Saturday, August 1, 2015

Vote for Haren! Which Card Makes the CATRC?

Quick post tonight, mostly because I spent all day out catching up with an old friend passing through town and all night at the local minor league baseball game (Windy city Thunderbolts vs. River City Rascals, Frontier League).

Yesterday afternoon, after all of the craziness and when the dust finally settled, the Cubs pulled off two trades; not the blockbuster three-way deal that was rumored with Boston and San Diego, but two deals that will help the club without selling the farm.

Dan Haren has now been added to the rotation to fill out the fifth starters spot, thus I must enter him into my CATRC binder.  Since he's been a high-profile starter for more than a decade now, he has had plenty of cards - of which I have several.

But, which one should I use?  I leave this up to you, please vote in the comments because I can't decide what card I like best:



First up, we have 2010 Topps National Chicle.

I understand that Topps was trying to evoke the imagery of the pre-WWII era cards, but this looks like it was sketched out by a 10th grade art student.



Next, another painting-ish card in 2009 Upper Deck Goudey.

I definitely like this artistic piece better than the National Chicle above, but Danny looks like he's constipated or someone farted when they took his picture (that was later put through a Photoshop filter).



Let's take a different perspective on this one, a horizontal 2008 UD First Edition.

While I can appreciate a cool (warm?) spring training shot and a lurking cameo by (I believe) Josh Fields, I'm generally not a fan of horizontal cards - i like all of my cards to be oriented the same way.



This one may be the X factor, mostly because it's a 2008 Upper Deck X.

I do like this card, but this set seems like pandering to a younger audience to me.  Yo, yo, yo peeps check out how eXtreme UD is.  X means XTREME!!!



The card that features him as a D-Back is a 2009 Upper Deck base card.

This, of course, is the set that really got UD in hot water since they didn't have a license with MLB and put pretty much no effort into hiding logos.  I mean, it's pretty clear he's not wearing Panini pajamas here.  That said, I do like the set design.



Now Haren has a halo on this shiny 2010 Bowman Platinum.

I like shiny cards.  I mean, who doesn't like shiny?  It's kinda just built into our DNA to be attracted to shiny objects.  Why fight it?



The last card I was able to dig up shows a National-ized Haren:  2012 Gypsy Queen.

I'm not really much for Gypsy Queen; there's some good, but there's a lot more bad in this forced-retro series.  This one is pretty "meh," although it is way over-filtered.  Wouldn't posed, studio shots work with this set anyway, like the original Gypsy Queen photos?

So, help me decide which one makes the CATRC binder.  Please vote early and often (it's the Chicago way, after all) in the comments section.  I know you're all just dying to see which one makes the cut.




6 comments:

  1. I'd go with the Goudey. I prefer the '08 edition of the set, but it's still a nice card.

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  2. I think I'd go with the UDX. It's got kind of a weird Outer Limits vibe going on. Or maybe it just seems that way at 3 a.m. eastern. Now if you had a Heritage, I'd go with that. But you don't, so....never mind. Hopefully, there'll be a Cubs card of Haren come the update series.

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  3. I'll vote for the one which appears to be drawn by a 10th grade student.

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  4. I give my vote to the National Chicle because I've always had a fond appreciation for that set.

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  5. Cool video - never saw it before. Caught my eye because the freeze frame shown by youtube features the office building where I currently work.

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