6 Shocking Trading Cards That Finally Turned Me into a Cubs Fan

Actual cards from actual envelopes. 

First of all, welcome to April. (It's just past midnight on the west coast.) It's funny to me that it's becoming harder and harder to tell the difference between clickbait and parody these days, so I'll dispense with the usual wackiness and show off a few cards I got from fellow #Supertrader and long time friend of the blog Play at the Plate. (Hey, I could have shown an actual card of Edmonds in a Cubs uniform, but no one needs to see that.)

Here's a '90s insert card that I didn't own. Rusty Greer of the Rangers is on the flip side, so it makes sense that PATP would end up with an extra.

Here's a pair of 1998 Ray Lankford cards from the underappreciated Topps Gold Label set. Unfortunately, these cards aren't labeled with what "class" they belong to unlike another year that I'm thinking of, but a little research tells me that the one on the left is a Class 3 while the one on the right is a Class 1. Probably.

Switching things up to some hoops, here's a Hoops insert of my all-time favorite basketball player. Nice!

This is one of my favorite Lillard cards that I've seen so far. The Blazers won their 40th game tonight (last night really) when many expected them to be one of the worst teams in the league. Instead, they are locked into a five-team battle for four playoff spots. Things are looking bright for this franchise, which has been rebuilt around an extremely young core.

Meyers Leonard looks so young here! He's out for the rest of the season with a bum shoulder and his contract is up. But he came into the league with Damian Lillard and, supposedly, intends to do what he can to stay with the Blazers. He's been one of the most polarizing players in the franchise, but there's no doubting the things he can do well (shoot 3's and be tall.) It'll be an interesting offseason, but we're not quite there yet, fortunately.