Wow.

While not quite on par with this mind-blowing piece of 60's bigotry, this 1978 appearance of Chief Powa Hitta (yegads) alongside Seymour Baseball is pretty WTF-inducing as well.

He doesn't look like he has too much native blood in him. Although he does look like he was smoking weed in the bullpen and thinks Seymour's head is real. COMC Challenges again bring this beauty before my eyes.

Words Fail Me.

Obviously, this card that came up during COMC challenges is some horribly bigoted relic from the 30's, right?

Copyright 1963?

Never mind.

Words Fail Me

And face it, there are no words that can enhance this image.

The Disappearance of Cartoons on Cards

In some cases, it can be a very good thing. If this card could talk, I'm sure it would be doing the Krusty the Clown "Me So Solly" bit.

Hello, Kids!

"I live under your bed! Pleasant dreams!"

ACTION!

Putting your glove back on is an action, right?

The back of the card gives a little more information about the night that the photo was taken, (maybe - for some reason I thought teams wore their white unis at home in the early 80s) but they couldn't find a picture of him at least with the puck from that night?

2014 Adventures in Repacks: Part 36.2 - The misc. cards

Let's continue with the repack, starting with the bonus item.

 2001 Topps HD Vladimir Guerrero - One card in, and I'm already happier with the bonus item. It's a card I don't have of a guy I collect. It features the bricks of Wrigley, and Vlad is holding a broken bat. So much awesome on one piece of cardboard, sitting loose in a repack. If you're wondering about the #9 patch, it is a patch in memory of Maurice 'Rocket' Richard. So there's hockey in this card as well. What a spectacular addition to my Vlad/Expos collection.

And I've still got 50 cards to go!

2010 Topps Kerry Wood
1989 All-Star Glossy Andre Dawson
1991 Score Mariano Duncan
1991 Score Roberto Kelly
1991 Fleer Jim Presley

1988 Score Tim Burke - Expos content! Blue border. Blue road uniform. Perfection!

1988 Score Shane Mack - The bricks of Wrigley appear again.
1991 Fleer Don Mattingly

1988 Fleer Glossy Bret Saberhagen - WOO-HOO! A Parallel!

1988 Fleer Glossy Willie Hernandez - WOO-HOO! Another one! Both of whom have Cy Young awards to their name.

2010 Topps Cubs Franchise - The scoreboard of Wrigley with the ivy beneath it for a beautiful day game. What more could you ask for with a Cubs team card?
2010 Topps Bud Norris
2010 Topps Mat Gamel
2010 Topps Shairon Martis
2010 Topps Chris Coghlan
2010 Topps Mark Teahan
2010 Topps Carl Pavano

2010 Topps Giants Franchise - Nice photo, but not even close to the Cubs card in terms of awesomeness.
2010 Topps Ian Snell
2010 Topps Joba Chamberlain

2002 Bowman Josh Girdley - An obscure Expos card is always nice, even if Josh never made it past A ball.
2003 Bowman Barry Zito
1992 Bowman Darryl Kile
1997 Topps Jose Rosado
1993 UD Kirt Manwaring
1991 Fleer Geno Petralli

1988 Topps Jay Baller - AWESOME! This is a definite contender for the sleaziest photo in card history. The Topps photographer thinks he's posing for a picture. In reality, Jay is scanning the stands looking for whichever female he's going to try his tasteless pick-up lines on. If Leisure Suit Larry played baseball, he'd look like this. If 3 of the 4 corners weren't noticably dinged, I'd submit this for grading. Even though I'm sure the Jim Moore put me on the Beckett version of the no-fly list.

1983 Topps Joey McLaughlin - No card can follow up the Jay Baller, but a Blue Jay card is a nice effort.
1989 Donruss Gary Pettis

1987 Donruss Tim Burke
1992 UD Omar Vizquel
1992 Donruss Pedro Guerrero
1992 Donruss Craig Biggio
1991 UD Steve Farr

1989 Score Sid Fernandez - El Sid was the only Met in this portion of the repack.
1989 Score Steve Buechele

1991 UD Shane Mack - Interesting how both the front and the back of the card has Shane somewhere in the process of a head-first slide. At least I hope that's what was going on.

1982 Topps John Martin - The oldest card in the repack.
1989 Donruss Pat Tabler
1995 Topps Tommy Davis
1989 Fleer Dennis Lamp
1996 Topps Carlos Baerga
1989 Topps Rich Gossage

1994 Stadium Club Tony Gwynn - Sigh.
1991 Topps Tom Candiotti

1993 Topps John Burkett - I do find the back far more interesting than the front, as the avid bowler looks like one as he faces the batter. In fact, there are many cards with him in that pose.

1998 UD Larry Walker - New cards for my Cancon collection are very welcome as well.

1990 KMart Tony Gwynn - Sigh. Again.

1991 Nolan Ryan - "Don't Mess With Texas." And an interesting oddball to wrap it up.

As happens more frequently than it should, the 50 random cards are many times better than the packs.

Ah, a Grant Fuhr card

YARGH! He looks like Ken Griffey Jr. from that Simpsons episode with a 'fro! I'll be seeing this card in my nightmares.

Just a smidgen of a miscut on the back

I went through Target again yesterday. I probably shouldn't have bought what I did, but given my love for hockey repacks, I did. There was a Fairfield repack box for about $7 that promised 5 unopened packs, (turned out to be 08-09 UD S1, 07-08 UD S1, 10-11 Donruss, 10-11 OPC and 07-08 Ultra). But it also promised a complete set of 1990 Bowman. Since every 15 card repack I've ever picked up from Dollarama included 1 card from that set, I've often thought of it as the patron saint of hockey repack sets. How could I resist.

I expected the set to be a shrink-wrapped collation of cards. I was surprised to see an actual boxed set. I figured I could go through them and eventually post the Top 10 interesting photos from it.

However, one card really stood out from them all. Specifically, the cut on the back.

Upside down and everything. I don't really care about such things. If I did decide to binder these cards, they'd most certainly be 18 to a page, so it wouldn't matter in the long run. The best thing is that the card isn't a Hubie McDonough. It isn't a #95 Gary Roberts either. Take a guess who is on the front of this card before scrolling down.



No contest or anything, Just guess.




Here's a hint. He's in the Hall of Fame.




Here is one more for you: When this card was originally printed, the player would easily be considered a marquee superstar.





Give up?




Keep scrollling!




If you guessed:

Brett Hull, then you win my kudos!

Seriously, what would be my chutzpah level if I put this beauty up on ebay as Brett Hull 1/1?

Trade w/ Shoebox Legends - Part 2

Part 2 of working through the trade. Tonight, some of a pile of 70s Blue Jays cards. While I'm looking for at least 1 card of every Jay, I've yet to set an upper limit on how many I'm going to use once I start putting the binder together.

The cards were mostly Topps, but there were a few O-Pee-Chee cards in the bunch. I know some complain about the thinner stock, but if given the choice for a binder I'd usually choose the OPC due to the brighter backs. I'm leading off with the hero of the first Jays game. A sad end to Doug's life, though. Depression can be a nasty opponent.

Strangely, I've got a couple of cards of Woods where he is listed as Al Woods. Variety!

A rookie card of a long-time Jays pitcher. And I think this is the only card where Clancy is clean-shaven. Another great addition to the binder.

Another card of the first Canadian to play for the Jays.

And another one of Jesse's incredible 'fro. Sadly, another member of the original Jays that has passed on.

Since I don't want to wrap this up with something depressing, here's Dave Lemanczyk rocking a definite fashion don't. A jacket underneath a jersey? Much like with two types of plaid, I'm sure Tom Servo's reaction to it would be "Boy, I'm a naked robot, Mike, and even I know that's a fashion no-no."

The Rare Double Al Bundy

At the show this weekend, I grabbed a number of those Toronto Blue Jays fire safety/Oh Henry! sets. One of which was the 25th anniversary edition. Along with such memorable Jays as Brian Simmons(*), was this incredibly unflattering manager card of Buck Martinez"

If this wasn't a team set, I'd be a lot easier to convince that this photo was a rib on the part of the company.

(*) The best part of these sets is that you can say "He played in Toronto?".

The OHL to return to North Bay

Link!

OK. I'll be honest, I just wanted an excuse to post this nightmare-inducer again.

Uniforms of the Damned

There were some really, really bad uniforms when the NHL busted out 3rd jerseys for select teams in the mid 90s. There was the 'Gentle Ben' yellow Bruins jersey. There was the LA Kings 'Burger King' jersey. But this one might have been the worst of the lot. Juvenile is the most polite term I can use to describe it.

Good! Fresh nightmare fuel. I was running kinda low

When in doubt, quote Rifftrax.

For those wondering, this was the mascot for the now-in-Saginaw North Bay Centennials of the Ontario Hockey League. According to the card back, this was chosen as the mascot, since the Centennials were named after 100 years of rail in North Bay.

Sleep tightly, kids!

Almost perfection

There are so many reasons for me to like this card. A great picture of a great mask. A guy who is currently with the Senators and a flashback to one of the earliest hockey card sets I ever made an effort to collect in full.

So, why would I hate this card?

Just pick up any card from this parallel set. They feel thin and very fragile. I spent much of the day looking through early 90s baseball cards, and they felt more solid than this card. It feels more like a dollar store playing card than a collectible hockey card.

And that's disappointing. I wouldn't mind this if this was a card produced as some sort of promotional 'stay in school'-ish set by the Denver Police. But I really expect more when I see the name 'Upper Deck' on a card.

I've been too hockey-centric as of late, so back to some good old baseball cards, and a rather unfortunate one today. Much like the Tom Kurvers one I posted a couple days back, this is another one that makes one wonder why they chose such an unflattering shot on a player's card. Unlike the Kurvers, at least is an interesting action shot, set beautifully against the ivy of Wrigley Field.

Unfortunately, it appears he hasn't even come close to making the catch, with a very visible baseball dropping down for extra bases.

This card is just plain wrong. Finding a Tony Batista card that does not show his incredibly wacky batting stance is like having poutine with Velveeta on it. Blasphemy!