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.

A Big Box of Bo Cards

 
@BoRosny, not Bo Jackson. 

Right before the big blog anniversary group break, long time blogger Bo of Baseball Cards Come To Life! contacted me about trade involving a vintage project he had going. I cobbled together what I could, vintage-wise, and made sure Bo had a sizable package coming back in the group break. The sheer volume of what I got back was crazy, though!

Check these stacks of (mostly) '00s set building fodder! Great stuff. I don't see a lot of cards from these sets in trade packages anymore, now that there's more than a decade between these sets and the present day.

Let's look back into the past at some of these.

Ooh, a Bowman exclusive rookie card? What does that even mean? Tell me, Omar Infante!

Here's Jason Isringhausen, not long before he became the Cardinals closer for the mid-'00s years.

It's FOX broadcaster Eric Karros. Karros was coming up right when my interest in cards was dying out.

It's Tim Raines... Jr? Huh.

Besides the wonderfully black & white 2001 Bowman Heritage set, there were cards from other sets. Like this guy. Bear Bay is the name. Baseball on the sun is his game.

2002 Bowman Heritage brought us the weird signature box, but The Big Hurt isn't fazed about it.

1953 Topps is such a nice design.

Hey, it's the recently deposed Cardinals skipper in a Giants uniform!

Speaking of Cardinals, Bo included a healthy share of Cardinals for my team collecting needs (aka the biggest needs). It doesn't appear that I had a first year (2006) Allen Craig card in my collection, so this is certainly cool.

Speaking of cool, I am always pleased to add another Jim Edmonds card to my collection. And yet, I need so much more!

I always thought @ithrow88 was one of the best Twitter names.

One thing I have discovered in trying to figure out what was going on with cards in the long period of time where I didn't care about cards is that Tino Martinez had a lot of Cardinals cards. That surprises me, for some reason.

We end with a Finest card, which was in its 9th year at this point. Did they still have the protective coating for this set? I always want to peel that stuff off, but I don't for some reason.

Some Old Throwbacks

I enjoy these older new sets fashioned after much older cards. 

Mr. Haverkamp was the big winner way back in January for the annual Cards on Cards bowl pick 'em dealie, and as a big thanks for his prize, he sent me a big stack of old cards from sets I collect. Specifically, these are mostly from sets that came out before this blog was a thing (10+ years ago) and I wasn't really collecting. I really like these sets, and should probably spend more time on them. Fortunately, thanks to one gracious contest winner, I am a bit closer to these goals. I am in the process of digging up some stuff to send back because I certainly wasn't expecting to receive anything back for sending out a prize.

There were a bunch of cards in the package, so I just chose my favorite from each set.

Carl Everett doesn't (or didn't... does anyone know what he's been up to these days) believe in dinosaurs, and almost in a comical way. I have no recollection of him actually playing for the Mariners. He was one of the guys who showed up on prospect cards in the early '90s when I was still a teenaged collecting geek who went on to have a career largely out of my consciousness.

Every card I've ever seen from the 2002 Bowman Heritage set has a facsimile autograph on the front where Freddy Garcia's name is. Did they misplace his rookie contract? Did his autograph look like something mildly offensive? I don't know the story behind this. It's strange to think that Garcia was at one point considered Seattle's ace.

Did you know there was another Garciaparra? Me neither. His tale isn't nearly as tragic as Larry Yount's, but his Wikipedia entry is rather short (and short of intrigue).

Mr. Haverkamp sent me two foil parallels from the 2007 Bowman Heritage set, and the other one was a good-for-nothing Cub. We get cheatin' Manny by default.

Speaking of cheating... nah, this obviously isn't Starling Marte. I like the older Heritage sets before MLB and Topps came to the agreement to tighten up their rookie card/prospect rules because they contain a lot of names that came and went before I ever heard mention of them. I do think it limited their collecting appeal a bit, though.

2002 Bowman Heritage

The following is a list of cards that I HAVE from this set. I am looking for anything NOT on this list:

1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 33, 36, 38, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 54, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 63, 64, 66 (Garciaparra), 66 (Martinez), 68, 72, 73, 74, 75, 80, 82, 83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100. 103, 104, 105, 106,  110, 112, 113, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 135, 136, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 148, 151, 153, 154, 156, 157, 158, 162, 163, 164, 166, 167, 170, 171, 172, 174, 175, 177, 178, 181, 183, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 192, 195, 196, 198, 202, 204, 205, 207, 208, 209, 211, 212, 221, 222, 223, 224, 226, 227, 230, 232, 237, 239, 243, 245, 251, 255, 258, 260, 264, 266, 267, 269, 271, 272, 275, 276, 277, 279, 282, 283, 286, 288, 290, 293, 297, 298, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 310, 312, 314, 315, 319, 323, 325, 326, 327, 329, 332, 334, 335, 342, 343, 345, 346, 349, 350, 352, 353, 354, 356, 357, 358, 359, 360, 361, 362, 363, 365, 367, 368, 369, 370, 371, 374, 376, 378, 379, 380, 381, 382, 383, 384, 385, 386, 387, 388, 390, 392, 394, 396, 397, 400, 402, 403, 404, 405, 406, 408, 409, 413, 414, 415, 416, 417, 419, 420, 424, 425, 426, 428, 429, 430, 432, 433, 436, 437, BHR-AR
Black Box: 27, 30, 41, 72, 120, 121, 139, 143, 145, 180, 227, 240, 266, 269, 275, 277, 310, 316, 317, 345

[updated 5/7/26]