Duo-Tang Topps Sports Shots Binders/Portfolios

I know what you're probably thinking... "What a horribly off-center 1989 Topps Strawberry you have there, Tribecards!" Unfortunately, you'd be wrong. You see, what you have here is a scan of a Duo-Tang Binder/Portfolio (like they sell to kids at Wal-Mart at the beginning of school to keep papers in). And the photo above is the best fit I could get the thing to stay on my scanner. To see how this ginormous 'card' compares to a standard-sized card, take a look at the next scan:


If you look very closely, you will see a standard-seized baseball card in the upper left corner. See it way up there, looking like some kind of "Fan Favorites Mini" card? Yeah, these binders are BIG, though flat with pockets in them.


Duo-Tang and Topps teamed up before with a 1988 set as well, as seen above. The binders/Portfolios measure 9-1/2" by 11-3/4" and are cardboard.


The 1988 set featured 130 players total. Some of them include Joe Carter, Robin Yount, Nolan Ryan, Tony Gwynn, Carlton Fisk, etc.


In addition to Molitor and Strawberry, the 1989 set featured players such as Doc Gooden, Mark McGwire, Ozzie Smith, George Brett, etc. The set was greatly reduced from 130 players down to 39 that year.

If there is great interest, I can post the checklists for each year, but you can find singles and 'sets' on eBay. Most of the sets you find for sale are actually compilations that someone else has assembled. The originals were sold in 50-piece boxes for retail stores to sell for $1 each. I don't even remember how I ended up with the ones I have... They will eventually be given away during one of my free-for-alls.

1989 Score #660 - Red Sox Win Streak

This has got to be one of the most boring highlight cards I have ever seen. The back has more action than the front. Something is wrong with that picture. The back features a smattering of Red Sox players congratulating themselves after something good, I would presume.

The front is a different story. It features an unknown manager at the time, Joe Morgan, walking nonchalantly to the pitcher's mound to yank an unseen hurler from the game. This is a highlight? Joe also appears to be scratching his butt, slyly, in the picture too. I repeat, this is a highlight?

Score would have had to have a picture of Dwight Evans snapping Wade Boggs with a towel after a game to reach a more inappropriate level in photograph selection for this highlight. Come to think of it, that would even make more sense than Joe walking tall.

The record is pretty impressive. A 24 win home game streak. That's damn good! Especially after a 43-42 record before the streak. It set an American League record at the time. Score couldn't find a shot of Jeff Reardon celebrating after a save? They couldn't find a shot of Ellis Burks hitting one out of the park? No shot was available of Wade Boggs or Jody Reed hitting a gapper?

A colonoscopy is more exciting than this card. Maybe if the card was celebrating the most trips to the mound by a manager in a season, this would be the first picture I'd choose. Score couldn't even find a picture of Joe signaling for a right hander. Unacceptable. At least Joe has a nice card he can sign. But the card promised highlights it couldn't deliver. That's just plain wrong.

1989 Topps #215 - Kevin Gross

I have no idea what happened to this card. This one is personal though. This card was found in a game of Sox Or No Sox on A Pack A Day.

The insert card had apparently latched onto Kevin Gross for sustenance. This clearly resulted in Kevin's eyes to be sacrificed in order to save his pitching hand. The blob even split off into a mini-blob in order to slowly engulf Kevin's finger on his left hand.

Heat does nothing to stop the blob. Only the most frigid temperatures, like an air conditioned movie theater, can stop it. After being heated to sauna-like temperatures, this pack must have been frozen by a quick blast of cold air. The blob was stopped in its tracks and Kevin's life was spared to pitch again.

Now Kevin Gross has supersonic hearing, making him a deadly pitcher. That is to say, what makes him a deadly pitcher is that he is now blind. What batter in their right mind would step to the plate against a blind pitcher. Even pitchers with sight hit batters in the head by accident. What's to prevent Kevin from beaning Andre Dawson and blaming it on his lack of sight? Nothing.

Before you put your packs of baseball cards near a fireplace or a barbeque pit or the back of a jet plane engine, think of what it is doing to the player. These men have to live with these deformities for the rest of their careers. Be kind to them. They may be traded to your team in the future. Then how bad would you feel if your team traded for a blind pitcher? Not very good I would imagine. Save the players and beware of the blob.