McCovey Monday #44 - The St. Patrick's Day, Birthday and Jersey Number Edition

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.

As I was posting last week I recognized that the next McCovey Monday post would be #44, matching Willie's jersey number.  As far as I know, that was the only jersey number he wore during his career.  I also recognized that today is St. Patrick's Day and my birthday to boot.  Lots of things aligning at once, the only thing cooler would have been if this was my 44th birthday - I am one year off.  In celebration of the day I thought I would show a quad of cards for each of the 3 things I am celebrating today.

First up some green cards to commemorate St. Paddy's Day:

All for of these cards feature green parallels, having a birthday on St. Patrick's Day green has always been one of my favorites.  All 4 of these cards come from sets with lots of parallels.  In all I have 18 different McCovey relics from the Epic Material set.  He has 33 different relic cards, 11 colors with 3 designs for each, and 3 autograph cards.  The one of the left is the Dark Green while the one on the right is simply green.  For the UD Premier Patch cards I have a total of 6, one of which has an autograph.  Interestingly, the two I show are considered the gold parallels despite all the green.  I am missing two for the entire rainbow but unfortunately those are the /5 and 1/1 so I have gotten as much of the rainbow as I suspect I will ever have.

Next up, something surrounding my birthday:

I picked these 4 cards as they highlight the crossing of two of my hobbies.  I have a pretty nice US Postage Stamp collection but it hasn't received much attention as of late.  The mix of the price of new stamps going up and the fact they are all self-adhesive made me shy away (not to mention the time involved with 2 hobbies).  I thought sharing some new info about me would be a good way to celebrate my birthday.  This is a nice little collection and they are serial numbered 81/92, 03/69, 02/44 and 21/39.  There are a couple more sets with postage stamps incorporated into cards but this is my favorite - great stamps and solid design. I just wish Willie was featured as a Giant.

Finally a quad of cards showcasing Willie's jersey number - the magical 44!  I have a few more 44s in my collection but thought this would be a nice group to share.  The Fabric of the Game set is one of my favorites, I have 5 different versions featuring home plate, his position (1B), HR and a trophy in addition to the 44.  The Matching Numbers is a great card featuring 2 of the 3 most famous 44s (Hank Aaron definitely belongs) and two of my favorite players. The bottom two also feature great looking cards with sticker autos.  The Leaf Limited is cool with a Padres patch and the Timeless Treasures has a great design.

Hope you enjoyed my celebration post and a deeper look into my Willie McCovey collection!