Adam Hanson has Appeared on Two Topps Cards Over the Years
Adam Hanson cherishes the seven years he spent as a bat boy for the Minnesota Twins. Now, years removed from rubbing elbows in the clubhouse with MLB greats such as Jim Thome and Joe Mauer, Hanson has some cardboard keepsakes that document his time with the franchise.
When Topps released its 2021 All-Star Rookie Cup set, a Twins collector on social media posted a scan of Mauer’s card. It caught Hanson’s attention.
“Immediately I recognized, A, it was shot at the Metrodome, because we’re wearing the home whites,” said Hanson, who was a bat boy from 2004-2010. “Just given the camera angle, I thought, hey, I wonder if I’m back there. Sure enough, I was the blurry kid in the background.”
With Mauer at the plate, Hanson is in the background sitting just outside the Twins’ dugout, waiting for some action. Surprised he had made his way onto a trading card — especially of a future Hall-of-Famer — Hanson reached out to some collectors about the 2021 All-Star Rookie Cup card. He was told that the same image was used on Mauer’s 2014 Bowman card.
“I’m on it. But it’s still a little blurry, which is quite all right,” Hanson said. “It’s fun just to have that unique connection to a card. Obviously, it’s Joe Mauer’s card, but it means more personally than anything just to say, ‘There I am.’ We have four kids, and they think it’s pretty neat.”
Hanson had not collected cards consistently since he was a kid. But discovering himself on two Topps cards rekindled his appetite to collect.
“It’s kind of opened some connections up with fellow collectors,” said the 36-year-old. “I think that’s half the fun of all this is just the connections you make.”
Becoming a Bat Boy
Hanson and his dad traveled to Fort Myers, Florida for Twins spring training in 2002. When one of the regular bat boys got hurt, an usher told Hanson to talk to the team’s equipment guy about filling in.
“They let me do it for a couple games,” Hanson said. “That was a big highlight. Up until then, I’d never done anything close to that.” The following year, the Hansons went back to spring training. When camp broke, Hanson expressed his interest to the equipment manager about being a team bat boy if they needed someone for regular-season home games in Minneapolis.
“I start my sophomore year of high school in September, dad gets a call a couple days into the school year from the equipment manager,” Hanson said. “He wants to know, A, how’s Adam doing in school? What kind of student is he? What kind of kid is he? That was sort of my first job interview, him talking to my dad first. He wanted to know if I could help out that September.”
Hanson jumped on the opportunity and didn’t give it up until he went off to Mitchell Hamline School of Law. His last year as bat boy was the Twins’ first season at its new stadium, Target Field. Hanson really enjoyed his experience with the team.
“It was wild — wild in a good sense,” Hanson said. “I’d grown up basically at the Metrodome. Dad and I had a partial season ticket plan.”
Collecting the Rainbows
Hanson, now a lawyer in the Twin Cities, has been successful trying to collect the rainbows of both the 2014 Bowman and 2021 Topps All-Star Rookie Cup cards.
For 2014 Bowman, Hanson has 16 of the 21 variations. He owns the base, Hometown/State Flag parallel, blue numbered to /500, orange /250, green /150, yellow /99, silver /75, gold /50, black /25, purple /10, regular ice, ice red /25, one gold and one silver buyback, as well as a red 1/1 and white ice 1/1. Hanson is missing just five cards: the four CMYK printing plates, along with a purple ice /10.
The 2021 Topps All-Star Rookie Cup run — with the retro 1990 Topps design — is a little easier to manage with just seven cards. Hanson has the base, HoloFractor to /99, gold /50, orange /25, and black /10. He’s missing just the FoilFractor 1/1 and Red Foil /5. Hanson is searching daily for the missing cards, scouring eBay and Instagram and connecting with some diehard Mauer collectors.
“The search is half the fun,” Hanson said. “Even if I don’t track a single one of these down — I’d like to — that’s OK. It’s a fun little side hobby.”
