Is there a baseball newsletter that focuses only on a handful of baseball achievements? No trade rumors. No templated recaps. Just give me the top 2-4 items a day. I can’t find such a newsletter.

But I have managed to find something close. Something that’s not intended as a way of sending baseball news updates. The Topps Now series. Anytime an important baseball event occurs, Topps makes a limited-run baseball card of that event.

I’ve added the MLB Topps Now page to my daily bookmarks. This has become one of my main ways of getting baseball news. Today I found out that Jose Canseco was inducted into the Athletics Hall of Fame.

Sure, the news may be a bit delayed. Every day Topps has to decide on the main events and design the cards. How long does that take? I haven’t timed it, but I’m guessing it’s at least a day. But I’m ok with that. Because I don’t have to wade through a bunch of fluff to get to the main events.

Using Topps Now as a daily bookmark, I’ve also discovered these accomplishments happened:

Juan Soto’s 3 HR game

Charlie Morton’s 2000th strikeout

Thank you, Topps Now, for being one of my top MLB news sources.

https://www.57hits.com/getting-your-baseball-news-through-topps-now

#FunWithBaseballCards #JoseCanseco #ToppsNow

Baseball card manufacturers like Topps (and formerly Upper Deck) slice apart game-used baseball bats and embed them into cards. What if you bought a stockpile of one player’s relic cards and reassembled the bat? It would look rather like a LEGO bat, I’d imagine. Or if you sanded off the rectangular edges, you’d end up with a plywood bat.

Gary Sheffield has 27 relic baseball bat cards currently on sale at comc.com–all from the “2001 Upper Deck SP Game Bat Edition Piece of the Game” edition.

Taking just the wood chips from each of the 27 relic cards, here’s how they look together:

These 27 chips would total approximately a 3.6-inch wide by 3.8 inch high card. To purchase all 27 cards on comc.com, it would cost you $92.48 before shipping and handling fees. So for about $100, you can assemble your own 3.5 x 3.5-inch square of Gary Sheffield’s bat.

But Gary Sheffield? How about a real American hero? Like Jose Canseco. He has 20 cards for sale from the “2001 Upper Deck SP Game Bat Edition Piece of the Game” series.

His 20 cards in total runs up to $95.18. The wood grain of his bat runs a tad darker than Sheffield’s bat. But there’s a little more interesting wood grain. My favorite of the twenty is the chip that has a slight knot in the grain.

This knot must have caused the wood to splinter off making an irregular cut on the top of the chip. That imperfection makes this bat relic a little bit more unusual–much like the man Jose Canseco.

https://www.57hits.com/ressembling-a-baseball-bat-from-relic-cards

#2001UpperDeck #FunWithBaseballCards #GarySheffield #JoseCanseco