Some Update Fun, Zippy Style

The release of 2019 Update was one I'd been looking forward to since mid-July. Mainly because Thairo Estrada had posted on his Instagram that he was signing autographs for Topps. They were the 1984 throwback motif ones and I knew that this was Update bound. And if Thairo was gonna get certified rookie card autographs in Update, it likely meant that he was going to get rookie cards too.

And he did!
This festive little holiday themed card came to me courtesy of Once A Cub. Thairo is enjoying a massive influx of cards at the moment because he's getting the token New York Yankees rookie treatment from Topps. Luckily for me I kinda got off the Thairo collecting-boat back in 2016 because I really didn't want to deal with dipshits trying to inflate his prices just because his cards were exclusive in some capacity. Now I deal strictly with MiLB issues and not much else.

That said it is great to get a rookie card. Mainly because I can now just pair it up with the 1st Bowman Chrome and really see how far he's come since I first saw him in 2014 as a member of the Staten Island Yankees. Thairo's been through a lot since 2015 when I saw him almost daily, he survived an armed robbery/gunshot, he's survived Rule-5 roster crunches, he's continued to make the most of every opportunity he's been able to get at the big league/triple-A/double-A level. Thairo will continue to be cool to me because he just won't let anything stop him from being his usual kick-ass good at baseball self.

Also to pad out this post a little more, here's a Josh VanMeter rookie card that came to me courtesy of Night Owl Cards.

I don't really give a shit about the Cincinnati Reds but this card was one I wanted for a very specific reason.

You see, VanMeter was the prospect that the San Diego Padres traded to the Reds moments after the Reds had taken Luis Torrens in the 2016 Rule 5 Draft. Without him Torrens wouldn't have gone to San Diego and he likely would've been returned to the Yankees from the Reds.

If I had to guess, the Padres very likely knew that the Reds were picking second overall and had agreed to a trade of sorts in advance for a PTBNL so that was probably going to always be the plan. But still, it's somewhat unique to me in knowing that the guy who's been (to date) the only mortal traded in exchange for Torrens made it to the big leagues in 2019. Congrats to him.

Also if you were wondering where the heck this came from, it was yet another one of Gavin's customs. This was made and sent to me months ago (alongside the Star vs the Forces of Evil cards) but I could never really find the right timing to blog about it until now. It features both the men involved in the trade and now here in 2019 I can proudly say that both have rookie cards attached to their names.

And those were a few notes on 2019 Topps Update. Even in a product loaded with no-names that probably don't mean much to most of you, it's managed to produce some really special names for me and me alone.

As always thanks for stopping by and take care :).