High Tek El Duque

I am on a roll with these Topps Tek cards now.  After picking up a few Cardinals autographs I have moved on to cool 90s players who signed in this throwback Topps product.  Last week I picked up a really cool Andres Galarraga autograph and promised a few more cool signatures.  True to my word, here's another nineties great......

There is so much to love about this card.  Acetate, cool signatures, and a cool unique nineties baseball player.  We have already heard enough about the Topps Tek cards last week, so let's just skip ahead to the signature.  Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez was not the world's best signer when he was playing.  There was a 1999 SP Signature autograph and then not really anything for more than a decade.  Yes, you could find some autographed baseballs or 8x10s, but that was about it.

Last year El Duque started signing and there are now a good amount of his autographs floating around on the secondary market.  After searching his autographs on Ebay there are almost 200 items that have closed during the past 90s days, almost all of the cards are from the last two years.  By the way, that's a really cool signature too.  Hernandez is really consistent with a nice signature and almost always adds the inscription "Duque" or "El Duque" underneath the OHernandez script.

If you weren't around for El Duque's career, or you just simply remember him for throwing eephus pitches to ARod, then you should revisit the late 90s when that cool leg kick and pitches with tons of movement made hitters all over the league look silly.

Hernandez was never an overpowering pitching and he was never a true ace, but he was very good for his first couple of seasons for the Yankees.   His best season in the Majors was his first year, 1998, but he was also 32 when he made his debut for the Yankees.  He ended up starting the second game of the World Series that year against the Padres and went seven innings striking out seven en route to picking up the win for the Yankees.  

This is my first Orlando Hernandez autograph, and at slightly under $10, I am happy I waited awhile to pick one up.  They have certainly been more in the past and seem to have lost a little bit of steam since Topps started putting him in tons of products.  I have a few more Tek autographs I am still working on, maybe next week, but overall I am really happy with this brand new card.