2024 Card-vent Calendar: December 2

December 2, 2024:

2021 Topps Chrome #RA-EA Eddy Alvarez AUTO

Remember the Olympics?  Was that really this past summer?  Do you recall anything that happened?

I'm remembering that the USA women's team won the soccer gold medal, but I had to look up who we beat in the final (Brazil).

I also have several anime-styled pictures of that Turkish shooter dude on my phone.  You know, the one who nonchalantly took shots with his non-shooting hand in his pocket?  And all the while his competitors were done up in full Robocop gear with scopes and lenses and all manner of danglies?  Remember that guy?

Why am I going on about the Olympics here?  Well, believe it or not, Eddy Alvarez is an Olympian.  Yes, he may have a negative career WAR, but he also won a silver medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.  See, it's a little-considered secret that amazingly marginal players can succeed in the Olympics.  Be born at the right time, play the right sport, and have enough talent or potential in a year divisible by 4 and you can do it.  Some Olympic team sports have benchwarmers, and they get the same medals as the stars.  You don't even have to play!  It's an odd beast, the Olympics.  (No disrespect to Mr. Alvarez, it takes a TON of talent just to make it to the big leagues.  And don't get me started on sports where the athletes are considered greater just because they can win multiple medals for the same sport by doing one thing a little bit differently.)

You might be reading this wondering what this idiot writer is going on about.  Yeah, yeah, there are lots of baseball players with Olympic medals, what's the big deal?  Well, how about some more?  Alvarez also won a silver medal in short track speed skating in 2014.  He became just the sixth person (of seven, currently) to win a medal in both a Summer and Winter Olympic Games.  That's impressive.  Since his 2020 medal, German runner Alexandra Burghardt has won a bronze in the 4x100 relay (2024), which followed a 2022 silver in bobsled.  Must be nice to be surrounded by that type of positive support.  Cycling, skating, running, and bobsled are common threads that these "good with legs" athletes usually double up in.  The oddest pairing has to belong to Norwegian Jacob Tullin Thams, who sailed (literally, like on the water) to the silver in 1936 after winning the gold in the ski jump in 1924.

This is a pretty neat card, and perhaps Alvarez is the only athlete on the list with a certified autograph.  If you find one of another of the summer/winter medalists, please let me know.