Before I got sick this weekend, I spend some time trying to make a little headway organizing the baseball cards that I’ve acquired over the past few months.
I had overlooked the Jonathon Niese card pictured above when I originally opened my package from last season’s Tribecards baseball card giveaway. Upper Deck’s A Piece of History set never seemed all that exciting to me and I didn’t notice the gold foil serial numbering on the front. I haven’t been obsessed with chasing after parallels since they were the new, exciting thing in the early 1990s…but it is still kind of cool to have a card that there were only 49 other copies of were created.
Back in 2009, it seemed funny for Niese (or almost any rookie, really) to be included in a set called “A Piece of History.” But in 2014, Niese really is a piece of history. He, along with David Wright, Daniel Murphy and Bobby Parnell are the last current Mets who played at Shea Stadium – which only closed six years ago.
Depending on how things go this winter, it’s possible that Wright will be the only Shea Stadium Met who’s still with the team on Opening Day. I don’t know about anyone else, but that makes me feel a little bit sad.
PaulHadsall.com 