideki Okajima, an integral member of the 2007 World Series team, will be 44 on Christmas Day.

Okajima spent 5 seasons with the Red Sox (2007-2011), making the All-Star team as a rookie and posting a 2.22 ERA on the season. After 2009, however, he was hardly the same pitcher, and back-to-back rocky seasons led him to move back to Japan.

He also had a couple of minor league stints with the Yankees and Orioles as well as some major league playing time in Oakland but nothing substantial after he left Boston.

One of the more underrated members of the Baseball Hall of Fame, Nellie Fox would have been 92 years old tomorrow. The 15-time All-Star, who receives virtually no recognition nowadays, from what I'm aware of, rounds out our December 25th birthday subjects.

Fox's .288 career batting average and nearly 3,000 hits, it seems, wasn't enough for the BBWAA at first. 22 years after he passed away due to skin cancer, Fox was elected into Cooperstown by the Veterans Committee.

I didn't have much luck in regards to Valentine's Day or the Fourth of July, but luckily, 2 pretty notable players were born on Halloween, October 31st.

This means, in 2020, 2-time World Series Champion Mickey Rivers will turn 72 while the Crime Dog, Fred McGriff, will be 57 years old. Somehow, despite his stellar repertoire (493 homers, .284 average, 10 hits shy of 2,500, and 1,550 RBI), the latter is still not enshrined in Cooperstown.

Finally, this date may not be an actual holiday, but I share a birthday, October 18th, with Mets outfielder Yoenis Cespedes. Hey, it's better than nothing, even if his contract is shaping up to be one of the worst in franchise history with the obvious exception of Bobby Bonilla.

I hope you all enjoyed this little post about MLB players' birthdays. Who knows, maybe you learned something.

Once again, Happy Holidays to you all.

Top 10 Cards From 2018 Topps Gallery

Because both years featured exceptional artwork and insert sets, I'm having a hard time picking which set I prefer; 2017 or 2018 Topps Gallery.

While this years' set allows the artwork to have more space on the card, the 2017 product did a slightly better job of embodying the Gallery brand with the cards looking more like framed artwork when compared to this year.

No matter the year, I've found that there are very few cards from the Topps Gallery product that I don't like. Maybe a handful with the 2 sets combined, if that. With that being said, there are the good cards from Topps Gallery and the fantastic cards with artwork that elevates the entire product. 

After much consideration, I was able to narrow down over 80 base cards from 2018 Topps Gallery to my favorite 10, a list consisting of players both retired and current as well as artwork from several different artists that worked on this product. 

Not only does it give me a good idea as to what I like to see out of Topps Gallery, but this list will also give me additional insight as to where I'll place the set on my top sets of 2018 post which I plan on posting within the next few days.

#10 Juan Soto

When I first talked about this card, I commented on how, to my knowledge, the background is the inside of the Nationals' dugout and how uncommon a background this is for a card. It seems like only Stadium Club, Gallery, and the occasional Topps Flagship set include shots from inside the dugout. The card being a Juan Soto rookie helps the card's placement on the list as well with artist John Giancaspro doing an excellent job with one of Soto's many rookie cards.

#9 Trea Turner

Occupying spots #9 and #10 on the list are young Nationals outfielders, Juan Soto, and Trea Turner. Very different from Soto's card, Turner's Topps Gallery card has more of an abstract background consisting of warm colors like red and orange with a little bit of purple included as well. Moreover, realism is evident through the attention to detail used for the players' face, a feature that artist Dan Bergen uses quite a bit throughout his cards in the set.

#8 Max Kepler

All of the short-print cards in this years' Topps Gallery set include little sub names below the players' names, differing depending on how long the player's been in the game. For retired players like Randy Johnson and Darryl Strawberry, it says "legends" right below their name. However, for Twins outfielder, it says "apprentices" directly below his name.

I'm pretty sure there's some correlation with short-prints having even better art than the base cards considering the use of a throwback uniform for Kepler's card. Even though the lime green background wouldn't have been my first choice, I'm able to look past that given the stunning artwork.

#7 Trevor Story

Similar to the Trea Turner card, Trevor Story's Topps Gallery base card features an abstract background. This time around, the colors do an even better job of representing the Rockies' team colors with purple being most prominent with a tinge of yellow as well. 

The reason why I placed Story's card above Turner's is that I feel this particular background goes better with the team rather than a blend of warm colors for the previously mentioned Nationals young star.

#6 Rhys Hoskins

Likely the most abstract card on the list is Rhys Hoskins' Topps Gallery rookie, a card that doesn't have quite as defined facial features or crisp-looking jerseys that the rest of the cards have. With that said, it's fairly refreshing to see something different from the set, though I'm especially fond of the attention to detail used for Hoskins' uniform. The background also serves as a nice contrast to the foreground with clear effort and care put into the entire card.

#5 Franmil Reyes

1 of the 2 incredibly realistic backgrounds for cards on the list, the other one appearing at the #2 spot, is what I believe to be a Spring Training background for Padres' rookie Franmil Reyes' card, the only player on this list that I was unfamiliar with prior to writing the post. Not only is it refreshing to see a real-looking background, but the details in the foreground also surpass what I've seen from almost every card in the set, combining 2 excellent details for a great overall card.

#4 Robinson Cano

Similar to the Max Kepler card, Robinson Cano's card, #199, is a short-print, though, below Cano's name, the title is "artisan." Personally, I think that veteran would work a bit better, but that's not to take away from the meticulously detailed card that is Cano's SP. From all the different shades of blue to the 2nd baseman's helmet and the realistic facial expressions, it's hard to find a card with more well-executed details in the entire set than Robinson Cano's.

#3 Kris Bryant

Kris Bryant sure has his fair share of detailed and incredible cards with his 2018 Topps Gallery base card being no exception to this premise. Featuring an abundance of bold Cubs blue, Bryant's helmet and jersey are incredibly detailed as is the background, one of my favorite abstract backgrounds of the entire set. Overall, it's pretty hard to fault this card at any level, though 2 more had the slightest edge to reach spots #2 and #1.

#2 Miguel Andujar

As I previously mentioned, the #2 card on the list features a similar realistic-looking background as the #5 card Franmil Reyes. The subject of this card is arguably the deserving 2018 AL Rookie of the Year, Yankees 3rd baseman Miguel Andujar. Along with Gleyber Torres, Andujar catapulted the Yankees to success in 2018, and like card #5 on the list, the beautiful background helped launch Andujar to the #2 spot. Combined with the Yankee pinstripes, this card was almost unbeatable.

#1 Rickey Henderson

Even though it appears rather simple at first, the more I look at Rickey Henderson's base card, the more I appreciate each and every detail of the card. The only artwork on the list designed by Kris Penix, the sheer attention to detail used for Henderson's card is marvelous. From the detailed cap and jacket to the perfect use of different shades throughout the card and especially the care the artist used to make Henderson appear as realistic as possible.

Again, at first glance, the card doesn't appear as fantastic as the others. But the longer I look at it, the less I can deny how much of a standout card this is, resulting in the card ending up at the #1 spot.