that's a clown card, bro(der)

it's time to celebrate the latest envelope from madding at cards on cards, and i am going to jump right to the good stuff.

i don't know what this card is

but it's gold and shiny and not at all licensed.  here's the back:

i am all about adding clayton kershaw cards to my collection, but i typically like to know what i have. kerry sent two others - walker buehler

and tony gonsolin

there are no borders, but gonsolin got his hand chopped off, anyway.  each of the cards has a different background, and in addition to the team name, mlb logo, and team logo up top, the cards include the words "team mate" and "america" with the american flag.

i could find no information about this set anywhere, so i emailed kerry and asked. he said he was alerted to the set's existence by another blogger (matt from the old summer of '74 blog and other spots) and was given an amazon link to the cards.

now, while i am thankful to have received the cards that i did, once i checked out the link, i was a bit disappointed that i didn't get this tony gonsolin card

that is supposed to be julio urias, i guess. it still has the american flag, so it would appear that the flag has nothing to do with the players' nationality.

you've probably clicked on that link already, but here are a couple of the card images i lifted from amazon for posterity's sake

the urias/gonsolin card is bested only by the corey seager/jose ramirez offering in the center of that bunch, complete with a pie tin background design. the second image below has more goodies, like a left-handed matt chapman, manny machado masquerading as matt chapman (or is it the other way around), luis arraez getting mixed up with luis castillo, and corey seager showing up on josh donaldson's card

my favorite, however, is yasiel puig being identified as brad harris. i have no idea who brad harris is, and am wondering if the creator of these cards meant harrison bader who was on the reds for a short time in 2023. puig, of course, only played for the reds in 2019, but baseball reference has no information on any brad harris or similarly named person who might have been associated with the reds.

i can't really tell what year this set is supposed to represent, but i'm calling it 2023. that's only based on luis castillo being shown with the mariners which didn't happen until the latter part of the 2022 season, and my assumption that yasiel puig is, in fact, supposed to be harrison bader. still, blake treinen and matt chapman wouldn't be athletics if the set truly were a 2023 release so who knows. the whole thing is bonkers, and i can't thank kerry enough for sending me the three cards that he did.

there were other cards sent, including a couple of fully licensed cards from 2024 topps series 2. here is shohei ohtani's 1989 35th anniversary card

and a similar card of bobby miller, except this one is autographed!

thanks once again kerry! let's keep on tradin'!