The Card O' The Day (or every third day) - 2002 Topps 206 Pedro 113 Pedro Astacio

A new feature to our oft ignored blog: The card o' the day. We'll use a random number generator to spit out a number.. We'll go to our giant database, enter that number, and whatever card shows up.. that'll be the card o' the day. Today the number was 117642. That gives us the 2002 Topps 206 #113 Pedro Astacio.



2002 Topps 206:

If I recall this was the first set to revive the pre-war card design and names. Every year since Topps has done something similar. The set was released in three series. Series 1 was the hot item. When this product came out it generated a lot of excitement. I remember a story about series 1. We lived in California at that time and I knew all the shop owners in the area very well. A few weeks after this product came out one of the local shops still had 4 boxes in stock and he hadn't raised the price since its release date. I do not recall the price point on the product at release but it was probably in the $65-$75 range. The price quickly shot up to $100-$110. The product had been generating a lot of noise so I bought his last four. If I didn't crack it, I could sell it on the website. Later that same day I visited another shop, and the owner asked if I knew where he could find some 206 wax. He had sold out, and really wanted to pick up a few more boxes. In that short drive I went from a shop that couldn't sell it to a shop that was desperate to find it.

As Topps does occasionally do, they killed the product. Series 2 was overproduced and watered down, and by Series 3 I had lost all interest. We still have some Series 1, and a decent amount of Series 2, but we didn't pick up a single box of series 3. By 2003 they moved on to Topps 205, which wasn't nearly as popular.

Pedro Astacio -

A 15-year MLB veteran that last played in 2006. A starting pitcher for the Dodgers and Rockies for most of his career. He hopped from the Astros, Mets, Rangers, Padres and Nationals for the last 4 or so years of his career. On the Card O' The Day he is pictured in an Astros Uniform even though he played in all of 4 games for the Astros in his career.

He came into the league like a rockstar. In 11 starts in 1992 he threw 4 shutouts. His best full season came the next year where he finished 14-9 with a 3.57 ERA. He had some decent seasons after that and finished his career with a 129-124 record. During his career he led the league three times in home runs allowed, and twice in hit batsmen. Oops.

Interesting Factoid courtesy of Wikipedia: Astacio "is an amateur Jai Lai player and has recently applied for Pakistani citizenship so he may compete in the annual National Jai Lai Championships (NJLC)."