2012 Topps Mini Relics #MR-34 Cliff Lee

Phillies 5, Braves 1
Game 133 - Saturday Afternoon, September 1st in Atlanta
Record - 64-69, 3rd Place, 16 1/2 games behind the Nationals

One Sentence Summary:  Cliff Lee pitched one of his strongest games of the season, as the Phillies won again in Atlanta, 5-1.

What It Means:  The Phillies are only five games under .500 and (dare I even mention this?) 8 games behind in the race for the second Wild Card.

What Went Right:  Lee threw seven shutout innings, giving up only five hits while striking five.  The win was just his fourth of the season.  Jimmy Rollins had three hits, including a solo home run in the third.

Featured Card:  When I read that Topps had released a 661-card mini version of its base set, I didn't hesitate in my decision not to pick up the Phillies team set.  As it is, my annual Phillies baseball card binders are bursting at the seams with enough base and insert cards that I just don't feel the need to go after every parallel version of a card out there.  (Truth to told, the "bursting" comes from the five or more minor league sets that I choose to store in 9-pocket pages in my annual binders.  The Phillies annual postcard-sized sets don't help either.)

So while I decided to stay away from the parallel mini cards, I couldn't resist picking up this mini relic card of yesterday's winner.  It's a fairly basic design, and there's nothing that exciting about the gray uniform swatch embedded within the card, but there's just something about the appeal of a mini relic card that gets me every time.