League Leader in Opening Day Gifts

A few years back, I introduced my co-worker turned friend Ty to the world of baseball cards blogs. He even gave it try himself with the short-lived League Leader in Italics blog. Also a few years back, we played Blaster Wars for a couple of blasters worth of Opening Day product. Long story short, I won a pair of Opening Day blasters off of him.


He changed jobs a little while ago and while I don't see him as often, we do get together every couple of weeks/months. This past weekend we met up and he slipped me a couple of top loaders. I feel bad that I was so unprepared but we really hadn't talked cards in a while. Since he's more of a Nationals fan, he had no use for these Cubbies he pulled out of Opening Day this year.

Clark joined the Cubs just prior to the 2014 season and first appeared in the Opening Day series in 2015 with just a regular insert card. This year he gets that plus the autograph.

But I like it. The autograph is creative. The "C" forms part of paw print and the "LARK" mimics the Cubs logo where the "UBS" are contained within the "C" in the name. It reminds me of when I took the kids to Disney and they had their autograph books filled with character signatures. They all had some fancy, cute way to sign.

This was a very nice addition. I don't know that I would have shelled out the $20+ this card goes for on eBay. Really? $20+? Apparently...

Also included was this insert of Kyle Schwarber from the Heavy Hitters insert series. Although he may be out of sight, out of mind to many outside the Chicago fandom, the back speaks to why he'll be more than welcome back in 2017.

Thanks, Ty!