1996 Select Certified

Cards with a mirror finish! The scan doesn't do this card justice. The background behind Cal is as bright as a mirror. The card logo and player name are in gold foil. The cards came with a plastic film to protect the surface.

I purchased the entire 144 card set in 2004 on eBay for $12 (including S&H). The cards were originally sold in 6-card packs for $4.99. That's 83 cents a card in 1996. I got them for a tenth that.

The cards were produced by Pinnacle, which had obtained the Score brand by then. Select had been a Score product starting in 1993. Card companies like to put words like "Certified" in their card names to signify something special. Certified has two meanings: "officially recognize (someone or something) as possessing certain qualifications or meeting certain standards" and "officially declare insane". I'm guessing that Pinnacle had the first meaning in mind but the second meaning may more accurately describe the state of the baseball card business in the mid to late 1990s.

By the time I bought these cards the plastic film had been on there for 8 years. Due to the difference in materials (the card vs. the film) the cards were all bowed inward. This happens because the cardboard absorbs moisture while the plastic film does not. So the card expands a bit but the plastic film cannot expand. So the card bows. The film was real hard to get off as well but the cards appear to have not been damaged.

Take Me Out To The Ball Game

This card is a single card insert in 2008 Topps Updates & Highlights set. I got it in an 18-card pack I picked up on a whim.

As you can see the song was originally published in 1908, so this is the 100th anniversary of the song.

There is a long piece on Wikipedia about the song. What I thought was interesting is that the guy who wrote the words had never been to a baseball game before he wrote the song. In fact, he didn't go to his first game until 32 years after he wrote the song! The composer hadn't been to a game either.

The song was a big hit in 1908, with several recordings having been made.

The big surprise to me is that the song has verses. The familiar refrain, is just that, a refrain, or chorus. I don't believe that I've
ever heard the verses.

There are almost 150 versions available on iTunes. I sampled a bunch of them and none seem to have the verses. Most of the versions are pretty short, about 2 minutes long, not enough time for verses.

After rooting around on the Internet for awhile, I realized that I had heard the verses, on Ken Burn's Baseball sung by Carly Simon.

Here is a site I found that has Simon's version (pretty much the original 1908 lyrics) and another version based on the 1927 lyrics.

Enjoy.

To write or not to write

Someone thought a card of Willie Davis was worth selling didn't they?

This is a Topps Super card, which came from a set of 3-by-5 cards issued by Topps in three-card packs in 1970. The backs look identical to the backs of the regular-issue 1970 cards, but these cards are much thicker. They're more like slabs than cards.

But the reason this card is featured here is because of the hand-written price tag on it. I'm not sure how this card was obtained originally. I received it from Stats on the Back. Mark might have the answer. Perhaps it was picked up at a rummage sale in which the seller thought nothing of scrawling the price right on the card.

We've all seen examples of writing on baseball cards. Names scribbled out. New names scribbled in. Commentary added. Mustaches and glasses drawn on faces. We've all been amused by it. But part of our amusement comes from the knowledge that "we know better than that now."

Today, the only writing that you see on a card is an autograph. Cards are considered too valuable to have a pen touch the card in any other manner. No commentary, no scribblings, no mustaches. It got me thinking that, unless it is an autograph, I haven't seen writing on any card from the last 15-20 years.

I thought about it so much that I got curious. Just what would a modern-day card look like with a little scribbling?

So I did this:

So THAT'S what it would look like. Man, did that feel good. And don't worry, I have six of these Orlando Hudson A&G cards.

This one in particular will cost you 20 cents.

1986 G.I. Joe Trading Cards

Were you aware that Milton Bradley put out a G.I. Joe trading card set in 1986? I sure wasn't! If I would have seen these in 1986, I probably would have picked them up. I never saw them, so my money went towards Baseball Tattoos, All-Star pop-ups and G.I. Joe comic books.

I was a huge G.I. Joe fan in the mid eighties. I thought most of the storylines in the cartoon were imaginative and well thought out. It never seemed like they were trying to just sell a product. It seemed like the staff of the cartoon and the comic book really cared about the characters and enjoyed what they did.

This was a set of 192 cards and 12 stickers. I would have been up to the challenge of wasting my money on trying to complete the set, in 1986. Now... not so much. I still get a nostalgic twinge when I run across anything G.I. Joe related. I'll pop in the cartoon DVD sets that I own on a whim. Maybe once every three years, I'll dig out the old comic books and give them a read.

I can't help it. G.I. Joe was a huge part of my life back then. It's only natural to go back to the well when you need to feel like a kid again. If the stories would have sucked, I don't think I would ever want to relive those plotlines. I appreciated the fact that the writers never dumbed anything down for the kids. Not intentionally anyway.

To see pictures of the packaging and a more in depth look at the set, check this out.

The cards featured art from the action figures, the vehicles and stills from the cartoon. This would have been right up my alley in 1986. There were 8 cards and 1 sticker per pack. 96 packs came to each case.

Cards 1-30 featured the Joe team. Cards 31-65 featured Joe accessories. 66-95 featured action shots. Cards 97-113 featured Cobra members. 114-126 were Cobra accessories. 127-191 were more action shots. Cards 96 and 192 were the obligatory checklists.

The card checklist looks like there was some thought given to alignment. It seems pretty much in order. It would be interesting to see how all of these cards would look in an album. The art that I've seen uses the 1985 blister pack artwork from the action figures. I preferred the 1985 packaging with the more cartoony explosion, rather than the 1986 digital Morse code burnout that took over the background.

It appears that the corners are rounded on the cards. I really like that on some card releases. It seems to fit well with the subject matter and the artwork. Actually, I think I'm glad that I never saw these in 1986. Those cards would have been destroyed from overuse!

Chew on this

When you decide to invite a puppy into your home, there are a few things that become apparent immediately.

First, a puppy is like a newborn baby in many ways. You have to teach him how to sleep, how to speak, how to go to the bathroom. Fun!

Secondly, you now have competition for your food. Remember those old days of putting food on the table, then going back to the kitchen to get a drink or something you forgot? Gone. The dog will catch on to any careless action when it comes to food.

Finally, and this is most important: YOU MUST KEEP EVERYTHING YOU VALUE IN LIFE UP HIGH.

After countless early lessons, I thought I had gotten that third point down cold five months into owning Dodger (yes, he's named after my favorite baseball team). But I got careless last week. According to Dodger, baseball cards ARE food, and he somehow snagged a pack each of Upper Deck Masterpieces and Baseball Heroes and made them into his personal doggie 1 of 1s.

Let's take a look at a dog's artistry. To him, at least, these are works of art. To others, they are a travesty. I know a few card bloggers out there who might want to look at the rest of this post with their hands over their eyes.

First we have the Masterpieces cards and Hanley Ramirez. This card, compared with the others, came away relatively untouched. But it's a shame this is a two-dimensional image, because there are teeth marks all up and down the top and bottom of the card. If you stack these nine dog-chewed cards next to a pile of nine cards untouched by canine saliva, the chewed cards are more than twice as high as the others.

Avert your eyes David of Tribe Cards! Dodger went right for Hafner's spikes on this card. Dogs love their shoes. He punched a hole just to the right of the "R" in "Hafner."

Dodger's quite the fan of one of Patricia's favorite pitchers, Barry Zito. You can even see at the bottom right where my dog signed the card -- with his teeth. I had trouble lining these cards up on the scanner, because they had suddenly taken on the look and feel of a relief map.

I'm showing the Carew card again because it's the only one, believe it or not, that has a piece missing. I don't know where that missing piece is -- probably long digested by now.

On to the Heroes cards. It looks like Dodger chewed and slobbered on this one for quite awhile. Serves Figgins right for being an Angel.

I said in a comment on another blog that this was a black parallel card of Hughes. I don't know why I said that. It's obviously not. I made the comment the day of "the incident," so I must've still been in shock. The Hughes card is torn in two places up at the top.

Frenchy doesn't look too worse for wear. But there's actually creases all over the card. And none of these cards will lie flat.

A couple of big rips through Brandon Webb's card. By the way, I am SO glad there were no Dodgers in any of these packs. And that's the first time I've ever said that sentence.

Finally, Steve, I'm sorry. A tattered black parallel of Paul Konerko. But at least Dodger appeared to like the card -- a lot!

I suppose the good news is none of these cards were short-prints, at least not that I know of, and none, aside from the Konerko, were parallels.

All of my cards are in safe keeping away from Dodger. But as you can see, I have to be vigilant at all times. Because while you may see cardboard, my dog sees FOOD!

2005 Uno

As is often the case, a post by someone else reminded me of something I had which would make a good post.

Here is a card from the 2005 Uno Baseball American League Set. There was another set featuring National League players.

The set came in a metal box and is a complete Uno game. I was disappointed to find that each color suit featured the same players, in other words, the 7 card has Ivan Rodriguez in each color. Here are the players featured:

0 - Johan Santana
1 - Mark Teixeira
2 - Houston Street
3 - Carl Crawford
4 - Miguel Tejada
5 - Runelvys Hernandez
6 - Travis Hafner
7 - Ivan Rodr1guez
8 - Ichiro
9 - Roy Halladay
Reverse - David Ortiz
Skip - Derek Jeter
Draw 2 - Vladimir Guerrero
Draw 4 - Mark Buehrle
Top 2 - Ozzie Guillen and Phil Garner

My guess is that the photo on the Top 2 card is from the 2005 World Series. The two men are embracing. Garner congratulating Guillen for the Series win?

Its a pretty nice item. I didn't realize when I bought it that there were separate National and American League sets. When I was back in the Toys R Us where I found this they were out of the National League set.

1984 Gremlins

In the summer of 1984, there were three big movies that my classmates had to see over the summer to have a shot at any social life. Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom, Ghostbusters and Gremlins. I got to see Temple Of Doom at Ford City Theaters with my dad. This was before the gang problems that plagued the site in the nineties.

Ghostbusters, I saw with my parents at the drive-in. Gremlins, I saw with my dad at the drive-in, in an orange Gremlin of all things. I was captivated by all three movies that summer. I'm sure if I think about it, I could name other movies I saw that summer, but those are the three that stick out.

I don't remember Ghostbusters cards. I vaguely recall Temple Of Doom cards. Gremlins cards were a different story. I probably picked up more packs of that in 1984 than actual sports cards. Where are they all now? They are lost to time. I can fondly remember the bright yellow colors and the comic book frenzied lines framing a movie still or publicity shot.

The set consisted of 82 cards. I was always a few cards short of completing the set. I would literally spend hours sifting through my Gremlins cards in 1984. A few years later they would be misplaced and never seen again. I still have my childhood memories from this set and that's good enough for now.

I could relive the movie without spending $3.00 on a ticket or having to wait until it popped up on cable a year or two later. That may have been why I lost interest in this set. When it finally came on cable, I no longer needed the set to watch the movie. Nor did I need my View Master discs to relive the action. These cards served their purpose and now they are a nice memory.