Breaking it Down 17: The Immaculate Toronto Blue Jays

I thought it was about time to do a baseball post, as my readership numbers have dwindled into the single digits after posts featuring NASCAR, comic books, and the NFL. Some nice Blue Jays hits should get the page views back up in the dozen or more mark. Page views aren't everything, but getting a few people to read the blog provides some motivation to keep writing.

I picked up the Toronto Blue Jays slot in a group break of 2014 Panini Immaculate Baseball. The spot was cheap, and the Blue Jays had a larger chance than most other low-priced teams to get something really cool like a bat knob or one of the shoe relic cards that have been getting a lot of buzz. I didn't get any of those things, but I got a couple of nice cards.

First up is these two Jose Bautista base cards. Every card on the checklist is serially-numbered, with the base cards being limited to a print run of 99 cards each. I got # 30 / 99 and # 32 / 99.

The card-backs are all right, but nothing spectacular.

I got this Ryan Goins relic card, with a nice little piece of blue cloth in the window. It is numbered # 65 / 99. Goins had a bad year and got sent down to AAA for a while. I honestly don't know all that much about him. I read that his glove is pretty good, but he has so far been unable to catch up with his bat.

And this is the number one card in the lot. It's an Immaculate Swatches relic card of Edwin Encarnacion featuring a pretty nice two-color relic that appears to be some blue fabric with a bit of white patch sewn on. It's also a Christmas card, being numbered # 12 / 25. It's not a bat knob or a piece of shoe, but it's not a bad hit for one of the cheapest slots in an Immaculate break. I don't miss the logos too much on these cards for some reason. Maybe it's because on all of these cards Panini went ahead and showed the players from the front, avoiding the plague of man-butt that has been apparent in other sets as Panini tries to avoid highlighting the lack of licensing to use MLB team names and logos. Obviously I would prefer to see Panini get the MLB license and give Topps some competition, but it seems like the major sports leagues are moving in the opposite direction, shrinking the number of companies that have licensing rights to make official cards.