The squirrel from the Red Sox Yankees game gets a Topps Now Card
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As we approach the end of August the race to the MLB post season is heating up. MLB teams are vying for playoff spots or to enhance their playoff positions. A weekend the marquee matchup between the Red Sox and Yankees loomed large, as half a game separated the two longtime rivals in the standings. However, during the second game, a furry creature stole the show. A squirrel somehow got into the field and proceeded to run to the mound toward Yankees pitcher Max Fried. The game was briefly stopped as the squirrel ran towards the outfield before eventually getting caught in the fence in the outfield. Now to celebrate that moment, Topps is releasing a Topps Now card of the Yankee Stadium Squirrel.
Interestingly (I’m sure some of you reading this think I’m playing it fast and loose with the word interestingly) this is not the first or even the second card baseball to feature a squirrel in recent history. It is the first one released by Topps since 2019. Going back to 2007 there have been four previous Topps cards to feature squirrels. The two most recent cards were also from Topps now sets. In 2019 Topps released a Now card of the Twins Rally Squirrel that celebrated the squirrel that made a dash onto the field prior to an 11 run comeback.
One year before that Topps released another Topps Now card of the Cardinals own Rally squirrel that sparked a Cardinals five run rally. Preceding those cards were two short print (SP) variations featuring squirrels. In 2015 Topps released an SP Phillies but the more famous of the two was probably the 2012 Topps short print variations of Skip Schumacher that featured the Cardinals rally squirrel and only his right foot. Lastly, the original squirrel to be featured as a short print was the only one to get a name. In 2007 as part of the Topps Update set, Poley Walnuts (a play on the Sopranos character Paulie Walnuts) got his own cards.
In terms of value, the SPs from Topps sets tend to sell pretty well as a graded PSA 10 selling for between $150-300. The Topps Now base squirrel cards don’t sell for quite as much going for around $11-15 which is probably where collectors can expect the Yankees Squirrel to sell for but that’s not where the real value will come from. Unlike the previous squirrel who crashed MLB games, this squirrel’s appearance didn’t lead to a rally for the featured team. The Yankees went on to lose the game he appeared in 1-0 and then followed that up by getting wrecked by the Sox in a 12-1 loss in the game that followed. The obvious value here would be purchasing it and trolling any Yankees fans you might know by giving them this card. If one intends to do this, as a Red Sox fan I wholeheartedly sign off on that plan.
