Tim Raines, 2001 Fleer Platinum #308

Last year I finally got my hands on a card depicting Tim Raines (Senior, a.k.a. "Rock") in an Orioles uniform: his short-printed 2002 Fleer Tradition card, to be exact. It had been on my Most Wanted list, and a certain Cardboard Junkie came through for me. I very desperately wanted to show it off, but I knew that I had to save it for a special occasion: only when Raines finally got his just due and gained entrance into the Baseball Hall of Fame would I scan and post that particular card. Sadly, the fine voters of the BBWAA have made such a mess of the ballot, one of the greatest speed-and-on-base guys of his own era might never make it.

I didn't even know that Fleer had produced another card of Raines the Elder as an Oriole, and done so one year earlier. But this wonderful card, from the unplanned second series of the first-ever Platinum set, showed up in the box that Zach sent me last month. Even better, I get to flaunt it in celebration of Tim's election to another Baseball Hall of Fame...the Canadian version. Way to get beat to punch, American baseball writers.

I wasn't sure that I'd be able to get one Tim Raines O's card. Now I have one for each of the two games he started alongside his son and namesake in the Baltimore outfield.