Tribe treats

I received my box o' surprise cards from Indians Baseball Cards. Always over the weekend, thanks to his wonderful Trick or Treat contest. As always, David went above and beyond with the goodies. Do you think when kids come to his house on Halloween he tells each kid, "Ah, take the whole bag." That's how generous he is!

The catch to this contest is you might get some tricks with your treats, and David is an observant fellow. I was almost certain I'd get some San Francisco Giants mixed with my Dodgers or even some horsey cards. I even mentioned to my daughter that she might end up with a couple of my cards. Wasn't she disappointed when they all ended up being Dodgers!

Like other card bloggers, I tried to guess which box was mine when I saw them all lined up on the Tribe Cards site. I guessed wrong.

The circled box (circled in BLOOD RED, bwaaaaahahahahahahahaha!) is mine. Unfortunately, my box was delivered Saturday, which was an all-day soaker around here. So one of the drawings on the box ended up like this:

I'm not sure if it's a ghost or a skeleton. But I think the smears actually make it a bit more frightening!

Here is a look at some of the card highlights:

Brett Butler, 1997 Topps Finest Competitors. Yeah, I've already peeled and removed the coating. I'm an instructions follower.

Hubie Brooks, 1990 Classic traded series. Man, I love these cards. As loud and garish as Zubaz pants. (No, I never wore any Zubaz. I like my cards loud, not my clothes).

Look, Mr. MS Paint Ghost is visiting Yhency Brazoban, who has nicely tucked in his jersey top for this photograph.

Orel Hershiser on one of those GD awful 1991 Fleers. I'm quite certain whoever came up with that design ended up in a padded room somewhere. No one in their right mind would design something like that.

Here's Orel's mug on the back:

An odd choice of photo. I wonder what Orel's thinking about. Perhaps the contest to win 15 packs of 1993 Upper Deck? Only one more day to enter!

These Black Diamond cards rock. Much more than I can say for Mr. Charter-A-Jet-For-Me-And-I'll-Sign-With-You.

This 1991 Bowman card is appropriate for Halloween because if you told me that this photo of Butler was not of Butler, but actually a wax figure likeness, I would've believed it. It's semi-creepy.

OK, get ready for a shocker. These two cards:

... the 1997 Topps Greg Gagne ...

... and the 1999 Topps Chan Ho Park, represent my first two Topps cards from both of these years. I'm telling you, I did not collect in the mid-to-late 1990s. I still have no Topps from 1996 (and after looking at the design, I'm not sure I want any).

Speaking of '90s cards. This is a card from some company called Circa. Sorry, never heard of them. I'm sure there are loads of bloggers out there that can tell me all about Circa. Frankly, I don't know how any collectors got anything else done when collecting in the '90s. The amount of card brands then is staggering.

It's been reined in quite a bit since then, but the variations are still a bit mind-boggling.

To illustrate: I am trying (I'll probably get it done sometime in 2017) to catalog all my cards. For years, cataloging was easy. If you had a 1984 Topps Rod Carew, you would simply record: Carew, 84T. If it was Donruss: Carew, 84D. Heck, before 1981, you could just write: Carew, because there was just one card of him per year (unless he was on a Kellogg's or Hostess card). Now, take a card from this year. Say, a Hideki Kuroda, Allen & Ginter mini with an Allen & Ginter back. Here's a look at the notation:

Kuroda, 08 Topps (a&gm(a&gbk)). And I'm sure it can get a lot more complex than that.

Variation madness!

Hey, it's a visit from MS Paint Pumpkin! Blowers was another 1990s acquisition that backfired in the Dodgers' faces.

This is one of the nicest shots of Dodger Stadium that you will see on a card. Very nice card of the man that came to L.A. in exchange for Paul Konerko. Excellent choice, Dodgers management.

Wooooo. Spooky mirror card, by the radical SPx, which will NOT be defined by rectangular cardboard conventions. Unfortunately, I've already mucked up this card with my fingerprints.

Devo! On his way to the Dodgers. You've got to love Skybox with the bizarre lavender front and the painful script on the back: "You still got the speed you need, so catchers better take heed. You got a feel for the steal, and you're takin' what's yours." Yikes! People who talk like that probably wear Zubaz pants.

Tribe Cards is my Piazza supplier. My Piazza pusher. Before I started this blog, I had 10 Piazza cards. David has doubled that in a month.

I'll end it with Fernando. A Topps 1986 Turn Back the Clock card and interestingly one of the very few Topps Dodger cards from between 1971 and 1991 that I don't have. It's hard to find one that I'm missing, but David did it again!

Thanks as always David. Getting this box made a Saturday full of rain and a difficult shift at the office much brighter. It was the day's highlight.