Machado MAIL Day!!!

Happy Sunday everyone!  

One week in to the baseball season and the Orioles are already on a 4 game skid.  Oh well, LOTs of baseball left.  Still you want to start out stronger than this!

Apparently Topps wanted to help me celebrate the start of the Orioles season by sending me my redemption for my 2013 Topps Archives Manny Machado 1973 mini framed auto.  It came in the mail yesterday morning and caught me by complete surprise.  

I had redeemed it in December after I purchased it on ebay for winning my Fantasy Football league.  I had been checking the status of the redemption at least once a week since then and the status was always the same... "pending".  

So I guess the last time I checked was right at the end of March.  It was shipped on April 1st and showed up in the mail yesterday.  #awesomesauce

Check it out!

I had been out all day with my daughter and when I came back home my wife tossed me this.  As soon as I saw Topps in the corner I knew it was my card and was insta-excited!

Inside was my prize, protected in bubbles.

BOOM! 11/25. I just wish this would have had the RC logo on it somewhere since this is technically a rookie auto.  I hate his autograph for the record.  It is impossible to discern his name from the autograph.   

3 Home runs in his first 4 games gave us all in Baltimore a great idea of what kind of talent we were getting in Machado.  A year later he would win the platinum glove award at one of the toughest positions to play defense at.  I hope the never move him to shortstop.  He's already the best 3rd baseman in the league.

I love the look and design of the card.  I would totally love to collect the set, but it's a pipe dream.  I'll work on it though for as long as it takes me!  Here are the other names in the set.  Fat chance I add any to my collection, but nothing worth doing was ever easy.  Thanks for reading! Happy Sunday!

73M-BG Bob Gibson

73M-CK Clayton Kershaw

73M-CS Chris Sale

73M-DF David Freese

73M-DS Dave Stewart

73M-DW David Wright

73M-FJ Fergie Jenkins

73M-FR Frank Robinson

73M-GG Gio Gonzalez

73M-HA Hank Aaron

73M-JB Johnny Bench

73M-JM Juan Marichal

73M-JP Jim Palmer

73M-KG Ken Griffey Jr.

73M-MS Mike Schmidt

73M-MT Mike Trout

73M-NR Nolan Ryan

73M-RA R.A. Dickey

73M-RB Ryan Braun

73M-RJ Reggie Jackson

73M-TS Tom Seaver

73M-WC Will Clark

73M-WM Will Middlebrooks

73M-YC Yoenis Cespedes