1982 Davco Publishing Hall of Fame Baseball Stars

What you see above (the 'way' above) is a 1982 Davco Publishers Bob Feller card. It is one of the many oddball Tribe items I own. The card is printed on heavy stock, though not thick. It's one of my favorite oddballs because I haven't seen many like it. And, of course because it features the great "Rapid" Bob Feller!

The card itself is actually part of a 25-card Hall of Fame set. They have blank backs. Each has a painted scene of the player being depicted. The tag line reads: "(c)MCMLXXII Davco Publishing, Skokie, Ill."

Often referred to as the "Blue" set, it features these players:


1 Hank Aaron
2 Grover C. Alexander
3 Roy Campanella
4 Ty Cobb
5 Joe DiMaggio
6 Bob Feller
7 Jimmie Foxx
8 Frankie Frisch
9 Lou Gehrig
10 Bob Gibson
11 Hank Greenberg
12 Rogers Hornsby
13 Walter P. Johnson
14 Sandy Koufax

15 Mickey Mantle
16 Christy Mathewson
17 Willie Mays
18 Stan Musial
19 Jackie R. Robinson

20 Babe Ruth
21 Tris Speaker
22 Pie Traynor
23 Honus Wagner
24 Ted Williams
25 Cy Young

You can actually find complete sets online, if you're looking. Individual cards can also be had, though those are actually harder to find than complete sets. Go figure.

CyberAction Digital Trading Cards

Around the year 2000 or so, I came across a CD in the discount bin. The CD read "Major League Baseball: The Year the Records Fell." I looked it over, and it turned out to be a disc with "digital baseball cards" on it. Well, that's all I needed. I paid the $5 and took it home. Now, in those days, CyberAction was still a viable company, doing things with digital trading cards that no one else was doing. Unfortunately, when the "dotcom" bubble burst, so did CyberAction, Inc. Ironically, the address I found using the WayBack Machine still exists, and the phone number is still registered to CyberAction. I wonder if it'd be worth a call to see if I could get the digital cards on the cheap.


The cards pictured in this post came on the CD. You can still find the CD if you search long enough online, and you can usually get it for about 2 bucks. The downside is that you don't have access to the cool cards that came later. I actually managed to download a bunch of their free cards, but I'm sure the files have long since gone to electron heaven.


The files themselves are in Macromedia Director format, which is some kind of file type that my computer loves to hate. There is a CyberAction Viewer that gets installed from the CD, but evidently it can't handle newer version of QuickTime. This means you can look at the front of the cards, but you cannot 'interact' with them.


The 'interaction' part came in the form of an animated 'flipping' of the card to read the back, and many cards came with a short 'highlight video.' Of course, you need to be able to run QuickTime to play the vids, and it shipped with quickTime 3, which is only like 7 or 8 versions behind or something. The most you can do is arrange them on the 'table' as I have done in these photos.


The CD comes with 54 cards plus a bonus card if you register your CD with the included code. Of course, you can't very well unlock it if the site doesn't exist anymore, can you? Or can you? I'm working on it to see if I can 'trick' the program into showing me the bonus Yankees card.


In addition to many 'regular' issue cards, the CD does include Collector's Edition cards of Rod Carew, Al Kaline, and I think Babe Ruth. I really wish I could see the backs of the cards, just for the stats and such. As it is now, though, looking back at these digital cards is kinda cool. I had forgotten about them.


If there is demand for them, I will capture and post ALL the cards on the disc to my blog. Also, if I manage to get a hold of the other .dcr files, I will see what I can do about sharing those and the cyberaction viewer. Since the company is defunct, I don't know the legal ramifications I may run into (or skirt around).

In addition to baseball, they also did Star Trek, wrestling, and some specialty cards like Fructis...

The Baseball Card Coffee Table

A few days ago, I received an e-mail from Matt at Collected Studio. He told me about a project that he had recently done involving baseball cards and furniture. That piqued my interest.

I went to his site and found this. A detailed post about the making of this baseball card coffee table. Included is a YouTube video of the making of this piece of art.

I was digging the Animals song on the video. It's one of my favorites and I've been bugging my friend to learn it, so we can record it. That's a bit off track, but so what.

Matt sells these custom tables out of his studio, according to the video. I think this is a great way to use unwanted cards as art. We all have piles of early nineties and late eighties cards that are just taking up space. Why not sacrifice those doubles in the name of art?

Matt has done this process with everything from a lazy susan to mirrors. There's even a snack tray lined with cards and a card storage box. It just goes to show that with a little creativity, you can turn a five cent card into a masterpiece.

Thanks for sharing this project, Matt!

2009 Topps Wal-Mart Black

This year, Topps tried to go stealth on us. In April, Wal-Mart was supposed to sneak indistinguishable blasters into the mix with the regular 2009 Topps blasters. Well, Wal-Mart being Wal-Mart decided to mix them in a month early.

While the product reached the shelves unannounced, the immediate reaction was mixed upon the card collecting community. Some were elated. Some were confused. Some were mad. Some even tried to make a quick buck on eBay.

After the initial dust had settled, Topps in a rare openness, revealed the information about this variation. They included the UPC numbers that identified the blaster as having "black" cards. Topps also confirmed that a different variation was planned for Target stores and gave the UPC numbers for that variation.

I think Topps did the right thing when first confronted. Normally, the word would be deny, deny, deny. I, and many others, appreciated the honesty and frankness of Topps. This makes the madness of a variation project like this, fun and smile inducing.

As for the cards themselves... they look great, in person. They don't scan so well, but they scan well enough. Some people have nothing better to do than to put the cards up to their nose and sniff. There is a faint odor to the cards, but you really wouldn't notice it unless the card was millimeters from your face.

The cards look absolutely gorgeous. The background is darkened and the player is not. This creates a spotlight effect on the player. The result is spectacular on most cards. How would you like to be facing Greg Maddux highlighted, while everything else is blackened? His fastball about to come out of his hand looks fierce. Greg looks scary, as everything else is gone. I would not want to face him in this scenario. Truthfully, I wouldn't want to be in the batter's box against Maddux in pristine conditions. This would scare the life out of me, if I was a batter!

1977 Burger Chef Fun Trays

In 1977, MSA teamed up with the fast food chain Burger Chef to create "Fun Trays" for kid's meals. For those way too young to know (or not in the geographic location to know), Burger Chef (at least in the recollection of my childhood) was the ugly stepchild to Mcdonald's and Burger King. The food was cheaper in every sense of the word. But, for a kid growing up outside of Pittsburgh, it was the place we would go for a 'treat' BECAUSE it was cheap.

The Burger Chef "Fun Meals" were the equivalent of "Happy Meals." They were fun, not necessarily happy.

In an effort to create some happiness for the kiddos, Burger Chef served their meals in trays that featured punchout discs with baseball players on them.


There were 24 trays in all, featuring the stars of the teams included on the tray. All tolled, there are 216 cards in the set (a list of players by team appears at the end of this post, supplied by www.teamsets4u.com).

The teams included Rangers, Astros, Cardinals, Red Sox, Orioles, Twins, Indians, Royals, White Sox, Brewers, Tigers, Giants, A's, Angels, Padres, Mets, Dodgers, Expos, Phillies, Yankees, Pirates, Cubs, Braves, and Reds.


You can find individual discs if you look, but I actually found the whole unpunched trays easier to locate.

LIST OF PLAYERS BY TEAM:

1977 Burger Chef Discs - Angels
Bobby Bonds
Dave Chalk
Bobby Grich
Paul Hartzell
Ron Jackson
Jerry Remy
Joe Rudi
Nolan Ryan
Frank Tanana
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - ASTROS
Enos Cabell
Cesar Cedeno
Jose Cruz
Joe Ferguson
Ken Forsch
Roger Metzger
J.R. Richard
Leon Roberts
Bob Watson
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - A'S
Stan Bahnsen
Vida Blue
Phil Garner
Paul Lindblad
Mike Norris
Bill North
Manny Sanguillen
Mike Torrez
Claudell Washington
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - BRAVES
Jeff Burroughs
Darrel Chaney
Gary Matthews
Andy Messersmith
Willie Montanez
Phil Niekro
Tom Paciorek
Jerry Royster
Dick Ruthven
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - BREWERS
Jerry Augustine
Sal Bando
Von Joshua
Sixto Lezcano
Charlie Moore
Eduardo Rodriquez
Jim Slaton
Bill Travers
Robin Yount
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - CARDINALS
Lou Brock
John Denny
Pete Falcone
Keith Hernandez
Al Hrabosky
Bake McBride
Ken Reitz
Ted Simmons
Mike Tyson
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - CUBS
Bill Bonham
Bill Buckner
Ray Burris
Jose Cardenal
Bill Madlock
Jerry Morales
Rich Reuschel
Manny Trillo
Joe Wallis
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - DODGERS
Ron Cey
Steve Garvey
Davey Lopes
Rick Monday
Doug Rau
Rick Rhoden
Reggie Smith
Don Sutton
Steve Yeager
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - EXPOS
Gary Carter
Dave Cash
Tim Foli
Barry Foote
Larry Parrish
Tony Perez
Steve Rogers
Del Unser
Ellis Valentine
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - GIANTS
Jim Barr
Willie Crawford
Larry Herndon
Randy Moffitt
John Montefusco
Bobby Murcer
Marty Perez
Chris Speier
Gary Thomasson
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - INDIANS
Buddy Bell
Frank Duffy
Dennis Eckersley
Ray Fosse
Wayne Garland
Duane Kuiper
Dave LaRoche
Rick Manning
Rick Waits
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - METS
Bud Harrelson
Dave Kingman
Jerry Koosman
Ed Kranepool
Skip Lockwood
John Matlack
Felix Millan
Tom Seaver
John Stearns
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - ORIOLES
Mark Belanger
Paul Blair
Al Bumbry
Doug DeCinces
Ross Grimsley
Lee May
Jim Palmer
Brooks Robinson
Ken Singleton
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - PADRES
Rollie Fingers
George Hendrick
Enzo Hernandez
Mike Ivie
Randy Jones
Butch Metzger
Doug Rader
Gene Tenace
David Winfield
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - PHILLIES
Bob Boone
Larry Bowa
Steve Carlton
Jay Johnstone
Jim Kaat
Greg Luzinski
Garry Maddox
Tug McGraw
Mike Schmidt
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - PIRATES
John Candelaria
Duffy Dyer
Al Oliver
Dave Parker
Jerry Reuss
Bill Robinson
Willie Stargell
Rennie Stennett
Frank Taveras
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - RANGERS
Juan Beniquez
Bert Blyleven
Campy Campaneris
Tom Grieve
Mike Hargrove
Toby Harrah
Gaylord Perry
Lenny Randle
Jim Sundberg
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - RED SOX
Rick Burleson
Dwight Evans
Carlton Fisk
Fergie Jenkins
Bill Lee
Fred Lynn
Jim Rice
Luis Tiant
Carl Yastrzemski
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - REDS
Johnny Bench
Dave Concepcion
Dan Driessen
George Foster
Cesar Geronimo
Ken Griffey
Joe Morgan
Gary Nolan
Pete Rose
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - ROYALS
Doug Bird
George Brett
Dennis Leonard
John Mayberry
Hal McRae
Amos Otis
Fred Patek
Tom Poquette
Paul Splittorff
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - TIGERS
Mark Fidrych
Bill Freehan
John Hiller
Willie Horton
Ron LeFlore
Ben Oglivie
Aurelio Rodriquez
Rusty Staub
Jason Thompson
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - TWINS
Lyman Bostock
Rod Carew
Mike Cubbage
Dan Ford
Dave Goltz
Larry Hisle
Tom Johnson
Bobby Randall
Butch Wynegar
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - WHITE SOX
Jack Brohamer
Bucky Dent
Ralph Garr
Lamar Johnson
Bart Johnson
Chet Lemon
Jorge Orta
Jim Spencer
Richie Zisk
-
1977 Burger Chef Discs - YANKEES
Chris Chambliss
Don Gullett
Catfish Hunter
Reggie Jackson
Thurman Munson
Graig Nettles
Willie Randolph
Mickey Rivers
Roy White

Things NOT Done to Cards...

As a baseball card collector, there is nothing quite like pulling a "hit" from a pack of cards. Jersey swatches, pieces of bats, autographs, or anything that brings me closer to the game is a welcome addition to my collection. Pulling one of these memorabilia cards is always a thrill for me. Heck, even when I buy a box of cards with guaranteed "hits", I still get excited when they show up.

If I had to estimate, I would say that I have opened over ten thousand packs of cards in my life. Granted, before 1990 there was not much in the way of "hits" you could pull from a pack. Nonetheless, in the last nearly twenty years I have had plenty of opportunity to pull autograph and jersey cards.

These are the backs of two of my favorite "hits":

2000 Fleer Greats of the Game - Willie Randolph

Take some time to read the back of the card...

Done? Okay check out this one:

2005 Bowman Heritage - Troy Glaus PG-TG

Did you read the back of this one? Hmmm... Not such great "hits" that a Tony Gwynn collector should call them his favorites. Well check out the fronts of these "hits"...

I posted them over on my PunkRockPaint Blog if you want to see.

Rescuing A 1971 Topps Billy Martin Card

Hi. this is Matt F. Long time reader, first time blogger...I'll let my video speak for itself but if you are interested in the back story read this.



This was a lot of fun to try to do and I'm glad I was able to rescue the card without destroying it. Until next time.