2023 TOPPS ORANGE FOIL KODAI SENGA
Today’s COTW entry started out trying to figure out the most unusual Mets card of all time. While not of Mets’ players, my thoughts on unusual cards include the 1952 Topps Gus Zernial with the multiple balls tacked to his bat, while Zernial gives the OK sign. Or the 1991 Roger Clemens posed in front of the manual scoreboard in Fenway. Or the 1993 Topps Kirby Puckett with the giant bat. Perhaps the most unusual is the 1970 Bud Harrelson, which got the COTW treatment a month ago.
Then it occurred to me that there was likely a card in this century that fit that bill but since that’s not in my wheelhouse, ignorance is at play. The first thing that jumped to mind was Kodai Senga and the possibility they did something with his celebrated pitch – the ghost fork. Fans have printed up little “ghost holding fork” images that they unfurl whenever Senga strikes someone out. So maybe there was a card riffing on something like that.
I put 2023 Topps Senga into a search engine and as you’d imagine, there were quite a bunch of different entries. But nothing really that fit the bill. Instead, there were multiple garish offerings, of which this Orange Foil seemed the best. Or worst, depending on your POV. This image came from a site called sportscardinvestor.com, where seemingly rarity trumps fun and interesting by a large margin.
Perhaps it was too soon to expect the card companies to come up with a creative issue for Senga. Maybe we’ll get that in the 2024 offerings. And if so, here’s hoping that it will come on his base card, so that a whole bunch of people can own the card.