About a week and a half ago I sent out a tweet mentioning that I planned to write a piece about how I generally no longer chase autographs of the guys I personally collect. In my case that’s Roger Clemens and Clayton Kershaw.

No less than 24 hours I sent the tweet, and much before I sat down to write anything, I received a message from my Good Friend Tom out of Las Vegas.

Of course he hit area of my Kershaw collection I had failed to cover: a 2005 Team USA autograph.

The price tag said $75, and before I could even really respond, Tom said he’d already worked the shop down to $60.

Of course I had to own it at that price.

I would have preferred a single-signed Team USA Kershaw autograph but for the price It was good — and it doesn’t exactly hurt that the other player on the card is an all-star, Yankees reliever Dellin Betances.

I’ve still not written my autograph piece, and I will cover all of my philosophical thoughts here, but even though I feel somewhat hypocritical based on my tweet, I’m happy to have added this one to my collection — and really happiness is all that matters.

It’s now one of three Kershaw autos that I consider to be head and shoulders above the rest.

The others?

The 2006 Bowman Chrome Draft Refractor /500 that I personally pulled from a blaster at WalMart that year, and the 2016 Stadium Club because the moment depicted in that autograph card is one I experienced in person — I was there the night Kershaw tossed a 1-hitter in San Francisco in 2015 to clinch the National League West title.

This entry was posted on February 29, 2020 at 7:52 am and is filed under Collecting Kershaw with tags baseball, baseball cards, Clayton Kershaw, Team USA, Upper Deck. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.