I have a bit of a dilemma.
I saw this card on eBay and bought it. It is a 2001 Topps Archive reprint of card 202 from the 1970 Topps set commemorating the Baltimore Orioles win in the AL Championship Series and is signed by Paul Blair. Blair is obviously the key featured player on the card and, if it was a thing back then, would have probably been the series MVP (the first championship series MVP was awarded in 1980.) But, he is not named on the card, except as a line on the series box score and this card doesn't appear on the lists of Paul Blair cards.
So, player collectors out there, is this a Paul Blair card or not? If it is, I guess I will need to get the original Topps and OPC versions for the Blair binder.
What I am listening to: New York Comeback by Lucinda Williams (with Bruce Springsteen)
Yeah, this is a really sticky grey area, if I'm not mixing my metaphors. It's been happening to me more and more with the "team cards" showing a couple of guys celebrating Topps has been fond of lately. It seems every year Pete Alonso is prominent on the Mets one, and I've been putting them in my Alonso binder, but I'm not thrilled about it.
ReplyDeleteSo, yeah, I think this is a Paul Blair card. Certainly something like the the 1975 card of Game 3 of the 1974 World Series is a Rollie Fingers card, but of course he's not sharing it with (if I'm not wrong) Frank Robinson, Andy Etchebarren, and Dave Johnson's back. So...if you don't want to count it as a Paul Blair card, I don't think you have to. But you certainly could.
I can't even imagine collecting a modern player with all the inserts and parallels. To be sure, all the obscure vintage issues are maddening, but having hundreds, if not thousands of cards on the want list would be depressing.
DeleteSigned by Paul Blair = Paul Blair card (in my opinion at least!)
ReplyDeleteYes, most definitely.
ReplyDelete