I picked up this card prior to Andre’s election into the Hall of Fame.  And I am lucky that I did because it would be tough to find it now for the bargain price I paid for it…  another episode of Ebay madness!!!

The card is cool. 

Obviously it is nice to add a Game-used card of Andre with a great ‘Cubbie-Blue’ pinstripe running through it.  The card commemorates Andre’s incredible 1987 season in which he was awarded the MVP trophy.  The design is reminiscent of the 1983 Topps base set, and for a vintage collector like me that is a perfect fit.

This card immediately makes it into my ‘Ultimate Dawson’ collection.  Check out the goods here!

• Official Card Set Name and Card Number: 1977 Topps #350.
• Player Name, position, team: Larry Dierker, pitcher, Houston Astros.
• Major League Debut: September 22, 1964.
• Last Line of Statistics: 1976 stats (Astros): 28 G, 188 IP, 13-14, 85 R, 77 ER, 112 SO, 72 BB, 3.69 ERA.
• Any special information about player: Signed with the Colt .45's as a Free Agent before the 1964 season. Bats: right, Throws: right.
• Any special information about this specific card: Dierker's thirteenth regular Topps card. How cool is this card? It's one of the few I have in my collection that shows the stats of a player from the Houston Colt .45's. Yes, I know they eventually became the Astros, but the stats on the back show that he played for the Colt .45's in 1964 before the team name change the following season. Picture takes up most of the design, with a simple team name in big bold letters for easy sorting (I guess). The player name is below, and a pennant with the position is added on the right. Facsimile autograph is present (which I wonder how it works when you want an already "autographed card" autographed? I don't know, never got into autograph cards. But I digress. The back of the card looks like it's on a large outdoor sign (notice the two wooden posts at the bottom, complete with grass). A green on gray card back makes for very easy reading of the stats. A cartoon on the left lets us know that the Oakland A's stole 341 bases in 1976.
• Lo-Hi Beckett value: $0.30-$0.75.
• How many cards of this player do I own?: 5 cards.

Why is this one of my favorite cards? Well, surely by now you have seen the other Topps team cards that pepper the Series 1 checklist.  The most popular of these is card #1 of Prince Fielder and the Brewers. Other teams have the usual home plate celebration conglomeration demonstrated here by my beloved Cincinnati Reds:

Hopefully we’ll see a lot more of that this year, and I may have to bring it out each time the Reds win a game. Don’t worry, even if I do, you probably won’t see it that often. But you’d see it more than that Royals card if I agreed to do the same thing for them. That’s how confident I am this year. We are definitely better than Kansas City.

Back to the Royals team card. While other teams get their on card celebrations, the Royals get players shaking hands.  Royals fans get their team lined up like it’s the end of a little league baseball game and everyone has to show what a good sport they are before hitting mom up for a dollar or two to raid the snack bar. There’s no excitement there. No smiles. Just the team in rows, no doubt telling each other, “Good game.”

Everyone knows the Royals fans haven’t had much to cheer about in the last fifteen years. The promise of 2003 and 2008 was met with more failure in 2004 and 2009.  2010 doesn’t look very promising either, with the exception of Zack Greinke’s starts. Most are predicting around 70 wins, which means they’ll be flirting once more with 100 losses. It should be another long season in Kansas City.

But at least they are good sports about it. And they continue to play and continue to try for something, whether it’s that magical 63rd win or a Cy Young award for the league’s best pitcher. It’s why the Royals end up being a team most of us root for even though they aren’t our own. It’s hard to find someone who really hates the Royals anymore. They are like the lovable loser you want to see win big.

I wonder if Topps was going for a gentle poke at the Royals and their fans, but I prefer to think of it as celebration instead.  While there hasn’t been much cause for cheering in Kansas City since 1995, no one has accused the Royals of not trying.  No one has accused the players of throwing in the towel.

There are better times ahead for all who enter Kauffman stadium. It may just be a few more years before those days come, since most of their prospects still inhabit the lower rungs of the minors.

Until then, at least they tried to make it a good game.