Sunday, April 29, 2018

Green With Envy

Working in the IT department of a school district has it's perks - the hours are consistent, I get to be a track coach, I can have summers off if I choose to, the kids think I'm some sort of technological wizard/superhero, etc.  I honestly love the environment that I work in and I'm quite happy with my employment situation.

Furthermore, another unexpected benefit to working with kids is that sometimes we bring in pretty cool guest speakers and special visitors from the sports world - y'know, because that's what the kids are into.  For instance, both X-Games star, Matt Wilhelm, and, Bears mascot, Staley the Bear, have been brought over to take part in anti-bullying assemblies.  Additionally, in the past, local hero Dwyane Wade came back to his old stomping grounds to say hello.  As a giant man child, I must admit, I'm not disappointed to be tasked with taking the photographs of these particular events.

Last week, another local icon from the sporting world made their way to our school district.  Unfortunately for me, this particular visit was scheduled for a different building and I was not able to take in the festivities... womp, womp.




The green, dinosaur-like creature known as Southpaw (or simply White Sox Mascot, according to Topps), reared his furry head.  The longtime mascot of the South Siders ventured down I-294 to visit one of our elementary schools as reward for a group of notably hardworking students.  While I may be a blue-blooded Cubs fan, I hold no ill-will towards our neighboring ball club and it's hard not to smile when seeing the faces of school children light up at the sight of such a creature.  Also, there's another reason why this appearance caught my attention.  If you notice in the above photograph, captured by a different member of our IT department, the mascot is holding something in his hand (paw?):




That something was packs of baseball cards!

Thankfully, while I do not work at that particular building, I have a few connections that do... one of which happens to be my secretarial mother.  She knows that I still fervently collect baseball cards and is always looking out for her first born son; thus, when she was gifted with a handful of cello packs from the visiting Southpaw, she pocketed them for me.  Ain't she great?

These packs contain a small sampling of cards from Topps Series One, although I know all we care about is Bowman and Ohtani right now.  I also found it rather amusing that we have the current face of the Cubs franchise, Anthony Rizzo, as the face card in one of these plastic pouches.  I wouldn't have been surprised if the White Sox mascot tossed that particular pack in the trash, given his allegiances!




Each packet contains four cards from Topps' Flagship product and one of the above advertisement cards.  In case you weren't already aware, there's something called Topps Now which serves as some sort of in-season, living set which documents what's going on in baseball as it happens.  This idea sounds like it has some potential, I wonder how it will do...  Additionally, it looks as though we already have a date announced for the now annual National Baseball Card Day - mark your calendars, folks!

I seem to recall that there's somebody on the blogosphere who collects these adverts and contest cards... if that person happens to be reading this, these may be of interest to you.

Anyway, on to the main attraction, the free cards:



The pitcher formerly known as Felipe Rivero (now Vazquez) leads off the first pack, followed by the anti-Ricky Bobby in Jackson Stephens (a man with two last names).  For good measure, I also found a fantastic action shot of Keon Broxton - just as the Cubbies were completing an exhilarating four-game sweep over his Brew Crew - and Dodger hurler, Alex Wood.

Nothing too exciting, but Keon is definitely a highlight with his circus catch.  On to pack two:




This packet also featured a Pirate on top in Gregory Polanco, followed by the second-best third baseman in the National League in Nolan Arenado, who lead the circuit in doubles in 2017.  Like the first package, we also get a phenomenal action shot of a divisional rival, this time in the form of Jedd Gyorko, the St. Louis Cardinals, and the view from second base.  Bonus points for the Cubbie cameos - I think that's Rene Rivera behind the dish, who will likely never have a proper Cubs card.  Rounding out pack two is another Cubs connection in former Chicago draft pick, Ricky Nolasco - perfect for my "Coulda Been a Cub" binder.

Again, nothing super special, but I did get a nice action shot out of the rip.  Finally, here's pack number three:




Of course, I saved the best for last with the Anthony Rizzo pack - I am a Cubs homer, after all.  And, stop me if you've heard this before, but the next two cards in the cello wrapper were a League Leader subset and an above-average action shot.  The Carlos Gonzalez could have been a true horizontal hero were we able to see this fly ball that he tracked headlong.  "Wrapping" up this South Paw experience was Royals hurler, Danny Duffy.

Overall, the rip was rather "meh."  However, free cards are free cards and it sure was fun to rip through these gifts.  Also, I can't help but chuckle at the fact that these promo packs were given away by the White Sox mascot and the only Chicago card to be found in the bunch was that of a Cub.  I guess that's just how the cookie crumbles sometimes, eh?

In the end, while I am a die-hard Cubs fan, I was a bit disappointed that South Paw didn't visit my students; but, the cardboard handout provided from the green guy, by way of my mother, sure did assuage the FOMO.  That being said, if Clark the Cub and his invisible pantaloons ever visit the district, he darn well better be making his way to my school... for the kiddies' sake of course...







3 comments:

  1. that was a fun little break. what a great opportunity to expose kids to the hobby! looks like the shaggy mascot has a good job too.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's cool! Did you see the kids opening any of the packs?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Awesome! Baseball mascots around the MLB should be given these packs, so they can pass them out to kids at games. Who knows... maybe this will inspire a new generation o card collectors.

    ReplyDelete