Anatomy of a Baseball Card: Bob Gibson 1992 Ziploc

A truly odd oddball. 

To get into my head space in 1992, I would have definitely dipped into my budget to purchase food storage bags if it came with a baseball card included, despite my meager $3.50 hourly wage. With that being said, I don't know how it came to be that I didn't know about Ziploc baseball cards until 2016. Perhaps this was a regional release, or maybe you had to send in 40 proofs of purchase of Ziploc branded bags to get a complete set of these cards. I really have no idea. What I do know is that I found a nearly 25 year old oddball card of Bob Gibson at last weekend's card show, in fully color, likely unlicensed but with team logos firmly in tact.

Note the lack of any MLB or MLBPA logos on the back. Robert Gibson thinks this is pretty suspicious. DowBrands Inc. skimps on the stats in favor of a bio that touts Gibby's five 20-win seasons, not knowing that 25 years in the future the Pitching Win would have been abolished and replaced by wORPmArP or some other advanced metric too impossible for early '90s puny human brains to possibly comprehend.

He also no-hit Pittsburgh in 1971, though.

Anatomy of a Baseball Card: Jose Cruz 1982 Fleer

Blurry and off-center. 

I complain about photos used on new baseball cards as much as I complain about the designs themselves. I should probably complain more. There's something really sterile and soulless in the photo selection process these days. Topps gets everything from Getty Images. We get it. Getty has an amazing library of perfect images for perfectly cropped cards spit out of fancy computer applications.

A little part of my childhood was ruined when I learned that Topps (and others) probably don't send their own photographers to games anymore. This practice likely ended decades ago. Printing flaws aside, I like to think that whoever shot Jose Cruz circa 1981 was having a bad day. This was as good as it was gonna get. It would be nice if the focus was a little sharper, or if we could see both of Jose's feet, but this is going to have to do it.

On second thought, maybe the photographer was actually having a great day. He could have been four beers and a couple of hot dogs into this game before he realized he didn't have a picture of the Astros star outfielder yet. Baseball is fun.

Anatomy of a Baseball Card: So Taguchi 2003 Topps Kanebo

Topps goes to Japan, albeit briefly. 

I am headed up to Seattle this weekend to catch the Cardinals in person for the first time in a very long time. In every Cardinals game I've seen live, my favorite player (Jim Edmonds at the time) was always missing due to various maladies. My only attempt to see the Cards in Seattle ended up being So Taguchi's major league debut as he took Jimmy's rightful place in center field for the game. As you might imagine, this was of great local interest to the Mariners crowd, already abuzz with Ichiromania (it was the worldwide hits leader's second MLB season). Taguchi was a former NPB teammate of Ichiro's, but I had no idea who he was. All I knew was that it was bold for someone to make their big league debut wearing #99, and right in front of my section more or less.

Kanebo Gum manufactured Japanese baseball cards in the '90s and early '00s, and for a couple of years teamed up with Topps to reproduce some of their MLB cards with Japanese text on the back. Both the 2002 and (supposedly rarer) 2003 sets use the 2002 design, and while the stats on this 2003 release do not reflect Taguchi's first MLB season, they did at least scrub the "2002" banner from the front of the card. Taguchi's 2002 Topps card (the English language version) also has his full NPB stats on the back, but this one comes complete with Japanese characters. I still need to track down all of the other Cardinals from both Topps Kanebo sets, but it just made the most sense to start with Gooch.

Continuing the tradition of me not getting to see my favorite players, Adam Wainwright is not scheduled to pitch this weekend. Hopefully neither Matt Carpenter nor Matt Holliday get into a ferry-related accident or eat any bad sushi while they're in Seattle.

Anatomy of a Baseball Card: Tony Fernandez 1984 Donruss

One of the first Rated Rookies. 

Early on in my card collecting days, my younger brother decided to collect Tony Fernandez cards. These days, you really couldn't go wrong collecting Fernandez cards. Tony was an '80s star who made 5 All-Star teams and won a World Series with the Blue Jays in 1993. There weren't many card show dealers with cards of Fernandez in their display cases, and no Costacos Brothers posters could be found of the Blue Jays shortstop. For a household that hosted a Jose Canseco 40/40 poster, Fernandez certainly offered a more affordable collecting alternative, although I'm not sure to this day if even my brother could explain how he became a fan.

The d'84 series, as I like to call it now, represented the ultimate level of '80s baseball card monetary value. The packs cost several dollars. They were always high up on a shelf, out of reach of a teenager's grubby mitts. Tony's rookie card could fetch a few bucks back in the day, and you could convince an insurer that it's worth $2.00 today. Of course, you can snag one for just under a buck if you know what you're doing. I have no idea how I got this card, but I'm guessing it was at a card show in some dime box based on the fact that I found it in a box that was set aside for posts like these after starting this blog in 2008.

A few more notes:

• According to the bio, Fernandez was sent "back to Triple A for 1 more year of seasoning." Sadly, this is terminology that seems to no longer exist in today's game.
• This is the first year that "Rated Rookie" appears on the front of Donruss cards, but the iconic logo doesn't actually show up until 1985. A few 1983 Donruss cards got the "Rated Rookie" moniker on the back of the card, where it was barely noticed.
• Fernandez was something of a nomad after his initial '80s stint with the Jays. He came back to the team in 1993 for their second World Series win, and then returned two more times for a total of four separate stints that must make Cardinals hitting coach John Mabry a little jealous. He also made the All-Star for the final time in his 17th (!) big league season.

Anatomy of a Baseball Card: Trevor Story 2013 Topps Heritage Minors

Nuts to that. 

Minor league cards are supposed to be fun, which is why I wish I bought them more often. Topps's recent reentry into the minor league game has been nice, but the cards (Pro Debut and Heritage Minors) are a hobby-only thing. Hobby shops are like unicorns around these parts. It's totally understandable that Johnny Targetshopper isn't going to snag some loose packs of guys playing in podunk Modesto, however, even though the player selection leans more towards future stars and away from organizational soldiers.

Trevor Story was the story for April, and it seems the Replacement Tulo has the pedigree to be a major league mainstay instead of the next Kevin Maas or Chris Shelton. Minor league cards are fun if you have a minor league team in town, but they can also be fun if you decide to buy a few packs on a rainy day and put them aside for a few years. Some of those formerly head-scratching names are now beginning to fill out fantasy rosters. I wonder if anyone in Modesto (or Tulsa, or New Britain, or Albuquerque...) got Story to sign the back of the card in the empty space left for an autograph. Does anyone actually do that?

Anatomy of a Baseball Card: Pascual Perez 1991 Leaf

An interesting life. A stint with the Yankees. That hair. 

I can say that I was very aware of what a Jheri curl was when I was young, even if I didn't always know the name for it. I don't think anyone boring has ever rocked a Jheri curl. Pascual Perez certainly led an interesting life before his passing a few years ago. Of course, he didn't die in a boring way: he was the victim of a grisly murder during a robbery.

Perez couldn't have been older than 33 at the time at the time the photo was taken, unless he was among the Latin America imports who were rumored to be part of widespread age falsification. He looks like he had lived a million interesting years already. He missed time during his career for all manner of reasons, both on field and off field. He's famous for getting lost on the way to his own team's ballpark and being forced to miss a start. He had good numbers when he was on the field. He had the mound mannerisms and quirks of an '80s Al Hrabosky. He finished his career, sadly, as a Yankee in some down years.

Leaf manages to squeeze in Pascual's full stats, both minor and major, on the back of the card. He gets the ignominious "OUT OF ORGANIZED BASEBALL" line for 1986, a feat usually reserved for catastrophic injuries or major position/life changes. Who knows what Pascual was up to in '86? Maybe he was just lost.

Anatomy of a Baseball Card: Randy Johnson 1989 Upper Deck

Hornswoggled. 

I picked up this well known rookie card out of a dime box last weekend. Upon further inspection, it's clear that the card is in less than perfect shape. I could be kicking myself for not grabbing the other copy that was waiting in the dime box, but what do I really need with two Randy Johnson rookie cards? What do I need with one? Who's to say that either of them were in great shape? This is a card that goes for about 75 cents in allegedly great shape on COMC.com, despite it's theoretical "book value" of $8 as determined by a council of evil over at Beckett headquarters.

Randy Johnson could be regular folk, but he mostly has always looked like carny folk. No matter when or where he could try and fit in, he was always going to be an incredibly tall but spindly lefty who could throw Chapman-like fastballs sustained over 7 or 8 eight innings. He did it for a long time, and he made the Hall of Fame despite Growing Up Mariner. Randy even played for the Expos, man.

I'm not entirely sure what a combination basketball/baseball scholarship is, but I'm pretty sure it's not something that could exist today -- especially not at a major school like USC. Despite the fact that a well-rounded athletic career seems to be as suitable as a balanced breakfast, young athletes seemed to be pushed more and more towards one specialization. There will probably never be another Dave Winfield, let alone a Deion Sanders or Bo Jackson.

Randy Johnson's #25 may never be as interesting as card #1 from Upper Deck's inaugural set, but he did a lot better for himself than Ramon Martinez or Felix Jose. Both of those cards were hot items at one point in my life, but Martinez is best known as Pedro's brother and Jose still sounds like someone accidentally reversed his first and last names.

Anatomy of a Baseball Card: Michael Jordan 1990 "White Sox"

The greatest basketball player impersonating a baseball player. 

Before he entertained the idea for real, Michael Jordan apparently did a photo op with the Chicago White Sox, taking batting practice and pressing the flesh. It's the sort of thing that Billy Crystal does every year. Someone got really excited about it and made a baseball card or two out of the blurry photos. Crummy unlicensed cards were pretty popular at the beginning of the '90s, also the era of the Simpsons bootleg t-shirt.

This one comes complete with stats, but that's not the most impressive thing about it. Some SABR geek had the wherewithal to compute MJ's impressive basketball stats into totally legitimate "Baseball Stats". Someone must have had a blast working on that rebounds-to-RBI formula.