Thursday, January 22, 2009

Look! I'm Ozzie Smith! 1990 MLB Punch-out masks


In 1990, a company called "Gallery Books" published a 16-mask set of baseball players. The set was broken up into four books, each with four punchout masks. The masks (Ozzie seen above) are made up of the player's face with team hat, a brim for the ballcap, and two earpieces. I do not own these, but wonder how on earth I managed to miss these wonderful oddball items. I noticed several pages (maybe all the pages for all I know) have instructions for assembling the masks. Really? I am pretty sure that if I had been 8 or 9 in 1990, I could have figured out how these things work. Then again, as a child I had the entire collection of Whitman 'Tiny Town' books, so maybe I'm just special that way....


The books include the Rookies: Chicago Cubs' Jerome Walton; NY Mets' Gregg Jefferies; Angels' Jim Abbott; Seattle Mariners' Ken Griffey Jr:



The Power Pitchers book includes: Texas Rangers' Nolan Ryan; LA Dodgers' Orel Hershiser; NY Mets' Doc Gooden; Boston Red Sox's Roger Clemens:



The Power Hitters book features: NY Yankees' Mattingly; NY Mets' Darryl Strawberry; SF Giants' Will Clark; Oakland A's Jose Canseco:



And, finally, the Golden Gloves book: Cardinals' Ozzie Smith, Cubs' Mark Grace, Cubs' Ryne Sandberg, Braves' Wally Joyner:

8 comments:

PunkRockPaint said...

Good thing there is no Gwynn... Or I would be hunting it down for the collection.

night owl said...

Ah, but there is a Hershiser! So I'm off hunting!

Mark Aubrey said...

I've got the Pitcher's book with Hershiser. I'll dig it out and try to post some photos. Darn thing is too big to slap on the old scanner.

Hatch Family said...

I'M JOSE CANSECO! I'M JOSE CANSECO!!!

capewood said...

The Canseco was pretty reepy.

Goose Joak said...

Incredible...great find.

MMayes said...

That would have been great to have had in the early 70's. I'd have had a hard time figuring out if I was going to dress up as Willie Mays or Hank Aaron for Halloween. Probably just as well. I don't think a skinny white kid could have pulled it off.

Unknown said...

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