1990 Fleer Sticker - Cleveland Indians Logo

I used to plaster these stickers all around my bedroom when I was a kid. I never got the ones that I wanted, so I would stick them to various things and watch them degrade over time. I loved every one of those stickers. It showed my love of baseball to every friend who came over. It was almost a status symbol to have the most logo stickers plastered around my room.

Sometimes I would pick up a pack of Fleer just for the stickers. The cards never really did much for me during the 80's. They mostly looked bland compared to Topps. There's only so much warm-up jackets a kid can see before he wants to puke.

I considered these stickers add-ons to the main set. They were something you had to collect along with the regular cards for the set to be complete. The one White Sox sticker I have, I acquired earlier this month is a trade. A 1984 Fleer sticker. That was one of the coolest parts of the trade.

I thought these stickers were largely forgotten until I ran across The Fleer Sticker Project. Now, I'm starting to see them again and I'm hearing about them more often. Upper Deck produced a few sticker inserts in the 1991 release, but they weren't the same. They were fancy holograms, not old school logos.

These Fleer stickers remind me of a simpler time, when stars did not command more money than I will ever handle in my lifetime. I remember being shocked at the amount of money that Darryl Strawberry was being paid when he signed with the Dodgers. Now, that's almost the average salary for major leaguers.

Upper Deck definitely needs to put logo stickers in their Fleer product. Most of us would buy it out of nostalgia.

1986 Sportflics - Fernando Valenzuela

These cards always seemed cool when they first came out. I was also 9 going on 10, when they came out. That could have been part of the attraction. If you look closely at the image, you can see ghosting of all three images. Oooo... scary!

Too bad Floyd Youmans didn't have a card in this set. That would make the Count Floyd reference a bit more relevant. Oh, well. Even though I loved the Expos around this time, would another Expo really made this set any better today? Not really.

Sure, it looks cool, for a few seconds. The novelty wears off quickly though. The only thing I remember doing with these cards is scratching the surface to make different noises. When I was a teenager, I used to see if I could make it sound like that one part of "Life's Been Good" by Joe "F@#*ing" Walsh. You know, that part during the song that sounds like it was done underwater. Yeah, you know the one. You've done it too.

I'm sure the novelty wore off for more collectors than just me. The last time I saw a product from the company it was 1990. Although, Beckett lists another set in 1994. That's three years without a set. Maybe it was because the 1990 set looked like a cheap carnival attraction.

I guess I chose Fernando Valenzuela because like Sportflics, he was very hot and different and in demand for awhile, then he faded away fast. Then, he popped up for one last hurrah before going permanently to the great baseball games only found on ESPN Classic.

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.

1991 Topps Box Bottom - Robin Yount

I can remember a time, not that long ago, when packs of cards were in grocery stores. I used to walk up to the local Dominick's and pick up as many packs as I could with my allowance. It was a simpler time and I really miss those days.

Then, in late 1990, I discovered something by accident. I had gotten down to the last few packs and noticed writing on the bottom of the box. I lifted the box up and there were secret cards on the bottom. I thought I had just discovered Atlantis or Amelia Earhart.

The rest of that year and the next, I conned my way into getting as many free empty card boxes as I could. Some employees thought I was a nutty kid. Others gave me a wink and a nod. Nudge, nudge. Say no more! Say... no... more!

In 1992, I didn't notice any cards to my recollection. If I did, I didn't think much of them. My collection seems to have started in 1990 and ended in 1991. I have a couple of professionally cut box bottom cards from earlier years. I have a 1986 Carlton Fisk in my collection. The ones from 1990 and 1991 will always hold a special place in my heart because I feel like I earned them. I even remember thinking that Donruss was cheap because they didn't offer cards on the bottom of their boxes.

These pop up in my boxes of cards from time to time. Some are cut better than others. Some I have several of. They always intrigued me though. I guess it was because they looked like the regular cards but were slightly different. Some of the Fleer cards from 1990 fool me to this day until I look at the back and see the gritty brown cardboard. Maybe kids would be more into cards if they found cards on the bottom of the boxes. Hey, it worked for me.

1910 Piedmont T206 - Billy Campbell

This is a card only a collector could love. The average person would shriek in horror at what was done to this card. It looks like the owner crumpled it up with the cigarette pack. Look at that paper loss and the creasing. The corners are so round that you can probably start to roll the card on its side. This shouldn't be worth anything, but it is.

If I presented someone with a 2007 Topps Update card of Darin Erstad in this same condition, they would look at me like I was crazy for trying to sell it. Unfortunately, people didn't care for their cards like most do today. Therefore, this condition is fairly common for a card almost 100 years old. It's a shame.

I wonder if this was the same Billy Campbell who won the Paul McCartney look-alike contest in 1966. Somehow, I doubt it. Although, if Beatle fans can think that the real Paul McCartney died in an automobile crash in 1966, then this guy could be his replacement. He looks more like John, in my opinion.

The sad fact is, I would probably cherish this card if it was in my collection. Not because of it's condition, but because of it's age. Plus, I bet it would tell wonderful stories of where it has been, if it could talk. Maybe an uncle gave it to his baseball loving nephew in 1910. He might have taken it everywhere with him. It may have gone with him to war or stayed glued to a scrapbook or taped to a wall. We may never know if it's been handed from person to person like a doobie at a college party.

We can only judge this card by it's present condition. It has lived a full life, but what that life was is anyone's guess.

2007 Topps 52 Chrome Refractor - Eric Patterson

The scan does not do this card justice, but this is actually a chrome refractor. The nice shiny and bumpy chrome smoothed away by refractor technology. To help keep track of this card when it eventually leaves my collection, it is numbered 391/552. If you run across this particular card, you know it came through my hands first.

I got this out of a retail pack of 2007 Topps 52. Yeah, I'm as surprised as you are. I figured the best I would ever get would be a couple of short print cards. This came from a pack that was in a blaster. I would have freaked out if this were a White Sox card, but the North Side of town doesn't hold the same luster for me. It's still a nice looking card.

I find it a bit of a daunting task trying to figure out some of these variations. I'm still trying to figure out 2007 Topps Co-Signers variations. What they call bronze, I call orange. There are usually so many different parallels on each Topps card, it usually boggles my mind. I'm still trying to figure out between Green Linen and Windsor Green in Upper Deck Masterpieces.

I'm actually surprised that Eric is in the Cubs system. His brother Corey gave them fits. I could hear groans all over Chicago when another Patterson emerged on the Cubs roster. It reads on the back of this card that his long term position is undecided. It's between second base and the outfield. The Cubs need another second baseman, like they need another year of futility. So, like Corey, he'll probably play in the outfield and give flashback nightmares to Cub fans.

It's still a nice looking card which is better looking in person. I just wish that they would retire that 1952 design and move on to other years.

2002 Select Rookies & Prospects - Jeremy Lambert

When I got back into collecting full time, I tried to make up for lost time. I was suckered into those giant boxes of assorted packs at K-Mart. It was nice, at the time, because I was happy to see what I missed. Apparently, I missed a lot of crap. Which is fine by me, but I also missed some good releases.

This autographed card of Jeremy Lambert, I found hot glued to the side of the cardboard infrastructure inside the box full of old packs. That really can't be good for the card. It took a full five minutes to pry the clear wrapper that was "protecting" this card from the inner-workings of this cheap box. Amazingly, the card showed no damage for all the effort.

Jeremy's autograph looks like a fat man trying to hold onto a motorcycle that popping a wheelie. The fat man is not very successful as he tries to hold on to the back tire. That's gotta hurt! That's slightly more imaginative than Jeremy's baseball career. After spending many years in the St. Louis organization, he found a home with the Boston organization in 2004. He never made it into a major league game and he was out of baseball in 2004.

What a crappy card to be hot glued to a cardboard maze inside a cheap box. Did Jeremy envision his card to end up here when he autographed that sticker? My guess is no. He probably thought it would be going for thousands of dollars, many years into the future after a great Hall of Fame career that gave him enshrinement with 100% of the vote. Nolan Ryan, Tom Seaver and Carlton Fisk did not get 100% of the vote when they went into the Hall of Fame, neither would you have.

What was I expecting for a cheap box of leftover packs? I have no idea. I was looking for a cheap, easy way to reconnect to the hobby. I guess in that respect, the cheap box has succeeded. I did get some interesting cards in that box, just no other autographs.