Card That Makes You Go...What??! of the Week: 2009 Topps Alexei Ramirez #585

After much thought, and finding the proper subject, we now bring back one of our favorite features on this humble little blog, our What??! of the Week! And to show you that I am not a biased Chicago Cubs fan, this week's subject features a player from that other Chicago team. All kidding aside, I am a baseball fan first, a Chicago fan second, and a Cubs fan third. But just because the South Siders don't get a lot of hobby love, even in their own city, doesn't mean that I'm going to ignore the problem I have with Topps this week. Our subject this week is second baseman now shortstop of the Chicago White Sox, Alexei Ramirez.

Now, back in November of last year, Topps named the players who were voted onto the 2008 Topps All-Star Rookie Team. The second baseman of that team was none other than White Sox rookie Alexei Ramirez. And why not? He hit 21 home runs, including a rookie record four grand slams, drove home 77 runs, to go with a .290 batting average in 136 games. No other rookie second baseman came close to the year he had in 2008. The MLB managers who vote on the players made an excellent choice.

This year, Alexei is a shortstop, making room at second base for rookie Chris Getz. So naturally, Alexei's 2009 Topps card #585, shows his position as SS. One problem...take a guess what it is...


Where is his trophy??? You know, it looks like this:


Maybe Mike Aviles, who was named onto the team at shortstop has an extra trophy on him for Alexei...


I mean, it looks like Topps was really rushed to get the Rookie Cup onto this card. At least we know they use MS Paint (nice paste job there boys). No, it doesn't look like he has one.

This might not be a big deal to most collectors. Heck, unless you keep tabs of this stuff, this atrocity wouldn't even phase you. However:

• If you are a White Sox team collector
• If you collecting Alexei Ramirez cards
• If you have decided to collect all the players with the Topps All-Star Rookie Cup added proudly to the corner of the honoree's card

then you are going to have a problem with this one.

Here is a situation I've always pondered. There are people out there who collect all the players cards from the year that the player made Topps' ASR team. And there has been a big debate as to whether or not include the players who were voted onto the teams that don't have that cup floating somewhere on the card (1974, 1979-1986). Alexei was voted onto the team, but that trophy is missing. If you are a rookie cup collector, how do you handle this situation? Do you add him into your want list because he won, or do you ignore it because Topps forgot the emblem on his card? What do you do?

And while we're asking all the questions, here is one for Topps,

What were you thinking??!

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

P.S. This is what the card should have looked like. Courtesy of MS Paint. jba