Bearded Benevolence

A few weeks ago Beardy from Beardy's Baseball Blog busted a box of Topps Unique and posted a review. Unfortunately, the box only earned an Affleck on the Beard-O-Meter. I suspect this was due to the sticker auto and the fact that the guaranteed patch hit was a Ranger. I offered to take the patch hit and one other card off his hands for various Orioles. He threw in another card as well and we had a deal. I dare say this is the best three card trade package I've ever received. Here is the proof.

This 2009 Sweet Spot Sweet Swatch Josh Hamilton jersey was the "other" card Beardy put into the deal. Yea, it's a plain grey jersey swatch, but it's Josh, he's a Ranger, and I needed it. Simple, right?

The 2009 Topps Unique box yielded one gold parallel. Lucky for me it happened to be Josh Hamilton #10/25. I can understand the "meh" factor behind these if you're paying cold hard cash to bust a box, but if you never intend to open even one pack of these, then they're alright. Plus, it's my lowest numbered Hamilton by a mile. Or at least 274.

Here is the BACK of the patch hit from Beardy's box. You'll notice it's Hank Blalock and it's number 61/99. Ok, maybe you can't see the numbering since it blends in to the back of the card. Now for the front...

I can so understand why an Orioles fan would be disappointed with this card. As a Rangers fan, I'm extremely happy to have this "patch" card. It's definitely one of the thickest cards I own, and if you look into the patch window at an angle you can see more red to the right of the white portion. I'm not sure what part of the uniform this is from. Maybe a letter or number. Unfortunately this doesn't appear to be from the type of uniform they have on the picture. How hard would it be to make sure the swatch/patch matches the uniform pictured on the card? I guess it's too hard since that happens a lot. At any rate, I'm very happy to have added these to my collection and it's all thanks to Beardy. Thank you Beardy!!