The 30-Day Baseball Card Challenge - Day 5

"A certified autograph card of one of your favorite players."

It's not a pack pulled autograph, but it is certified and slabbed by PSA/DNA, so after scratching my head to come up with a card to post - I've settled on this 1996 Score Zenith Kirby Puckett #149 signed through the mail just about 20 years ago.

Puckett was one of the larger than life baseball stars from the mid 1980s through the mid 1990s - his cards came out through the height of the junk wax era, so it was easy enough to end up with his cards, even if they were your typical Topps, Donruss, Fleer, Score, Fleer Ultra, Leaf, Pinnacle, Pinnacle Select, Upper Deck, etc.

I think the fact that I occasionally ended up with his cards, in addition to helping the Minnesota Twins win a World Series championship in 1991 - made Puckett a pretty familiar national star, even if he didn't star for my hometown team.

He had a well earned reputation of a guy who did so much on the field to help his teams win and help the community off it - unfortunately his playing career ended when he was still surging strong in his 30s and post-career, his sterling reputation took a drastic hit.