2007 Topps Chrome Kory Casto

Who is this? Nationals outfielder Kory Casto.

What is this? An autograph card from 2007 Topps Chrome, card number 355.

Where'd I get it? Out of a pack in the cheapo bin at Target.

How much did it cost? $1.59 for the pack.

Why is this so special? Any autograph pulled from a Chrome retail pack that has survived the ravages of the pack searchers is pretty special. Kory is the rare Chrome auto prospect that is actually still in the league a year after the card comes out. Kory might need a change of scenery in the offseason as the OF/3B/1B is blocked just at every osition on the Nat's roster. He's not displacing Ryan Zimmerman at third (although an injury to Invader Zim got him a bunch of at bats this year), the Washington outfield is stacked and There's Nick Johnson and Dmitri Young over at first. They can't both be injured at the same time all the time. Making things worse is that Kory has been hovering around the Mendoza line in his infrequent at-bats. Kory's about to hit his prime years and has raked in the minors, but it's real easy to turn from can't miss prospect to Quadruple-A player in this league. The signature itself appears sort of chicken scratchy at first glance but upon further inspection is simply very concise in expressing the maximum amount of information in a minimal amount of pen strokes. Thankfully, it is on a sticker, because otherwise I would never ever be able to scan the thing.


One last thing about the back of the card... Did Topps leave out a line of text? On the very first sentance of his bio paragraph it says "Just three days after the bad news"... what bad news? Topps never tells us what bad news he got. Did his dog get run over by a steamroller? His girlfriend run off with a biker gang? Did he lose his lucky rabbit's foot? I think I can infer that he didn't make the team out of spring training, but got called up right away. I can't let a error like that slide though. All you armchair editors and English teachers out there can feel free to grade my posts for grammatical errors as well. Turnabout is fair play and besides eye alwais maek sur two proffraed mi postst at leest to thyme's.