DATA: 2007 Bowman Sterling Refractor (BSP • JV)

ACQUIRED: ‘bay

PING: Ah yeah… great card right here. A sweet horizontal layout with a dual relic and autograph combination. Very nice card design with a great chrome finish – all ruined by the scan. Ah well… that’s what you get with scanning chrome cards, right? Bowman Sterling is a bit audacious design-wise, but it’s fun. That’s what it’s all about, right? Numbered out of 199, if you’re keeping tabs.

DATA: 2008 Upper Deck SP Authentic (137)

PING: I’m truly geeked about this card – it’s a beauty. Great modern design, well-done horizontal layout, jersey, autograph, silver foil embossing, great photo of Joey right right after he got sawed off, serial numbered… It’s a card geeks dream, right? Pretty much.

The two things I would change are the same things any other card geek would – 1) Autograph on the card and 2) Jersey color matching the photo. But, really… I don’t care all that much. I’m not going to be buying packs or boxes of SP anytime soon, so this will probably be the only one in my collection. Fine by me.

DATA: 2006 Bowman Relic (FG8)

PING: A Bowman “1st Bowman Card” for Mr. Votto. Nice little relic from the jersey he wore in the 2006 Futures Game in Pittsburgh. He went 1 for 2 in the game.

DATA: 2007 Bowman Relic Card

PING: Jersey card! W00t and all that. Nice looking card here – I like that Bowman used a shirt-shaped die cut to display the jersey swatch. Nice touch. The other cool thing about this card is that it calls out the specific game in which the jersey used in – the 2007 All-Star Futures game. Joey hit a home run off of Clay Buchholz in that game for Team Canada.