GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) — Cam Booser's bumpy road to the major leagues included arm and back injuries, along with a stint as a carpenter in his native Seattle. Such an unlikely big league debut was worth commemorating, and he was determined to track down a specific memento — a one-of-a-kind baseball card that included a jersey patch from his uniform for his first game.
So was his older sister, Kelsey.
After scheming with the Neighborhood Card Shop in California for about a month, Kelsey surprised her younger brother with the prized card for one memorable Christmas present.
“That was one of the cooler moments I’ve ever had,” said Cam Booser, a reliever who was traded from the Red Sox to the White Sox in December.
Topps' debut patch cards, which are autographed and contain a patch from the jersey from the player's first MLB game, have captured the attention of some young major leaguers — even the ones with little previous interest in baseball cards — and longtime collectors. The patches are even part of this year's MLB The Show video game.
The hype was ramped up by the pursuit of Paul Skenes' card after it was released in November. Dominic Canzone's mother managed to get her son's card for him, and Chandler Seagle's father presented his son's card to him. Joey Loperfido, an outfielder who made his major league debut last year, wrote “DM me” on the back of his card and offered an invitation to Thanksgiving in exchange for the memento — and got it back.
“I think it is a resemblance of a lifetime of work right in front of your eyes,” Booser said.
The debut patch cards are featured in Topps Chrome Update. Fanatics, which owns Topps, released a Major League Soccer version in December, and it plans to try the card in other properties as well.
Some of the patch cards are inserted into Chrome Update, but many are distributed via redemption codes — where Topps ships out the one-of-one card in a protective case after it is claimed in an effort to protect its condition.
There were 91 debut patch cards in the first year in 2023 and 251 last year. Jackson Merrill and Yoshinobu Yamamoto are among the sought after cards that haven't been publicly uncovered just yet.
“So this was a completely different take on the traditional, let’s call it, relic card,” said Clay Luraschi, the head of product development for Topps. “You know, how can we work with Major League Baseball to create something that’s exclusive for our trading cards versus receiving a jersey, cutting it up and making a card out of something that was used prior.”
The patches are sent to major league equipment managers before the season starts. When a player makes his debut, the patch is added to a sleeve on his jersey. It is removed after the game and authenticated before it is shipped back to Topps.
“I’m not a collector. I’ve never been a collector,” Skenes said. “I can imagine that it’s cool for these kids to sort of feel that connection. I think the one thing that I would say you know potentially that hopefully it’s giving them some hope and some relationship to the majors. Because we were all that kid at one point."
The debut patch cards for Skenes — a hard-throwing right-hander who won the NL Rookie of the Year award with the Pittsburgh Pirates — and Jackson Holliday are part of a Fanatics Collect auction this month. Junior Caminero's card was sold for $66,000 in a Fanatics auction in December.
Skenes' card was hotly pursued before an 11-year-old boy in Southern California opened the redemption on Christmas morning. The Pirates offered a package for the card in November that included two season tickets for 30 years, but the boy's family opted for the auction.
The card was redeemed on Jan. 3, and Topps announced on Jan. 21 that it had been found. Topps posted on X on Jan. 4 that the Skenes card had yet to surface publicly, and published a video of Skenes talking about the card on Instagram on Jan. 8, along with the caption “Are you accepting the Pirates offer if you pull this card??”
The 18 days between when the card was redeemed and Topps' public announcement led to some criticism from collectors who suspected it was a purposeful delay to help increase sales. A Fanatics Collectibles spokesman cited a variety of factors for the timing, including the holidays, protecting the anonymity of the family and the LA wildfires. The social media posts were attributed to the time it took for word of the card's discovery to filter through the large company.
A Massachusetts man found a redemption for Loperfido's card and got in touch with the outfielder through social media. He drove the card to Loperfido's New Jersey home.
Loperfido, who was traded from Houston to Toronto in July, gave the man money to cover his travel expenses, along with a bat, jersey and tickets and VIP passes for a Blue Jays game at Boston. Since the card hadn't been pulled yet, there was no Thanksgiving appearance.
The 25-year-old Loperfido plans to raffle the card off to raise money for a non-profit organization that he volunteered with in college.
“It captures an exciting and once-in-a-lifetime moment for guys in their career; their first game played in the big leagues,” Loperfido said. “I think it’s special. ... People are looking for them. The guys coming up in the league, great players like Paul Skenes, these cards are really going to be worth something one day.”
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AP Sports Writer Will Graves in Bradenton, Florida, and AP freelance reporter Chris Nelsen in Dunedin, Florida, contributed to this report.
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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
Jay Cohen, The Associated Press
