Friday, September 11, 2009

Card of the Week: 2000 Upper Deck Roger Clemens Game Used Ball

Let me start this post off with the disclaimer that I absolutely despise Roger Clemens. I hate that he played for the Yankees (by the way, if there are any Yankees fans who read this blog, god forbid, I have a few hundred Bronx Bombers cards I can send your way), I hate that he beaned Mike Piazza and threw a jagged bat barrel at him, and I hate that he used steroids but doesn't have the cajones to come clean about it. Why then, you might ask, with all that unchanneled anger, would Bud want to feature a Roger Clemens as the Card of the Week (besides of course the fact that Aubrey Huff was featured as card of the week before, so it can't be that hard)?

Well, this card is about so much more than just Roger Clemens. For one, I have always been a fan of game-used ball cards. Granted they can't be connected to a single player, which actually may be a good thing in this case because Clemens might not have got his dirty mitts on this particular baseball, but they are still a unique game-used item and one that you don't see in sets very often (or ever) anymore. Another unique thing about this card is the fact that it shows actual game use and dirt stains, and more importantly, a logo that shows this ball was not used in just another regular season game. After a little research I was able to determine with some certainy (say, 70%) that this swatch of ball came from a game of the 1999 Fall Classic that featured the Yankees against the Atlanta Braves. That's right, an authentic game-used World Series baseball! Sure the series was a snoozer (the Yankees swept the series in 4 games), but that just means there are less baseballs from this series are available. Compare the logo on the ball swatch with the logo on the complete baseball, they look the same don't they?

Not too bad for 75 cents plus shipping on eBay...

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