Topps 1976 #300 Johnny Bench.
Where do I even begin with what is my all-time favorite baseball card? First off, can a man actually be "in love" with a piece of cardboard? Ever since I pulled one of these our of a wax pack when I was seven years old, I was mesmerized.
What a bad-ass look on his face, standing there with an inexplicable dust-cloud hovering around him at home plate. This was a time when the Big Red Machine was terrorizing everyone on their way to two straight championships, including a sweep in the World Series that very year of my beloved Yankees.
Yeah Pete Rose may have been the hard-nosed leader of this juggernaut, but looking at this card always made me this Bench was one dude not to mess with!
The photograph, the cropping, the overall coloration in the card's design, and of course the "All-Star" designation screaming out to you on the lower left, this card has it all, and it's held up in my eyes all these years later.
Simply a classic baseball card.
