Two Green make a Blue

I'm seeing double here.

Can you sign me the ball Sir!?

Topps has the monopoly of the official cards but still play safe and don't have out of the box photos in their cards. At least in the flagship set. It's a shame

So now can you sign me this ball Sir!?

Let the Pitcher hit

It's always a plus having a Pitcher card with a photo of the P hitting.

Super Arm

Elastic man. That's what I think all Pitchers are.

Look at that arm!

All I see is blue

I think everyone likes Double-Plays and it's always cool to see them on a card.

But I'm a bit confused here, because if it wasn't for the shirt numbers one other colour and the stripped paints, I'd say they were all from the same team.

How can this be!?

R rated post again

I cannot get players who play chewing gums and also biting their own tongues.

One can make you choke the other can make a mess of your shirt with all that blood.

But you know what they say...Tongue is love!

Lets make this a PG-13 post

Sooooo Dear Walbeck, do you know you have something going on between your legs!?

And if the front photo was not enough fun, the back one has Walbeck destroying his bat when hitting.

Many Ramirez - Then & Now

Then...

...and Now.


Praise Baseball Gods for the change in wardrobe. Those clinging shirts were a mess...

R rated post kids

Wha...Is that a tongue!? Ohhhhhhhh yeah! It's a tongue!

And you all know what it means...Tongue is love.

It's because you don't like me!?

I think I've posted this card before, but everytime I come across it again I have to re-post.

It's just one of those that makes one wonder what was happening inside UD people to make them chose this photo for Wes Chamberlain card. I know it's the back photo, but none the same.

It just makes me laugh every single time.

Salmon take a knee

I think Tim Salmon is looking for that left knee after sliding for that base. The pants almost ripped open.

Nice job!

Where is the ball Gates!?

I think only now I noticed that Brent Gates is looking up like waiting to see the ball and catch it, when the ball is already on his glove.

I think the problem are those glasses...

You CRASH the game

Back in the days Upper Deck could play fair with Topps, there was this great set they had called Collector's Choice. And it is probably one of my favourite sets, incarnated in a few years.

One of those years were 1996 CC set which had some insert cards that served other propose besides collecting cards and seeing players stats. IT also served as a game. A lucky one...or not.

The game You CRASH The Game consisted in collecting our favourite players and seeing if those players would hit a hume run during the dates showing on the card front.

If one got lucky, one had to send the card to UD (and some money of course) and they would send back a super-hiper-mega-special card!

So I decided to spend a couple of minutes looking through Baseball Reference and see, if I was playing the game back then I'd get some reward.

Starting is Eric Karros and the series during 1996 August 13-15.

Karros has a total of 284 HRs in his career and in 1996 was one of the years he got most HRs, 34, along the year 1999.

Soooooo checking the date...BINGO!

Karros got a HR on August 13 in a game against Cardinals!

Next in queue is Ken Caminiti and a series in August 16-18.

Ken have a total 239 HRs for his all career.

Lets see if I'm lucky again...

...and TRIPLE BINGO!

Ken got 1 HR on August 16 and 2 HRs in August 18! All against NYM

Coming next is Matt Williams for August 19-21.

Williams has a grand total of 378 HRs in his career. Quite a few...

But checking BR I have to sadly say that I get nothing here, because Williams last HR in 1996 was in 1996-07-27.

Finally I have Jay Buhner for a series in July 25-28.

And Jay is the second in this list of the cards I have in HRs, getting a total of 310 homers throughout his career.

But even if 1996 was a great year with lots of HRs, Jay didn't homer between July 23 and 30. So I also get nothing here...


Do you reckon if I send the first two cards to UD they might be my Santa this year and get me something!?

Besides that The cards look nice!

Van Slyke presenting E-Sports

Andy Van Slyke here was getting ready to play some MLB The Show 19 online.

(This was an excuse just to bring the PS4 game up. Because it's one of the 2 games this month on PS Plus and it's one of the best things I could get! It's like Christmas for me!

Marquis Grissom - Catch me if you can

Upper Deck sometimes had it going on in a way no one else could do it like them.

That's why Marquis Grissom here looks like his trying to run out of Heaven back to the field.

Chris Turner was lost but I found him in a dust cloud

I had this fantastic Dust-is-in-the-air card in a box and never realised it!

This is a 1994 Upper Deck Star Rookies card for Catcher Chris Turner.

Turner just played 25 games in his first Major year with 75 ABs and had good stats for such a few appearances.

But what adds to this card is that Turner ended his career with my Yankees with the 2000 World Series title. So this makes the card also eligible to my All-Those-Players-That-Once-Played-for-my-Yankees-but-I-Have-Their-Cards-Playing-for-Other-Teams.

Quite the title there.

50 Cities of the World #38 Chicago

An other trip inside USA. Well...the country has the size of a continent so it's normal there are lots of interesting cities to visit.

Today we go to the Windy City Chicago. The city I always tend to type as 'Chigaco'...I have keyboard dyslexia sorry...

Well, I was checking the other existing nicknames for Chicago and this one I just don't get it: City of Big Shoulders.

Errrrrr someone to enlight me please!?

Besides that the representation of back then Chicago to the current Chicago changed *just* a bit.

Still one of the most important cities, but I don't know if you can still say it's the second most important after NYC.

But hey! Cubs one the WS after so many years!

Checking the city wiki page I also found out that its best known for Italian cuisine. Pizza and pasta and we are all good to go!



For more on Chicago here the wiki page.

Facial Hair Style - 2011 A&G edition

Love to see the evolution, or not, about the hair and beards and moustaches ball players show on their cards.

It's a theme on its own.

Carmona looks like he was shaving and forgot to do that little thing under his chin.

I had to double check these cards because McGehee and Marcum look just like the same...

But I prefer Marcum's beard and so...

Soto...that's too much of a drawn beard. Less is more my boy.

And my favourite has to be Scutaro 2/3 days beard. That beard that looks like he doesn't care but has all the style. Got to love it.

2011 A&G - Aroldis Chapman RC

I think I'm going to start a new category in my collection: "All those players that once played for my Yankees but I have their cards playing for other teams"

Quite a nice name for it!

And so I might start right here with this pretty Chapman RC from 2011 A&G's set.

This card is almost a win-win situation because I also like Reds, and collect its cards, so having Chapman's RC for the Reds, who is now playing for my Yankees. Yep. Win-win.

Also Chapman still has two great records for a pitcher:

    Fastest pitch in MLB history – 105.1 miles per hour (169.1 km/h)
    Fastest MLB pitcher to reach 500 strikeouts

(169.1 km/h is higher than the limit allowed to go in highway around here...)

I think I have to go through my cards and find more Chapman cards.

Also 2011 A&G set has one of my favourite designs and layout. Yep, got to like this card a lot.

2011 A&G Highlight Sketches

I always have mixed feelings about 'sketchy' cards.

I prefer you go all the way and make it look more like cartoon than trying to make it look like real people. But 2011 A&G try is not that bad. At least we can identify the players with some easy.

Here Jay Bruce card is about the moment he hit a walk-off homer on the first pitch to make Reds win Houston 3-2 and clinch the NL Central Division title.

Starlin Castro card is about his debut on a Cubs 14-7 win over Reds scoring for himself 6 runs.

I should count this as an almost RC for Castro.

Ryan Howard always had an aura around him, making him one of those few players that even playing for a team you don't like you pay attention to his career.

His card is for the mark he achieved of being the fastest player to reach 250 homers.


This is one of those inserts I'd not dislike to have back in a future A&G set.

2011 Allen & Ginter - are there other sports than baseball? Yes sir!

The A&G sets always have other characters besides baseball players. Most of them I confess I don't know. If they would put some football (the true one you know...) players it would be different.

Box is one of those sports I don't watch. I prefer martial arts. But as all living person at the time I watched Mike Tyson bite that ear off...

But that's why A&G is cool. It makes you go search and learn.

And the coolest thing I found about LaMotta, an American boxer was that he was also a stand-up comedian!

So he could go from this

 To this

Mister Hoffman is an other thing. I like X-Games. I had that time of my youth when I thought I was a sk8...and always dreamt of having a BMX, but they were too expensive back then, and when you finally get to make some money you are old enough to think twice before going on a BMX...

So Tony Hawk and Mat Hoffman, thanks to their videogames too, were the thing! Everyone wanted to be like them.

That's why I know well who Hoffman is.

He is a Hall of Famer

Looking at him like this...I looked younger too back then... lol

2011 Allen & Ginter - Ginter Code

A love A&G sets, and always read about people trying to break the code. I never understood how is this done.

But I always kept the few cards I got about it, like these two 2011 A&G cards promoting the code game.

And maybe that's why I never looked closely to the cards, for I always thought it was just a promo card. But then I looked better and noticed that the clock is not marking the same time in both.

And after checking the wonderful internet I found:

"The first thing needed were the promo cards because the clocks reflected in the mirror were important.  The promo cards had 10 different times on them."

Ohhhhhhhhhhh  So that's it! Everything is explained here.

That's why it pays off to not throw any card, even the promo ones, out.

1988 Fleer stickers

I read Night Owl post and it reminded me that I also have some Fleer stickers too. So I went and right at the first box I open I found some of them.

So I posting my 1988 Fleer stickers.

I always tried to understand the algorithm for Fleer to match the teams in the cards but I couldn't figure it out. Maybe you can help me.

And a note to Detroit logo card, because that tiger is on steroids or has a serious sinusitis problem...

(And I have too because I've scanned two equal cards)

These stickers cards also play as card on their right, even if you actually peel the stickers. Because on the other side you have the stadiums.

How many of these are still standing!?

Oakland - yep
KC - yep
Blue Jays - yep
Mariners - demolished (year 2000)
Detroit - demolished (year 2009)
Astros - closed (year 2008), partially demolished (year 2013)
Cardinals - demolished (year 2005)
Yankees - demolished (year 2009/2010)
Brewers - demolished (year 2001)
Pirates - demolished (year 2001)
San Diego - yep (Padres moved to Petco Park)

Well...the majority was demolished. But other stadiums were constructed on the demolished ones site. So they kind are still there, like living a second life.