is this retro?

steve garvey turns 73 years old today. he last played in the major leagues 34 years ago, which is certainly enough time for him to be consider "retro". that's how panini presented him in this year's donruss optic and national treasures releases.

garvey was included on the "retro series signature" checklist in optic, getting a base

and prizm card

here's the back, with some commentary on the guy who made me think more highly of hits than home runs

there is also a gold parallel

numbered to 10

which i was happy to acquire. i have no thoughts of buying the other versions - black finite 1/1 and gold vinyl 1/1 (both of which are on ebay now with ridiculous and high buy-it-nows, respectively) - in what was a surprisingly minimalistic parallel effort from panini.

as for national treasures, garvey was featured on a relic-only card, called "retro materials". i only have the base version

which is numbered to 99. there are a couple of parallels of this one - holo gold, holo silver, platinum blue 1/1, and printing plates - but i am content with one variety. of course the parallels aren't necessarily plain white swatches (i've seen a holo gold that looks like it had a piece of his warmup jacket that panini has been using for the last few years and a printing plate that had a bat piece) so never say never.

happy birthday to the garv! better to be considered retro than not considered at all, i guess.