Introducing Another One of My Player Collections - "The Greatest" Rickey Henderson

When I really started getting into cards as a young kid in the mid 80s I started 2 individual player collections.  You have seen lots of pieces and posts about one, Willie McCovey.  The other big player collection I started was none other than Rickey Henderson, by his own admission, "the greatest of all time."  I recall wandering around card shows looking for any new cards to fit into my player collections and at the time Rickey cards were much more plentiful that those of McCovey.

My Rickey collection actually stands at 1481 cards right now, much more than my McCovey collection that currently numbers 1161 cards.  Over the past few years I haven't placed much attention on my Rickey collection for a few reasons: 1) there are a lot of Rickey collectors and the rarer cards get quite expensive, 2) until the last couple years Rickey wasn't featured on too many new cards and 3) I don't have an unlimited budget and more of my $$$ has been going towards Giants.

One of my goals in 2013 was to make some progress on some of my non-Giants player collections.  I have shared some of my successes in my Vida Blue collection so I thought it was time to pick up a few new Rickeys.

 First up is a Blockbusters Hat Logo from last year's Topps release.  I believe these were blaster inserts in the Update release.  May of the trades featured in the Blockbusters subset weren't really blockbusters but as I recall this trade from the A's to the Yankees, I think it fit the bill.

Here is a cool card from Upper Deck that features the top 2 base stealers of all time.  This card was an insert and was put out in 2000.  The design with the E=mc2 in the middle and the lines representing the electron paths around a nucleus are a little too busy for me however I am loving the old school photo of Lou Brock along with the picture of Rickey.

This card is a Throwback Threads Polo Grounds card of Rickey Henderson and as you can see it is serial numbered 66/75.  I got it pretty cheap and was happy to add it.  However this represents one of the frustrations of a player collector and particularly a Rickey collector.  This set has 45 different cards of Rickey with print runs spanning from 5 to 85 so mine is actually one of the more common ones.  This is the only one I have and I doubt I will go out of my way to get another unless I stumble upon some at a really cheap price.  I do like him being featured in an Oakland uniform, my favorite of the many team unis he sported in his career.

Finally a couple 2012 Triple Threads parallels.  I picked these up with some of the Giants featured earlier this week.  I am enjoying this photo as well and may need to keep my eyes open for the other versions.

So there you have it, my 5 most recent Rickey pick ups.  I am adding a want list for Rickey to the blog in case you happen to have any of his cards for trade.  I have left out all the cards I need from 2002 - 2006 as there are just too many to list for now (he has almost 3000 cards during that time frame).  I don't plan on going crazy with the Rickey's this year but I want to set a goal.  Let's shoot for 50 new Rickey cards in 2013. With 5 in the first month, I am slightly ahead of pace.

2013 Rickey Henderson Collecting Goal - 50 new cards
Cards added in this post - 5
Remaining cards to reach goal - 45 

2013 Topps Retail - Product Review & Trade Bait

Yesterday I was able to stop by Walmart and pick up some 2013 Topps - I was pretty excited to see them on the shelf.  I picked up 2 blasters, a rack pack and 2 regular packs.  I thought I would share some of my favorite base cards along with the inserts and parallels I pulled and do a semi-review of the product.

My LCS is going to hold a Jumbo Box for me when it comes in tomorrow so expect another post with the Jumbo box goods.

Let's start with the base.  Here are a few of my favorites:

 You can tell I am a fan of action shots, but aren't we all. Loving the crowd reaction in the Raburn card.  The Machado with the ball at his hat is a great action shot, I like it when the ball in motion makes it into the picture.  Daniel Murphy is getting some sweet air with a twisting throw to first.  I am enjoying the Brandon Crawford slide into the plate with the dust flying. Kipnis is turning two and getting a little air himself.  Finally Jon Jay crashing into the wall and I think making the catch.

The Brendan Ryan card features another turn of two and ball in flight.  Will Middlebrooks is in process of making a diving play.  The Aceves and Inge have been shown quite a bit and are awesome cards.  Finally we have the Kung Fu Panda launching one of his three Game 1 HRs to propel the Giants to victory.

I love the Rookie Cups and got 3 in these packs.  Glad to score a Harper and Davish.

Next up is my one and only gold parallel:

Wishing I would have scored a Giants card.  Only pulling one of these makes me think these may be harder to come by this year, just how much product did Topps produce?  It will be interesting to see how many I get out of the Jumbo box.

The emerald parallels are a little more common:

I am actually liking the green parallels and looking forward to making a Giants team set.  Got the Romo to start it off.  Heath Bell is an obvious Photoshop job.  I scored 6 in my packs, again should be interesting to see how many show up in the Jumbo box.

The Walmart blue parallels are different this year with 2 per pack so I got a pretty big stack. I will just show the Giants (woo hoo I got 5!) but there will be a list by team at the end of the post as trade bait.

The Scutaro in the rain card is a beauty!

Let's take a look at some inserts, I am scanning all the inserts I scored in these packs:

These are titled Chasing History and feature a chase at a record, some successful and some not.  I like that both are included. The Santana and the first Dunn are the Shiny version that I believe came in the rack pack.  I am guessing these will be more limited and maybe only to the rack packs. Methinks I will only be going after the non-shiny ones even though the shiny looks pretty nice.  We have an obvious mix of current and former players which I happen to enjoy.  My favorite is probably the Carew sporting the Twins uni.

 Next are the Calling Card inserts.  These kind of look like an Allen and Ginter type insert to me with the coloring and fancy borders.  These feature something the player is known for - Fielder his size, Ortiz with his pre-hitting ritual, Lincecum with his year long dirty hat and Phillips his hitting crouch. I like the concept, not sure on the design quite yet. I suspect it will grow on me.

 This is the Chasing the Dream set and features younger players who are starting to make a name for themselves.  The write ups feature something about the player when they were growing up.  The write ups are somewhat unique, not a horrible concept.  Again, not too sure on the design.

And the Minis! I am a fan.  They are printed on cardboard stock and feature one of my favorite designs from 1972.  Gwynn was the only retired player I received, can't wait to see some of the other cards of players post 1972 who are retired. Two thumbs up from me, I am liking them even more than the 1987 from last year.

I didn't score one of the sweet looking die cut inserts.  Hoping my Jumbo is kinder with the die cuts.

Here are the two Commemorative Patches from the boxes:

 The Pedoria doesn't really excite me too much both in design and subject matter.  Seems pretty similar to other manupatches we have seen.

My assessment of these is far different.  These are silk mini reprints of the rookie cards and I scored I nice one in Ken Griffey Jr.  I am going to need to track down at least Willie McCovey, Rickey Henderson and Willie Mays. These may be worth going for the whole set.

So what do I have in the way of trade bait?  Once I get my Jumbo box and put together a set, I will have tons of base for trade, I should know what is available by the end of the week so let me know.  The Gold parallel and non-Giants Emerald parallels are for trade.  The Pedroia is available as well.  I think I may hold onto the Griffey but could be enticed for one of my guys.  I am keeping the inserts as I will be putting sets together.

Finally, I have a big stack of Walmart parallels, I sorted them by team as most of us seem to be team collectors.  I really would like to trade for either inserts or Giants parallels I need. I am in a couple of group breaks so I would prefer waiting until those are over to finalize any trades. If you have something else off my trade list, we can probably work out a deal as well.  Also, if you want to ask me to put something aside until the breaks are done, I would be happy to do so, especially if we have traded in the past.

Here is the Walmart parallel list:

A’s

85 Sean Doolittle

259 Bartolo Colon

Astros

319 Brian Bogusevic

Brewers

307 Norichika Aoki

Cardinals

125 Matt Holiday Wild Card X2

4 Yadier Molina

321 Allen Craig

130 Jason Motte

Cubs

280 Rafael Dolis

Dodgers

263 Ted Lilly

74 Kenley Jansen

295 Brandon League

Mariners

277 Brendan Ryan

157 Carter Capps

Mets

109 Kirk Nieuwenhuis

60 Jon Rauch

129 Ike Davis

Padres

77 Dustin Moseley

324 Cameron Maybin

Phillies

249 Vance Worley

Pirates

174 Jason Grilli

Rangers

30 Neftali Feliz

Reds

251 Sean Marshall

166 Logan Ondruske

Red Sox

91 Alfredo Aceves

64 Will Middlebrooks

66 Daniel Nava

Rockies

165 Ramon Hernandez

Royals

243 Aaron Crow

Tigers

121 Delmon Young

327 Jhonny Peralta

White Sox

49 Chris Sale

285 Addison Reed

Yankees

326 Andruw Jones

114 Casey McGehee

Leaders

194 AL RBI Leaders – Cabrera/Tigers, Hamilton/Rangers, Encarnacion/Blue Jays

287 NL Wins Leaders – Gonzalez/Nationals, Dickey/Mets, Cueto/Reds

272 NL RBI Leaders – Headley/Padres, Braun/Brewers, Soriano/Cubs

I am very excited that Topps 2013 is released and looking forward to some increased trade activity.

McCovey Monday #30 - 2012 Triple Threads

My favorite player of all time is Hall of Famer Willie McCovey.  I have amassed a collection of over 1100 different  McCovey cards since I started collecting him in the late 1980s.  I will show off one of my favorite cards every Monday.  Stretch was one of the most feared hitters of all time and I am excited to show off my collection.

Recently I realized I was slacking on trying to acquire the different parallels of Willie McCovey in the 2012 Topps Triple Threads release.  Here is a list of the cards in this year's set:

Base - unnumbered
Sepia - /625
Emerald - /250
Amber - /125
Gold - /99
Onyx - /50
Sapphire - /25
Ruby - /1

The Ruby is just not going to happen but the others should be within my reach. Until the last week or so, my collection only included the base and the Emerald versions of the card.  I went on a quest to help build my collection.

First up is the most plentiful, the Sepia parallel, this one serial numbered 548/625.  I am a fan of the use of Sepia on cards and this background seems to work.  These cards are always pretty high quality, with a nice thick stock and solid colors on the photos. Loving the small black batting glove on Stretch's right hand in this photo.

I also was able to pick up this Gold parallel:

Not a ton of difference in the colors, just a little more yellow in the Gold parallel. This one is numbered 06/99 and comes in at the middle with respect to print run.

I was able to acquire these nice Giants cards from the set along with the Sepia card:

I am loving the photos used in both of these cards.  Buster is sporting the fully catchers gear with mask in hand as he hustles to back up or make a play.  Marichal is sporting his high leg kick and getting ready to deliver a wicked pitch to the plate.  Both nice pickups.

Base - unnumbered
Sepia - /625
Emerald - /250
Amber - /125
Gold - /99
Onyx - /50
Sapphire - /25
Ruby - /1

I also have an Onyx on the way to I need to seek out the Amber and Sapphire parallels to complete as much of the rainbow as I am going to complete. I also wouldn't mind picking up a auto/relic from this set as well.  Maybe next month.

Group Break and Trade Post with Home of the Toddfather

A few weeks back I participated in Tim's 2nd group break over at his creatively named Home of the Toddfather blog.  He was cracking 3 different Upper Deck products and for the reasonable price of entry, I had to jump in.

Here are the cards from the 2002 UD MVP box that I needed for my Giants collection:

I nice trio that includes 2 Bonds (and all 3 suspected juicers!).  I am now just one card short of this team set, Robb Nen #218.  If you happen to have it, drop me a note.

The other boxes didn't have much that I needed going into the break but I was able to add these to the Giants collection:

The ProSigs card is a Silver parallel which is pretty cool.  Mr. Williams is the only Giant in the base set so I wasn't really expecting to get anything.  The two Lofton's were nice additions as well.

I did get these duplicate Giants to my collection:

Tim also tossed in a few cards from the unclaimed teams:

If you happen to need any of the cards from the last two pictures, let me know.

Finally, Tim sent me a group of cards towards my Triple Play set:

I scored one Halladay as a kid base card and 6 stickers.  Going through this package and checking these off my set want list made me realize I need to do some serious work on my 2012 sets.  Time to get to work and look for some inexpensive ways to finish up these sets.  Trading has almost dried up and I am ready to jump into 2013 Topps.

Thanks for the group break and the trade Tim!

Ebay Purchase - 2012 Triple Threads Matt Cain Unity Relic

I recently got a really nice deal on a Matt Cain 2012 Triple Threads jersey card.  I scored it for just over $7 delivered.  Let's take a look at the front of the card:

This is the Sepia parallel and is numbered 03/27.  I have always been a fan of the Sepia parallels, the color seems to go well with cards.  I am a fan of this design and this particular card.  The picture of Cain is pretty cool. He is rubbing up the ball with his cap high on his head.  This takes me right to the mound during one of his starts, I have seen him do just this countless times.  The jersey swatch is framed in almost the shape of a home plate, just missing the point.  I like the texture of this particular swatch.  The spiral around the card works for me as well.  Something I didn't notice until I received this card is the celebration of a particular event, in this case Cain's excellent 2010 post season where he didn't allow an earned run.

The back gives some more detail about the event highlighted on the front:

This brings back some great memories of the Giants first World Series win in 2010 and just how dominant Matt Cain was in the playoffs.  Can you imagine going 21 1/3 innings without an earned run.  There is a mistake on this card saying he didn't allow an "unearned" run - oops.  I like the write up tying the front and back together. One thing that isn't quite clear to me is why they stuck with the "Unity" nomenclature.  I am not too sure what it references.  These debuted last year and there was some logic on the chosen name. Let's take a look at a Buster Posey 2011 Triple Threads Unity relic:

If you look in the background you see the first base/right field side of the baseball diamond.  There are two other Posey versions with different photos of this card showcasing the middle and left side of the diamond.  When you put the three side by side (Unify them) the show a picture of a full baseball diamond.  While I am not the biggest fan of the design, Unity relic seems to fit. 

I am not really sure why they stuck with the name but otherwise the Cain is a great looking card.  I am happy to add it to my collection and will be seeking out other parallels of the Cain card and other Giants in the coming weeks.

The Wednesday Weekly Contest Returns - Super Bowl Edition

Time to get this started back up again, I really enjoy doing contests.  I still need to beef up the prize page but with this contest I have almost 2 weeks to get that done.

We are going to do a Superbowl prediction contest, pretty simple and straightforward.  The winner will get a prize off the Wednesday Weekly Contest Prize Page linked at the top of the blog.  I won't require it but I would appreciate anyone that participates be a follower of the blog.  I am inching closer to my goal of 100 so maybe this will help me get there.

As you know this years Big Game features my San Francisco 49ers:

Versus the Baltimore Ravens:

Leave a comment in the blog with:
1. The winner of the game
2. The MVP of the Game
3. Tiebreaker - total points in the game + rushing yards by Colin Kaepernick

Good luck and enjoy the Super Bowl!

A Very Sad Day - RIP Weaver and Musial

Early today we heard the news that former Oriole Manager Earl Weaver passed away on an Orioles themed cruise ship.  Weaver was a legend, winning 1480 games in his career, all with the Orioles, including 4 pennants and 1 World Series.  He is perhaps best known for his antics when arguing with umpires and was thrown out of 92 games during his career.  His number was retired by the Orioles in 1982, he was elected to the Baseball HOF in 1996 and last year was honored with a statue at Camden Yards.  I vividly recall watching Earl manager as I grew up and was fond of his style of leading his team.  I am honored to have an autographed card of his in my HOF Baseball collection.

Just a few minutes ago, after an afternoon of playing with my kids, I heard the news that Stan Musial also passed away today.  I believe he was the oldest living HOF player prior to his passing.  Stan the Man played his entire career with the Cardinals and was one of the greatest hitters of all time.  In addition to his hitting prowess, Mr. Musial was known as a respected gentleman.  I have owned a copy of his biography for a little while now and haven't gotten around to reading it.  I am looking forward to diving into it soon and will be sure to share more about his amazing career and life in a future post.  One of my best pulls of my life was this card which will remain one of my prized pieces in my HOF collection.  Stan was elected to the HOF in 1969 and has also been honored with a statue in front of Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

The baseball world lost 2 gentlemen and two greats of the game today.  RIP Stan the Man and The Earl of Baltimore.

Ever receive a package and regretted a purchase?

Today I received a small package from a Sportlots auction seller that made me pause and think.  I actually spend a good portion of my personal monthly allowance on auction wins on Sportlots and generally get a pretty nice deal.  I have scored vintage HOFers for a quarter or two and built some partial sets of cards from the early 70s.  When I looked at the cards and looked at the invoice I didn't feel as great about my purchase as I normally do.

First, let's take a look at the cards then I will analyze the why behind me questioning the purchase and how it came about.

 First up is a Cooperstown card from 1993 Pinnacle.  This is the year Bonds joined the Giants and actually wasn't on my master checklist.  I am always happy to identify a card that I have missed, I really need to work on a project to cross reference my list with others that Beckett to see if I can make them more complete.

 I will place these two side by side.  The one on the left is from UD Encore and is entitled Pure Excitement while the one on the right is from the base UD set and is an insert title View to a Thrill.  Boo on Upper Deck's part, the design itself isn't all that bad but to repeat the same design with the same pictures is just plain lazy.

 Let's shift gears to this nice Aurora card, it is the Pennant Fever insert and I really like this design.  I need to put some focus on Pacific releases (maybe a 2014 goal???) as they did a nice job with quite a few different sets.

 A Topps Tek Barry, this is design #61.  I have very few Tek cards and am happy to add one.  This card is partially see through and I would love to score a few more. I am not sure exactly where but I recall following someone who was trying to put the entire set including all the designs together.  That is a crazy project to take on.

Finally an Upper Deck Victory card, I believe it is a short printed card from the base set.  The rectangle surrounding Barry's big head is nice and shiny but didn't come out great in the scan.  I scanned the back to show the shiny and also the write up to remind everyone that Barry wasn't a total bust in the playoffs.

So there are the cards, obviously a decent lot of Bonds cards.  All of them fit well into my collection and none are duplicates.  So why the partial regret?  Here is the invoice that came with it illustrating what I paid:

6 insert and base cards of Barry Lamar Bonds for just under $20.  That is equal to the price of a blaster, but that is hit and miss anyway.  It is also just 50 cents less that 2 HOFers I got from a different seller from the late 1950s.  It is 25 cents less than 30 cards from the early 70s I got including 4 1970 Topps high numbers this beauty of Tom Terrific:

So how did I end up in this predicament?  At work I like to call a review of some prior events that didn't go so great a postmortem, so here is my postmortem.  Over the past several months, this same seller has sold probably a couple hundred Barry Bonds cards on Sportlots.  I have picked up quite a few new and interesting Bonds cards from him and always get excited as many of them typically sell for a high price and I can usually get them at well under eBay prices.  I think he is getting down to the lower value cards so that is one issue.

Additionally there are 2 other collectors of Giants cards who seem to battle me over the Giants auctions on Sportlots.  One guy isn't super active and usually puts up a minimum bid and maybe one more but if I really want the card, I can typically get it still for under a buck. The other guy and I go toe to toe frequently and end up bidding up the cards. In this case, I let my ego of wanting to win the cards get the best of me and bid 2 or 3 times more than I should have on the middle 4 cards listed on the invoice.  Unless it is a super rare card, I like to keep my bids around the dollar mark.

I decided to try and make myself feel better by using my Beckett.com account I thought I would see what the Book Value was of the 6 cards.  Don't really care too much about it but I was grasping at straws.  The total BV of the 6 is $26.75, that sure didn't make me feel better.  The Seaver alone books for $30.

The moral of the story, don't get caught in bidding wars on random cards that aren't must haves in your collection.

Topps Legends Short Prints

Last week I was working on updating my 2012 checklist and want list and realized there was a Willie Mays SP in the 2012 Topps base set.  It parallels card #330.  It parallels Matt Kemp.  Outside of a huge disconnect with Mr. Kemp playing for the evil ones in blue, it probably isn't too bad of a comparison. Mays was a 5-tool player and Kemp brings some solid tools to the diamond as well.

At first I was a little bummed that I have another card to chase.  I thought I had the full team set for the Topps base sets.  However I had a quick change of heart.  I am not a huge fan of some of the gimmicks Topps pulls (including leaving out card #7 which it appears will happen again in 2013) but this is one I like.

I will happily share my Mays card once I get it but thought I would share a trio from back in 2009 that I picked up late last year to finish off my 2009 Topps team base set:

I love the photos of Mathewson and Ott, for some reason colorized old school photos work for me.  Not as big of a fan of the Marichal picture.  Let's grade how closely the player in each of these parallels makes sense.

#195 Christy Mathewson parallels Tim Lincecum -  A+ - to me this is a perfect match. A fellow Giant - check.  Right handed starting pitcher - check.  Track record of domination - check.  Everything lines up pretty well.  Although Mathewson is well known for being a perfect gentleman and Lincecum is known for his proclivity to toke up, maybe I should adjust the grade.  Nah, I will keep it on the diamond.

#240 Mel Ott parallels Ryan Braun - C - on the plus side, they are both know as pretty dominant hitters with all around ability and a lot of power.  On the minus side, Ott is left handed, Braun right.  The teams aren't close, Giants vs. Brewers.  Fairly decent comparison but not a perfect match by any means.

#476 Juan Marichal parallels Edison Volquez - B - Decent match, both are right handed starters hailing from the Dominican Republic.  Both are decent strikeout pitchers but not known particularing for their ability to K batters.  However Volquez is a career .500 pitcher and the Dominican Dandy had a .631 winning percentage in his HOF career.  The nationality match gives this one the nod over the Ott/Braun matchup.

Any fans of these parallels?  I like it when they are the legendary players.  Appears from the 2013 Topps checklist that we won't be seeing any of these in Series 1 this year (but there sure are lots of current Giants!).

Trade Post - Daily Dimwit

My trading has gotten off to a slow start in 2013, just busy with work and the new baby and trying to figure out a routine that includes all my must dos mixed in with all my want to dos.  I think I am getting close so I am hoping to ramp up on the trades and post a little more frequently.

Fortunately I did see Sam's post on The Daily Dimwit about some Panini Cooperstown cards he broke and quickly reached out to make some progress on my quest to complete the insert sets.  Fortunately my doubles pile matched up nicely with Sam's want list and we were able to strike up another nice trade.

Here are the goods:

 I really like these High Praise inserts with a quote about the featured player.  My favorite in this trio is the Seaver card with Reggie Jackson saying "Blind people come to the park to listen to Tom Seaver pitch."  The Field Generals are a pretty nice design.  The photos of the old Ballparks are amazing, I wish the set was larger.  Finally a card featuring one of the most famous cards.

The second batch of inserts. Not a huge fan of the Credentials with no photo but I needed the McCovey for the McCovey binder and the Murray for the insert set.  The induction cards feature the HOFer in his suit on induction day - glad to add the Yogi.  One day I hope to get a behind the scenes tour of the Hall of Fame but until then I can look at historic artifacts on these Famous Moments cards.

Sam also included some Giants card from a past break where he got the Giants as his random team.  I received a needed base cards and two minis. I have never opened any of this product but may need to seek out a box, I like the look.

And the final 3 cards are Gypsy Queen minis from the same break as the Goudey cards.  The Cain has a Straight Cut back and the other 2 have the Gypsy Queen back. I needed 2 of the 3 but can't remember which of the Gypsy Queen backs was a dup.  At one point I was considering a push to complete all versions of this set.  That may be out of reach but I am still going to get all I can.

Thanks for the trade Sam!  Check out his football break, I really want it to happen and we are in danger of it not happening.  There are some really great teams available.

McCovey Monday #29 - Passing the Torch Rainbow

My favorite player of all time is Hall of Famer Willie McCovey.  I have amassed a collection of over 1100 different  McCovey cards since I started collecting him in the late 1980s.  I will show off one of my favorite cards every Monday.  Stretch was one of the most feared hitters of all time and I am excited to show off my collection.

I was looking through my McCovey binders and a big smile came across my face when I turned to a certain page.  Putting this page of McCoveys together was a big project and took quite a bit of time (and more money than I probably want to admit) but in my mind it sure paid off.  We use the term rainbow to signify a collection of all the parallels of a card and they are usually differentiated by the color of the border.  When I look at this grouping of McCovey cards, I see all the colors and to me this is a true rainbow.  Enjoy:

Red Parallel 0081/1000

Green Parallel 352/500

Blue Parallel 159/250

Black Parallel 086/100

Gold Parallel 03/50

To me, one of the cool things about this rainbow is that the cards are all relatively easy to find, or were back in 2004 when they came out.  The shortest print run is the Gold /50 so there aren't any 1/1s or Red parallels /5 to make the search virtually impossible.  There are however 3 "hit" cards as well and my rainbow wouldn't be complete without these cards.

Green Parallel with GU Bat 058/100

Blue Parallel with GU Jersey 089/100

Gold Parallel with Autograph 09/10

 Having both the bat card and jersey card is a nice touch in my book.  The only card with a very limited print run is the Auto /10 and I am very lucky to own one!

This is an interesting insert set, it is title Passing the Torch but they only feature Willie McCovey.  There is also a 2 sided insert set featuring McCovey and Will Clark which makes more sense with the theme but regardless, I really enjoy this rainbow.  I am one card away from the McCovey/Clark rainbow but I have only seen one pop up once and wasn't able to secure it.  Maybe a good topic for another McCovey Monday.

Do you have a favorite rainbow in your collection?