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In honor of Barry Larkin's upcoming induction to the Hall of Fame, I've decided to do something a little bit different than the usual "hooray!" post. I'm going to determine Barry Larkin's all time best baseball cards - or, more specifically, you are going to determine his all time best cards choosing from the cards that happen to reside in my (scanned and documented) collection. At the moment, that means choosing the best out of the 115 cards I've written about - but I'm sure that number will grow while the voting is happening.
Here's how this will work:
Each round will consist of a battle between two (or more) Barry Larkin cards. For simplicity, I'm going to seed them #1 - 100 based on the first 100 cards that I've scanned. Depending on how long this takes, I may include the next batch of cards or I may opt to wait until I have another large group of cards ready to go.
For each round, the winner(s) will move on and the loser(s) will be out - single elimination! As we progress, winners will be paired with winners until eventually we've determined the top few cards out of the first 100. Of course, that's quite the process. For the first round, the cards will be in groups of 4 with the top 2 cards moving on to the second round. This should help weed out the weakest cards immediately and then the real fun will begin.
How do you determine who wins? You vote! The winner will be determined by my blog reader's votes and my vote. In cases where my vote is in disagreement with the majority (which I'm sure will happen at some point), ties will be broken in whatever way I feel is fair (i.e. if 95% of people like one card better than I do, the 95% will win but if it's closer to 50/50 my vote will possibly carry more weight). Hey, it's my blog - I can do what I want!
Now, let's get the competition started! Here are the first four nominees. Remember, the top 2 from this round move on (the losing two are out for good). Please vote using the poll on the sidebar!
Round 1:
1987 Topps (Rookie)
The 1987 Topps card is probably Larkin's most famous rookie card. Of course, the 1987 Topps set is also known as one of the leading examples of the "junk wax" era... Will the junk wax status be enough to knock out his rookie card in the first round or will the wood bordered wonder prevail?
1988 Fleer:
The 1988 Fleer card is one of the more patriotic Larkin cards (more on that idea a bit later in the competition). It's hard to beat a posed shot in what appears to be a fishnet-esque jersey in front of a bunch of people at a spring training game.
1988 Topps:
The 1988 Topps card is one of my favorite Larkin cards - especially amongst Barry's early cards. Something about that all black background and all red foreground that makes Larkin pretty bad *ss. I'm not sure about the pink wrist bands though, that might be enough to send the card packing.
1989 Fleer:
In a nice bit of symmetry, the first round consists of two Topps cards and two Fleer cards - all from the late 80s. This particular card is full of gray and quite frankly, I'll be surprised if anyone votes for this card. However, maybe there is some unspoken love for ugly Fleer sets...stranger things have happened!
And there it is: The first vote in the Barry Larkin Card Experiment. Once again, vote for your favorite card in the sidebar. I hope to keep the polls rotating so don't delay in casting your ballot! This particular poll closes Friday evening at 6:00 PM EST.
Here's how this will work:
Each round will consist of a battle between two (or more) Barry Larkin cards. For simplicity, I'm going to seed them #1 - 100 based on the first 100 cards that I've scanned. Depending on how long this takes, I may include the next batch of cards or I may opt to wait until I have another large group of cards ready to go.
For each round, the winner(s) will move on and the loser(s) will be out - single elimination! As we progress, winners will be paired with winners until eventually we've determined the top few cards out of the first 100. Of course, that's quite the process. For the first round, the cards will be in groups of 4 with the top 2 cards moving on to the second round. This should help weed out the weakest cards immediately and then the real fun will begin.
How do you determine who wins? You vote! The winner will be determined by my blog reader's votes and my vote. In cases where my vote is in disagreement with the majority (which I'm sure will happen at some point), ties will be broken in whatever way I feel is fair (i.e. if 95% of people like one card better than I do, the 95% will win but if it's closer to 50/50 my vote will possibly carry more weight). Hey, it's my blog - I can do what I want!
Now, let's get the competition started! Here are the first four nominees. Remember, the top 2 from this round move on (the losing two are out for good). Please vote using the poll on the sidebar!
Round 1:
1987 Topps (Rookie)
The 1987 Topps card is probably Larkin's most famous rookie card. Of course, the 1987 Topps set is also known as one of the leading examples of the "junk wax" era... Will the junk wax status be enough to knock out his rookie card in the first round or will the wood bordered wonder prevail?
1988 Fleer:
The 1988 Fleer card is one of the more patriotic Larkin cards (more on that idea a bit later in the competition). It's hard to beat a posed shot in what appears to be a fishnet-esque jersey in front of a bunch of people at a spring training game.
1988 Topps:
The 1988 Topps card is one of my favorite Larkin cards - especially amongst Barry's early cards. Something about that all black background and all red foreground that makes Larkin pretty bad *ss. I'm not sure about the pink wrist bands though, that might be enough to send the card packing.
1989 Fleer:
In a nice bit of symmetry, the first round consists of two Topps cards and two Fleer cards - all from the late 80s. This particular card is full of gray and quite frankly, I'll be surprised if anyone votes for this card. However, maybe there is some unspoken love for ugly Fleer sets...stranger things have happened!
And there it is: The first vote in the Barry Larkin Card Experiment. Once again, vote for your favorite card in the sidebar. I hope to keep the polls rotating so don't delay in casting your ballot! This particular poll closes Friday evening at 6:00 PM EST.
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