2013 Clubhouse Mitt Masters

After tackling the heavy hitters of the league, let's shine a little light on some guys that flash the leather. The Mitt Masters insert features some of the league's best fielders that might not put up the offensive numbers to garner a lot of attention. Being a Giants fan, I'm keenly aware of Brandon Crawford's glovework at short. The rest of the baseball world, however, I'm not so sure. The card is almost top-to-bottom leather, or in this case cardboard with a leather texture. By adding some thickness to the stock, we're able to give all the elements a visual and tactile embossed appearance. Gloves come in all shades of leather so we' have 3 tones represented here.

The raised surfaces of all the leather spots makes way for some stamp silver foil to be pressed down. In person, these cards would be a pleasure to hold, running your fingertips across all the bumps of the images and valleys of the foil. The big cap logo in the upper right corner really stands out to my eyes.

The back may have a level surface but the full color photo on the left and the richness of the leather pattern keep things from getting dull. It's a little hard to make out here but the card number (MMxx) is found inside a mitt silhouette with an embossed look, along with the Mitt Masters logo subtly pressed below the text.

I don't know how feasible it would be, but if these cards were produced it would be nice if they could somehow be infused with a leather scent. I guess that would probably make it easy for pack searchers to sniff them out, though. I think the combination of the embossing and the leather texture along with this hypothetical odor would fit in perfectly with the Clubhouse target market.