Pujols Parade - 2005 Donruss Diamond Kings

Not every Albert Pujols card is sunshine and lollipops.  

Let me tell about my Christmas gift to myself in 2005.  

I had just moved to North Carolina a few weeks earlier and decided to hang out with a few co-workers for the holiday rather than driving all the way back to Missouri. There are a lot of transplants in these parts, so it's not hard to find people who host other people who are away from family. I had a nice dinner and spent a few hours getting to know some of the people I worked with a little better. I returned home after dinner to open some presents.  

As a Christmas present to myself, I had bought two boxes of Donruss Diamond Kings the previous week from Charm City Cards. That place used to have some great deals on wax boxes. Apparently it is still a place. 

Like all Diamond Kings products, these are art cards. They are typically very well done, but not this set. 

This is one of those moments where I should have done a little more homework. I saw "2 autographs for $35" and not "These are really ugly cards". They painting of Pujols is not half bad, although the bat is wrong. The painted ring around the middle of the bat is a Rawlings, but Albert has used Marucci, Louisville Sluggers, or Sams Bats for the majority of his career. No Rawlings. 

They are also typically blonde wood with black lacquer finish on the top half of the bat.   

I am a stickler for details.  

What's with the design? What is it exactly? There are white lines around the edge for a border, black vertical lines, a wide blue textured stripe going down the middle of the card, and the grayish area that makes up the majority of the background has a different texture. Lots of colors, lines, and textures all with a tiny painting of Albert.  

Give me a simple frame and make the painting larger. 

This card is a mess.

  

The back of the card is a little bit better. Less colors, less textures. The write-up is not bad either. The bottom half of the card is a little weird. Do we really need crowns showing the sets where they included Albert Pujols? He is a player who is a no-brainer to include on the checklist, no?  

The artist bio is weird too. Name dropping your father? Listing your place of residence on the back of a mass distributed baseball card. What am I missing here? Weird bio.  

The guy is still name dropping his father.