The other day I received a plain white envelope in the mail with the return address of "P. Jagoff". At first I thought it was a letter from my cousin who lives in Quebec, Pierre Luc Jagoff, but that wasn't the case because it was mailed from California. That, and I don't have a cousin who lives in Quebec, let alone one named Pierre Luc Jagoff.
It turned out to be from Pedro S. Jago-- I'm sorry, I misread that. It's actually from Padres Jagoff: everyone's favorite source of pictures of Dodgers players with MSPaint-ed male members spraying their faces, and then some. An example of that signature artwork was present on the back of the envelope.
As much as I appreciate a good image of one of those doing that, I was more interested in the contents of the envelope. It contained three incredible cards -- one relic and two autographs -- but today I'm going to focus on just the most recently released one.
This is only my second Tommy Medica card, and it's about 832 times cooler than the one I already had, for obvious reasons. It's his 2014 Topps Finest Rookie Autograph issue. Aside from the fact that it's autographed by Tommy, which is cool enough in and of itself, it's actually a nice-looking card. I haven't always been the biggest fan of Finest, but this year's edition relegated the more garish aspects to the borders while still maintaining the iridescence and layers we've come to expect.
Where it gets really interesting is on the back.
Medica is listed as a catcher on this card even though he has only played five pro games behind the plate, most recently in 2012, when he caught one game as a member of the High-A Lake Elsinore Storm. Oddly, his 2014 Topps base card was released before this one but lists him as a first baseman.
The final quirk is a result of the numbering system Topps has adopted for its relic and autographed cards. They go with the initials of the insert set, followed by the player's initials. This Rookie Autograph card of Tommy Medica therefor gives us a card "number" of RA-TM. As a fan of Rage Against The Machine, I think that might be my favorite thing about this card.
Okay, second-favorite. I got a little carried away there for a second.