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.

1952 Topps - Ralph Houk

Wow! What can I say about this card? It was well loved in its time. Some kid must have tortured the hell out of this card! Was it a Yankee fan who loved too much? Was it a Red Sox fan who hated the Yankees? Did Ralph Houk kill some little kid's puppy?

You have to ask questions like that when you see things like this. It seems like a case that Gil Grissom could solve. I'm guessing he would say that it must have been a Yankee fan because the tape is so lovingly put on. It must have been an accident, since the card was carefully lined up before the tape was placed on there. Either that or it was a random series of events that led to the mutilation of this card.

Maybe it all started with some kid in Intercourse, Pennsylvania putting this card in his bicycle's spokes way back in 1952. He was a huge Yankees fan and didn't realize that he grabbed the wrong card.

Possibly, his little brother took it and put the card in his bicycle spokes. That little brother probably got hundreds of wet willies and purple nurples for his crime. What are the police going to do with a crime like this? Give the little kid a five minute lecture on how it's wrong to steal, Joe Friday style.

I don't own this card, but I found the image of it during the same online search that brought the fire damaged Willie Mays card into our lives. This is a card only a Yankee fan could love now. Or possibly a Red Sox fan seeking revenge.