Sunday, April 1, 2018

Where Are You Now Sensen Lin?

You're not familiar with the name Sensen Lin?

Well, according to LinkedIn, Mr. Lin is the Vice President, Assistant General Council for GIC, an investment management company based in Singapore. He has been with GIC since 2015. Prior to that, he worked as an associate for Ropes & Gray LLC, a global law firm with headquarters all over the world. He was first based in New York, then the Jing'an District in China.

So you can pretty much believe he's done pretty well for himself.

But by now, you have to be asking yourself, why am I talking about Sensen Lin? He's not a baseball player. He's never played in MLB. You won't find baseball cards of Lin anywhere. Or can you??!

Yes, Sensen Lin does have one baseball card, and he's the subject of one of Topps' greatest practical jokes of all time...and it all happened 10 years ago.

Before Mr. Lin climbed the ladder as a lawyer, he was a student at New York University. And a friend of his at the Topps Company had a brilliant idea for a practical joke. As Lin explains:

"They (Topps) put me in all these funky poses. I don’t know that much about baseball so I didn’t exactly know what I was doing. Turns out, the guys at Topps added some things. I wasn’t wearing that necklace and the glove in the picture is different. They also photoshopped in the background."

The results became the focal point of one of greatest "gimmicks" ever inserted into packs of baseball cards:



I do plan on requesting a connection to Mr. Lin on LinkedIn.

So Happy April Fool's Day. Please keep the pranks to a minimum.

Also, Happy Easter. He Is Risen!!!

Sincerely,

JayBee Anama

3 comments:

Fuji said...

Wait. The guy pictured isn't even Japanese? I guess I need to update my Japanese binder.

Brett Alan said...

Spending much of my time in Singapore, I am glad to know we have SOME connection to baseball cards!

Anonymous said...

Wow, 2018 Topps is such a train wreck of a set. Even if you pulled some of these SP variations how would you even know it? (#351, #384, #400, #431, etc.)