Baseball Cards

Oh. My. Goodness. That is truly awful!

 

I do still buy the MacFarlane figures when they come out with players I like. Have close to a dozen on my desk at work. Like Starting Lineup on steroids.

 

Still have a box of that Fleer set in the basement. Got it at a card and comics show (my brother was a massive comic book collector) for next to nothing. I am a baseball junkie and have thought about getting back into cards again, just to buy complete sets.

 

I love the MacFarlane figures. The bonus to them is, they actually look like the player they are supposed to be.

The Starting Lineups typically never looked like the player. That Jeff George one could easily be a Harry Reems SLU. I've got a Neil Lomax stashed in my basement that I'm sure will be a big source of retirement income someday.

 

Yep. First one that caught my eye was Randy Johnson one that I believe was one of the first. Resemblance was uncanny. Since then I've acquired Piazza, Beltran, Wright, Reyes, Pedro, Harvey, Aikman, Irvin, Doug Martin and a combo Lewis/Portis one. Next up will probably be deGrom or Syndegaard. Haven't looked to see what's coming up. Really regret not getting a chance to get one of Emmitt. And my sister has a few Cards players I got for her. The Ozzie one in mid back flip is awesome.

 

The Larry Fitzgerald one from a few years back, where he's in mid-air, reaching the ball over the pylon, is incredible. Taken straight from the playoff game at Carolina that season.

 

This is a trip down bad memory lane. I was the "ripe age" for card collectors in the 1980s since I was born in 1977. For about three years before we figured out how to talk to girls, my friends and I's lives were cards and Starting LineUp. Some random memories from this time.

-- Trading a Steve Bedrosian All Star for a Barry Bonds rookie. The guy I traded with was a huge Phillies fan.
-- Being my older brother's personal slave for a month in return for his collection of 1970s, early 1980s Topps cards that were just randomly tossed in some boxes. Some of the steals were the first Joe Montana card, Dan Marino rookie, John Elway rookie, Earl Campbell rookie, a ton of Steelers players, the "rare" Al Baker rookie, and numerous other "greats" of that time. At some point after college, they vanished. Likely culprit was a nephew, but never proven.
-- Trading a Mark McGwire Topps Rated Rookie for an Andy Van Slyke Donruss and some spare parts to fill out a set. I was a pirates fan.
-- My first "Starting Lineup" Figures being two random Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Gerald Carter and a linebacker. My mother, God love her, had only a passing interest in me. She knew I wanted the figures, but had no clue what teams I liked. She likely saw the creamsicycle uniforms and though "hey, cycling likes to eat those" and moved on.
-- One Christmas, an aunt bought me five full boxes of hockey cards from about the 1983 to 1988 seasons. Not the box set, but the boxes with the individual packets in them. Ate a ton of gun for months because of that, though, the stuff from the 1983 season had gotten a little funky. I used to keep a jar of them in my room to give to unsuspecting people.
-- Buying a Phil Esposito card from the early 1970s just because it was so awesomely staged...ie he was in jersey and gloves and holding a stick, but his checkered golf pants were in clear view. I was positive in my mind that I had scored an error card...I later learned that, no, there wasn't a lot of quality control in the cards.
-- A few months back while running, I noticed a trail of late 1980s and early 1990s baseball and football cards about a quarter mile long. They looked reproduced because they were in great condition. I assume they had blown off the back of a truck while someone was moving, or were stolen from a store and just thrown out the window. The 1989 version of me would have gobbled them up. The current me just shrugged and thought, "hey, I remember when I got that Keith Millard."

 

Actual response from Katrina Pierson to Blitzer in response to WH criticism of Trumps handling of the Lewandoski charge. "Well sure. I would like to know why they stood by Hillary Clinton as Americans were killed in Benghazi, but nobody really wants to talk about that." Lulz. What a piece of work.

 

Speaking of which... remember the Desert Storm trading cards?

 

How the hell did that happen? I feel shame.

 

And yes, I vaguely remember Desert Storm cards. And they sold T shirts at the place I worked during college.
Always loved the early Star Wars cards and stickers. Those things must be worth a pretty penny today.