I googled ‘Trout Baller’ and saw the Topps project 2020 link.
I clicked on it and saw the card, saw the countdown timer (with still a full day and a half on it), scrambled to click ‘add to cart’ and checked out as quick as possible (definitely a sneaker-release reflex lol). After I bought that first card for full price, I then decided to do a bit more research into the Project 2020 stuff and was fascinated. I had heard of this #toppsproject2020 thing mostly through advertisements...I hadn’t seen an initial release date nor had I seen anyone posting about it, so I was kinda taken aback that the Trout baller card was like number 51 or something...I had already missed the first 50 cards?
Short version of what Topps Project 2020 is - it’s the year 2020, so Topps picked 20 semi-famous baseball cards from their back catalog, approached 20 semi-well-known modern artists, and asked them to recreate each and every card in their own style over the duration of the year. The release 2 new cards every weekday for 48 hours at a pretty low price ($20/each) and as soon as that 48 hour window is over, that’s it. The card is never to be printed again.
I took a quick dip over to eBay and looked up ‘Topps Project 2020’ and started scrolling through everything. The prices weren’t too bad, but much more than I’d like to spend on Baseball cards (I haven’t purchased a baseball card since, probably 1996)...I noticed a few names that I definitely wanted to stay on top of - obviously, in the sneaker world, we’ve got @benballer (more of an NT personality), @chicagodonc and @misterctoons .
Of those 3, I knew I definitely wanted to start a Cartoon set so searched for this cards and realized I already missed 2 - the Roberto Clemente card and the George Brett card. The Clemente was going for $60, the Brett was $23. $60 was a bit more than I was comfortable spending but I pulled the trigger on both, anyway.
And my wife was still in Dollar Tree...like an hour later...so I bought one copy of every card available on the site (48-52)...
#benballerdidthecard#mrcartoon#miketrout#sneakers#sneakerhead#sneakerheads#igsneakercommunity#sneakeroftheday@miketrout