If you love baseball like we do, one thing is assured: At some point in your life, you owned baseball cards. Opening your first pack of cards is a rite of passage for fans. Maybe you saved up your allowance in order to buy your first pack, maybe your mom bought them for you after you brought home a strong report card.
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As a kid, there was nothing better than ripping open a pack and hoping your favorite player was inside. Would this be the lucky pack that featured a Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card? Or would you add a sixth Shawn Estes card to your collection?
We here at The Stew all owned baseball cards when we were younger, and we all have our favorites. But, now that we’re older, we’re a lot more aware of some of the strange cards that were distributed when the collecting phase got out of control.
So, we asked our brave writers to wade through their old collections, pick out the strangest cards they own and write about them. And for those of you too young to have your own collection, or those of you with young kids who don’t have their own set yet, Topps released their 2016 collection on Wednesday. That’s a nice coincidence!
SHIRTLESS JOSE CANSECO SWINGING A BAT
One card that absolutely deserves to be in this conversation comes from the 1991 Score Dream Team collection and features a shirtless Jose Canseco posing as if he just finished a swing knocking one out of the park, in blue jeans with perfect hair sans batting helmet of course. This is a perfect example of something we can’t imagine happening these days, at least not on a baseball card. Maybe a magazine cover.
Canseco was one of three players who posed shirtless for Score that year. The others were Kirby Puckett and Rickey Henderson. Canseco doesn’t necessarily look like a man pumped full of steroids but according to his book “Juiced” he was already six years deep into using performance enhancing drugs when this card was distributed. Canseco was 26 entering the 1991 season, which was his seventh year in the big leagues. He hit 44 home runs with 122 RBIs and 26 stolen bases that season. He probably stole a few hearts as well with this card — Mom hearts, not kids’. (Kyle Ringo)
JAY JOHNSTONE’S UMBRELLA HAT
Somewhere, in a land full of boxes that are far out of my reach, lies this classic Jay Johnstone card from his days with the Chicago Cubs. I know it’s there, because one never lets go of a card this epic.
I remember asking my dad, “why?” Why is Jay Johnstone wearing an umbrella instead of a hat? I remember him telling me, “Because Jay Johnstone is a goofball.” Looking back, I think my dad was right. But I also think Johnstone was ahead of his time, at least in a fashion sense. So far ahead that we can probably look forward to an umbrella hat craze in the next 10-15 years.
[Related: Jose Bautista’s bat flip is now a Topps card]
I also remember asking if I could get one, and that answer was predictably a no. Then I got over that and moved on to asking about wearing eyeblack at my t-ball game, and that was a no too. Anyway, I’m pretty sure that’s what the card was intended to do: Get people talking, perhaps not necessarily about Johnstone himself, but baseball in general and it being OK to be a little silly. (Mark Townsend)
WHO IS CAL RIPKEN CALLING ON THIS OLD CELL PHONE?
I own a lot of baseball cards and, thus, a lot of weird baseball cards. If you weren’t collecting cards in the late ’80s and early ’90s, you missed on a lot of weird subsets that the card companies were pushing at the time. We’re talking caricatures and fantasy scenes involving baseball players. Remember Ozzie Smith on the Land of Oz’s yellow-brick road in the 1994 Fleer set.
But when it came time to pick one absolutely weird card, I stayed away from the subsets that were, by definition, odd. I landed, instead on this 1994 Cal Ripken Jr. card from Upper Deck Collector’s Choice set in which he’s talking on a brick cell phone. First, why the cell phone? Second, why is this on his baseball card? This was post-“Saved by the Bell” and Ripken turned 34 that season, so he certainly wasn’t trying to be Zack Morris.
If anything, he looks more like a no-nonsense day trader. Look at how serious that face is and how focused those eyes are. Let’s imagine the scene. He’s seething with shock and rage at news that he’s lost $4 billion dollars. A few seconds later, he’ll throw that brick cell phone against the wall, look at its broken pieces on the ground and pull another one out of his desk drawer, then angrily yell at his assistant asking why it doesn’t work.
Maybe that’s not the case. Maybe Cal Ripken Jr. just kept a cell phone with him in the dugout to prank call people before games. Maybe he calls his brother Billy and calls him something that rhymes with duck face and then hangs up. Who knows. I just know it’s a weird card and I absolutely love it. (Mike Oz)
WILL CLARK POSES FOR SCHOOL PICTURE DAY
I admit, this card isn’t as zany as a shirtless Jose Canseco, or Cal Ripken on a giant cell phone. The thing that gets me with this one is the thought of Will Clark showing up to the ballpark and striking this casual, but cool, pose for a baseball card.
To me, it’s reminiscent of school picture day. Will Clark’s mom told him he could wear his favorite outfit, and, of course, he chose to be a baseball player. He put on his jersey, cap and made sure to bring his bat. He even begged his mom to pay the extra $3 so the photographer would insert the awesome baseball background. All the cool kids are doing it!
[Related: Mike Trout’s awesome wall catch is card No. 1 in Topps collection this year]
Some school pictures end in disaster, but not this one. Will Clark freakin’ nailed it. First off, that sly smile. Will Clark is too cool for school and he knows it. How about his quiet confidence? Look at the way he’s casually gripping the bat with his left hand. He’s not all business on the field, he can relax and have fun too. And, of course, the right hand gently providing support to his cheek. That’s a veteran move. You don’t see any third graders pulling off that pose. All told, Will Clark looks like a kid having fun out there. That’s pretty much all you can ask on school picture day. (Chris Cwik)
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- JAY JOHNSTONE
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- JOSE CANSECO
