A Two-Sport Showdown

NBA Showdown cards?! Yes, and more from @DenHartogJ including the familiar kind. 

 

I have a number of MLB Showdown cards in my collection, but I had no idea they made an NBA version until a healthy stack of each made it into my hands by way of Royals and Randoms this past summer. I had combed through the Trading Card Database pretty extensively to build my Blazers want lists, but because these sets are listed by year and not season (i.e. 2002 instead of 2001-02), they totally escaped my notice.

As is the case with the MLB, these are cards for some sort of card game, which also includes special cards like noted hothead (aka "Hot Hand") Rasheed Wallace.

Pippen and Sheed defending Kobe here while the text reads "Defense wins championships!" seems like it must be from an alternate timeline.

Here we get a close look at the underside of Double D's shoes. They look very old school.

Here's the more familiar version, although I honestly have no recollection of someone named Alberto Castillo being a Cardinals player at any point.

This is, of course, the former Cardinals starting catcher and manager. He's currently managing the Royals now, as only he can.

Willie! This is certainly one of the last cards made from McGee's playing days, as the set came out in 2000 and 1999 was his last. Of course, there's no chance of any real stats on these cards, so it doesn't commemorate his career very well.

Josh also sent a bunch of set filling needs, including many from the elusive 2002 Bowman Heritage product. Biggio was one of the more familiar names in the bunch, and it certainly helped that I could actually read his signature.

Andy Pettitte's signature is a little more ridiculous, but we all know who he is. Besides, what would you do with all of those extra T's in your last name?

SIGNATURE NOT AVAILABLE

Smoltz still remembers what he was taught in his grade school calligraphy class. He can tell you a lot of things about the way things were in his day.

There were even more cards for my team collections, including a few from the 2003 Fleer Double Header set. It would be fun to open a box of this stuff someday.

On these smaller sized and closely cropped cards, Tino Martinez looks a bit weird here. Something is off.

Speaking of off, what's up with Shea Hillenbrand here? He's not even a Cardinal.

Surprise! It was actually Shea Hillenbrand's torso and Scott Rolen's legs. I'm not sure that this is a concept that works for me.