Card Of The Week January 11

I have this list of possible "Card Of The Week" topics in case of a slow news week when I have to figure out something to write about.  One of the ones for the past few years has been about Cy Sneed, the now former Swallows pitcher.  I've been reluctant to do it for two reasons.  The first is that it's kind of making fun of his name which I try to avoid (although I've done it before).  The other is that I didn't feel like I really had anything interesting to say about his cards (not that that's ever stopped me before).  But a question someone had on Discord the other day made me realize that I did have something relevant to post about a card of Sneed's so here we go.

I can't link to the post on Discord as you need to be a member of the group to see it and I don't want to screenshot it without asking the original poster for permission.  The OP had opened a box of 2023 BBM Baystars cards and had pulled what he thought was the "the laziest of all of the secret versions" - a parallel card of Toshiro Miyazaki that had a different color scheme on it but otherwise was identical to the original card.  

I did a little research and discovered a couple things.  The first is that these aren't really "secret versions" - they're "color variations".  Each of the 2023 BBM team sets had three of them - all using the same photo as the base set card.  2023 was the first year that BBM did this.  They expanded it in 2024 to have twelve for each team and those cards did feature alternate photos.  The other thing I discovered - realized, actually - is that I had some of these.  My friend Jason (of the now defunct "JK's Card Shoppe" on Ebay) had sent me the three 2023 Swallows cards a few years back.  I didn't really understand what they were at the time.  Here's the original and "color variant" for Cy Sneed (#S28):

Original

Color Variant

The comment I had been reluctant to make is that for the longest time, I thought "Cy Sneed" sounded like a character from Star Wars.  But then I watched season three of "Picard" a while back and realized that "Sneed" was actually a Ferengi.  So he's a Star Trek character, not a Star Wars one.

And I'm sure Mr. Sneed has probably heard all of these comments about his name already.  No disrespect intended.