A Six-Pack of SEGA Card-Gen Rare Foils

I picked up a few nice SEGA Card-Gen cards recently from an eBay seller. They are from different years, but all hail from the Rare subset, which have a foil background on the front and better game stats on the back than they do on the base cards. The Joe Mauer card comes from the 2013 set and the Ryan Zimmerman card is from the 2012 issue.

These first couple feature Joe Mauer and Ryan Zimmerman. I don't necessarily collect either of these guys but I couldn't pass these up, especially when taking combined shipping into consideration. Joe Mauer is a pretty popular dude, and Ryan Zimmerman has had a pretty good career although it seems like he's been derailed a bit by injury.

I was pretty excited that this pair of guys were among the listings available for purchase. Mark Buehrle now plays for the Blue Jays, and seems to just keep trucking along. He was an All-Star last season and is 3-0 this year in spite of some rather pedestrian numbers. He won a ring with the White Sox in 2005, and he has been pitching in the majors since 2000.

Paul Konerko spent many years with the White Sox, and retired last season. He hit 439 home runs in his career and is scheduled to have his number retired by the White Sox next month. He also was on the Championship team of 2005. He was the face of the White Sox for many years.

Buehrle's card is from the 2011 SEGA Card-Gen set while Konerko's card comes from the 2013 set. I always like the descriptions on the back of the cards next to the player's total score. Buehrle is tagged as a '60 Feet Magician' due to his reliance on control and efficiency more than velocity, and Konerko is labeled as 'Dr. Batting Essential,' maybe because his bat was a bit more valuable than his glove.

These are the real gems of the lot for me. I was able to snag copies of Jose Bautista's 2011 and 2012 cards. He really came into his own in 2010 and 2011, blasting about 10 million home runs over those two seasons and ensuring that he would get a spot in this set.

His ratings increased over the two seasons, showing that the Card-Gen set changed from year to year based on player performance. Bautista is dealing with a bit of an injury right now, as he got into a rather heated exchange with the Orioles a couple of days ago and subsequently put a little too much emotion into a throw from the outfield, injuring himself in the process. But he did manage to knock a ball over the wall in response to being thrown behind, helping his team to win the game. The Orioles, Adam Jones in particular, had some words to say about Bautista watching the ball and flipping his bat after the home run, and the exchanges that went on got Bautista riled up enough to make the ill-advised throw that hurt him. I personally kind of like the celebrating and bat-flipping, especially if the batter has just gotten revenge for being thrown at, but the baseball establishment says that is a big no-no. I like Bautista and I like Adam Jones, so I'm not going to pick sides on this one. In the end Bautista and the Blue Jays won the game, and that's what really matters.