Bobby Bonilla, 1996 Pinnacle #30

I often feel like I spend an unhealthy amount of time agonizing over the majority of the cards that I feature on this blog. At its best, Orioles Card “O” the Day should be organic, a process of me writing about whatever comes to mind and selecting and scanning a card that just feels right in that context. But I’ve been at this for more than two years, and I’ve used 811 different cards in that time. As the type-A elements of my personality bubble to the surface, I find myself needlessly limiting myself in the nightly search for a subject by rejecting entire categories out of hand. Maybe I’ve gone with position players for four consecutive days, and I fear some sort of cosmic imbalance if the pitchers go neglected for much longer. Or I’ve settled on a player and I rather like his 1994 Score card, but I check my tags and see that I’ve already used seven cards from that set and that’s entirely too many. Occasionally common sense wins out and I go with my first instinct, knowing that these little irregularities likely bother no one besides me and it’s already 10:30 at night and if I keep picking through eight boxes full of Orioles cards trying to find a pitcher that hasn’t been touched upon in 27 months of daily blogging from a card set that hasn’t gotten much love, I won’t be in bed until 12:30 AM…

So here’s my latest, best attempt to make a break with my own idiosyncrasies. I chose this Bobby Bonilla card because I always liked him when he was with the Orioles, and his facial expression in the photo made me laugh. I think it’s a fair bet that this is the only card in the hundred-plus year history of baseball cards to feature that particular contortion of muscles.

There…that wasn’t so bad, was it?(Of course, if anyone is particularly wrenched about the under-representation of 1993 Fleer or photos of players in orange jerseys or you need your Tim Stoddard fix, let me know in the comments and I’ll gladly make arrangements in a future post.)