Team Sets, Minor League Guys and Canadian Things

Fun baseball cards with a dash of Ducks. 

Cleveland Browns megafan Angus runs the blog Dawg Day Cards, as many of you know. Once again, he found a way to send a ton of cards my way that I'd ordinarily never see. Meanwhile, I think I'm working on a stack of roughly two Browns cards to send back his way. I'll have to figure something out there.

A solid chunk of the package I got from Angus batch in March were O-Pee-Chee cards from the '70s. O-Pee-Chee! These cards were in great shape (I love the jagged borders) and I'm pretty sure I needed every single one of them. I don't, ahem, get to buy a lot of '70s OPC packs for whatever reason. I chose this single Rich Folkers card to represent the bulk of the lot, as looking at the fronts of these cards mostly do not reveal any differences from their Topps counterparts. Most of the '80s sets would be a different story.

Here's an exception, and also a card I didn't even know I needed. For some reason, in my Oh My O-Pee-Chee! history lesson, I don't remember coming across Mr. Grieve and his newly crowned team. (As with many '70s cards of similar ilk, my scanner ate the edge of the image.)

Jumping forward a few decades, here's a 2003 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites. The card pays an early '80s tribute to Whitey Herzog on a faux '89 design. I am not going to complain too much, however, because it's a nice looking card and is one I didn't own previously.

Skipping back in time to actual factual 1989, here's Bob Horner in his O-Pee-Chee Cardinals appearance. Despite these coming straight in the peak years of the overproduction era, I am quite certain I have fewer 1989 and 1990 O-Pee-Chee cards than any other year. I've actually shopped online at various points for boxes of the stuff, but the prices are pretty ridiculous.

I mentioned team sets and the minor leagues, in the subject at least. Angus sent over complete team sets of three different minor league Cardinals affiliates. Very little in the baseball card world makes me happier than minor league cards these days, so I was pretty excited about all of this. I haven't heard of 90% of these players, of course, but I still think they're all pretty great. It must just be my nostalgic feelings for the departed Portland minor league teams of the past that are clouding my judgment.

Juan Andujar, by the way, looks to either be sustaining himself entirely on a diet of dugout sunflower seeds, or his photo has been given the Paula Abdul "Promise of a New Day" treatment.

David Sala is super happy to be on a baseball card.

I mean, when you get a new Basil Shabazz card, you have to scan it and post about it, right?

Angus threw in some Ducks football stuff as well, which is always appreciate. Bralon Addison was a prolific wide receiver at UO, but has worked primarily as a running back professionally. He got into just one game in 2016 with the Bears, and is still trying to make a go of things. He recently re-joined the Bears.

Professionally speaking, things haven't worked out well for Ifo Ekpre-Olomu, but he had a stellar Ducks career and remains one of my favorite football players.

Finally, here's a little throwback jersey card of Larry Walker for Erin's collection. If you look closely, you can even catch a little glimpse of a Rockies pinstripe in that circular window.