I have very few card collections given my limited resources and space, but I did decide some time ago to begin collecting on-card Royals autographs. It’s been a blast so far trying to track these things down and this is the latest addition to my collection. To view the cards currently in the collection, take a look at the Gallery or the other posts in this series. I’m working on getting a legit want list together on my trade page but, in the meantime, if you have any on-card Royals autos that it looks like I don’t have, don’t hesitate to drop me a line!
Oh, 2011. Seems like so long ago.
Oh, 2011 Bowman Platinum. No one cared about you then and no one cares about you now. Except me. But only because I’m forced to.
You see, back in August, I thought to myself, “Self, let’s do a new type of post. One that kind of previews every Royals auto in a set that features on-card autos. A perfect feature! It will get literally 3’s of views and will also help me keep my collecting goals in order. In fact, I’ll do it for every set!”
Spoiler alert, It did literally none of those things. Of course, that could be in part to a huge error on my part. You see, that post made reference to only one Royal auto in the 2011 Bowman Platinum set. In fact, the whole bit of the post was about how there was only one Royal auto in that set. “How dare they!” you could practically sense from my words! Just one guy?
Which guy? Clint Robinson. A pretty decent minor league prospect in my untrained eyes. Well, decent in that he won the AA Triple Crown in 2010. You know, no biggie. He apparently had surgery. Oh, just read the article I’m reading and save me the trouble. There’s a 45 minute interview clip in there too. Too long, didn’t listen.
Anyway, back when I wrote that article about Bowman Platinum I just had the regular old refractor (there are no base in Platinum, of course). But now I’ve got this guy:
Look at the golden half-smile!
That’s a pretty sweet card. /50 and the hardest to find of all the Clint Robinson autos that I would actually attempt to collect. They’re especially hard to track down because dude’s name is so hopelessly common that I’ve never even bothered to set up a search for his cards. Plus, as the only guy in the set, why bother? I mean, I’ll come across him occasionally in my other Royals auto searches I’m sure. Well here let me just search for-
Things are lookin' up for ole' Gil!
OHGODWHATTHEHELLISTHAT!?
Blue is the color of Royals love.
Could it be? Was I wrong all along?! No, certainly not. This must just be some weird Bowmanized subset. Maybe you had to eat three boxes of Cookie Crisp and Brett Eibner’s contract had to be signed on the first of a month beginning in J to be included in the special refractor and blue refractor-only set.
I really wish he hadn't signed these on a moving train.
OH THE HORROR!!!1
Okay, you get it. I was wrong. Brett Eibner slipped through my gumshoe cracks (gross) and I left him off my very popular list of Royals autos in a set. So sue me. Please don’t sue me.
Brett Eibner is a highly-touted prospect originally drafted in the 4th round of the 2007 draft by the Astros. He didn’t sign then and got picked up in the 2nd round by the Royals. He’s played center field in 76 single A games in Kane County (right next to me here in Chicago) and had a very poor first pro season at the plate at first glance. At closer glance, his OPS was .748 and that’s all from home runs and walks, basically. A power hitter with a good eye sounds great in theory, but only first basemen in Chicago get away with his .213. As far as I know (and, as I’ve proven in this shameful display, “as far as I know” means very little), this is his only auto. And I’m one green refractor version away from rainbowing this mo’ fo’ so let’s get crackin’! Now… who opened some 2011 Platinum like a total sucker? Oh right. We did.
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