Sort 'em If You Got 'em.

       Yesterday was National Baseball Card Day and no, I couldn't get to the National this year (or any year, yet) and no, I didn't get out to my local card shop.  But if you saw my last post, you know that I had plenty to do - I had 925 cards sent from COMC to sort through and revel in.  And that's exactly what I did:

These piles all make sense, to me anyway.  The majority are baseball cards but there are also football, hockey, basketball, bowling, tennis, golf, softball, gaming, movie (James Bond, Batman, and Star Wars among others), music (Beatles and Guided By Voices), and all sorts of Goodwin Champions which include all those things and more. There are three separate piles of Mets cards alone, and also one each for the Saints and the Devils and the Knicks, and a couple of players even got their own piles, Tom Seaver and Todd Hundley (no, really, I am a Hundley super-collector at this point). After that there are Hall of Famers and current stars and retired stars and birthday boys and all-star rookie trophy cards.  It was a fun few hours to go through all these.

I obviously can't highlight and scan 925 cards (103 scans! That would more than double my Seaver memorial post) so I will semi-randomly grab some cards that are either fun or fun to look at or just interesting, to me anyway.  Plus there were a few surprises even for me because after two-plus years, I had forgotten I'd bought them.

The top three here are some multi-player game used cards, one with Gary Carter and Mike Piazza - basically my two favorite players of all time - one with a "Bat Rack" of Mets with the aforementioned Carter and Piazza plus Jose Reyes and Kaz Matsui (remember when he was a thing?) and the third is a glorious mix of 1973 World Series adversaries from the UD Decades set, that one has Tom Seaver and Bud Harrelson along with Reggie Jackson and Bert Campaneris.  THAT is the best card I completely forgot I bought and I was giddy when I saw it.  But it also begs the question, how could I ever forget that card?

 

There is also a Ralph Kiner announcer card, a rarity of him with Mets colors, a great Lee Mazzilli from 1979 Hostess (I have the panel with Steve Garvey and Mike Schmidt but I needed it solo), a 1970 OPC Mets World Champions #1 card, a low numbered Frank Thomas jersey card (with pinstripes!) and a pair of one of my favorite unusual uniform subjects - Pete Rose on the Montreal Expos - I now have a complete page of him in French red, white, and blue.

Let's do a second nine, shall we, I can't just show you less than 1% of these, can I?

First off is the other side of that Carter/Piazza tandem jersey card.  Now I have to decide if it goes with the Carter collection or the Piazza.  Maybe Carter because he's technically the 'front' of the card?  Then you have two modern Topps Hall of Fame short prints.  I am not a big fan of these but sometimes Topps picks really cool photos for them and these two definitely fit that category.  The Koufax is a magnificent shot of him admiring the scoreboard from his perfect game and the Nolan Ryan is a brilliant candid shot that should/could have been one of his 70s cards.  Topps should only pick pictures of this quality when doing these short prints (alas, they often do not).

 

 

There's also a few fun vintage cards here, a 1974 Tony Oliva with its proud position designation of Des(ignated) Hitter, and a late 70s run of Tom Seaver O-Pee-Chee cards.  That last one in the left corner is a 1998 Fleer Tradition Todd Hundley '63 Classic card numbered to /63.  I told you I was becoming a Hundley super-collector.  I also had my eye on a Piazza version of this card but alas did not pull the trigger on it and now it is gone and I might never see another.  I have put that card in my Needed Nine, you can find that list on the right side margin of the blog.  

I teased it in the post from the other day so here is a much better view of the 1952 Andy Pafko #1 I acquired:

I am not certain why I ever bought into the hype of this card but somehow over the years I did and I just decided I must own this stupid thing.  I ended up getting it during the COMC Black Friday sales and the price was right for this condition.  I think what I really like most is the randomness of someone like Andy Pafko being the first card in their first big set.  He was a good ballplayer but nothing anyone would ever consider a superstar.  Donruss went with Ozzie Smith, Fleer went with Pete Rose, Score went with Don Mattingly, Upper Deck lucked out and chose Ken Griffey Jr. over Gregg Jefferies and Gary Sheffield for their lead off but somehow Topps went with Andy Pafko as card number one. If anyone knows the solid reason why they chose him (I don't recall ever seeing one) please enlighten me.  For now, Andy has a hot date with the other two 1952 star cards I keep protected: my Gus Zernial and my Bob Feller.  

I have gotten to the point in my Gary Carter collection where the only cards I don't have are either strange local oddball issues, low numbered monstrosities, or (somewhere in between) just plain old stuff I don't think is worth the money.  I did pull the trigger on a solid gold Gary that I just couldn't pass up during that black Friday sale.  I must say, it is shiny!

I doubt these Danbury Mint cards will ever be worth much (I also bought a Jerry Koosman one in this batch) but I suppose if times are tough I could melt them down and make fillings out of them or something.

Lastly is a card that probably only means something to me but I am so happy that I got it, the nerd in me is still glowing.  It is a 2019 Goodwin Champions Robert Pollard printing plate, a yellow 1/1. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pandemic left me a lot of time at home to sit and listen to music and Uncle Bob here cranked out something like seven albums (and counting) during 2020 and 2021.  Maybe it is the old man in me, but I don't listen to a lot of music the way I did when I was a younger man but the pandemic did a lot of strange things to all of us so it was nice to have new Guided By Voices albums flying out at the rate they used to in the 1990s.  This card will now be the centerpiece of my Bob Pollard collection from that Goodwin set and I have to trust in myself that I don't become that lunatic who needs to hoard the one-of-one cards.  It helps that I haven't seen any of the others for sale...you know, not that I've checked or anything.  Now excuse me, I have 905 other cards to put in their proper place in my collection. 

Hustle.

       On September 11, 1985, as an overexcited 10-year old baseball-obsessed boy, I cheered when I saw on Sportscenter that venerable old man Pete Rose had broken Ty Cobb's "unbreakable" record of 4,191 hits.  Rose's legendary career had hit its crescendo, over two decades of myth-making and Charlie Hustling led to that night in Cincinnati.  For what it's worth, if Pete Rose had been run over by the team bus leaving the stadium that night, it would have been for the best.  We all would have been spared a lot of depressing revelations about Pete.

I'm not gonna lie, like anyone who started collecting cards in the mid-1980's, Pete Rose was one of the Holy Grails.  Getting his cards in packs was always welcome.  Seeing his older cards at shows and in magazines (and even on those 1986 tributes above) was a treat.  Hell, his 1963 Topps rookie card was one of the first cards to be widely counterfeited and it was a big deal back in the day.  Not the '54 Aaron or even the '52 Mantle, the '63 Rose.  You can still find ones stamped "counterfeit" at a big show if you look (or ask since they are technically illegal to own).  Heck, a lot of the cards you'll see here are from my original collection from 30 years ago.

The real problem with Pete Rose is that he didn't get run over by that team bus on 9/11/85 and the real man we all know him now to be emerged over the next few years.  The gambling addict.  The compulsive liar.  The con artist.  The hustler.

The tragedy of Pete Rose has been raked over more than anyone's except maybe OJ Simpson.  The accusations.  The lifetime ban.  The death of Bart Giamatti.  The indifference of Bud Selig.  The confession (which was sadly just a ploy to sell books and not to actually cleanse his soul of anything).  His current appeal to be reinstated by the All Star Game in Cincy this year.  And now, the new revelations that he not only bet on baseball as a manager, but that he also bet on it as a player, something he has vehemently denied forever. 

I have long held the opinion that Pete Rose got more out of his ability than any athlete ever.  Even when he came up as a rookie, you would never have though of himself as a 'physical specimen' like Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays was.  He was awkward and stocky, but the man had drive.  He willed himself like no other baseball player to be great.  He gave the cliche 110% every single day.  And he was loved for it.  And he loved that he was loved.  It was a goddamn love in all around when it came to Pete Rose.  If only that had been enough for him, we wouldn't have the mess we've had for the last 25+ years. 

I have long given up on Pete Rose as a human being (even if I still respect him as a player).  His default setting is to lie and he only tells the truth when it suits him.  The new nonsense is the just the cherry on top of the shit sundae that is his post playing career.  He was in a much more advantageous position to affect games when he was a manager anyway, so betting on them as a player just shows that he has always had the insatiable need for 'action' and the pathological need to lie about it.  All the new stuff does is force Rob Manfred to deny his application for reinstatement.  It is shame on top of shame on top of shame on top of shame...

In the end, all of this has not changed the opinion I have held about Pete Rose the player for a long time.  His lifetime ban should remain.  He belongs in the Hall of Fame as a player, sure, but not while he is living.  All he would do if he made the Hall is spin it into another cheap money grab.  Heck, he slums around Cooperstown now to cash in for sympathy, imagine what he would do as a member.  All of this is more than just another "it's not the crime, it's the cover-up" example because here, the crime is the point.  Betting on baseball is the ultimate no-no; more than all the steroids, collusion, bat-corking, ball-scuffing, and sign-stealing combined.  Even if baseball somehow relents and decides to make him eligible for reinstatement, he should never be involved directly with baseball games again - not as a coach, not as a manager, not as a hot dog vender.  As for the Hall, whenever he does make it, the last sentence of his plaque should read "Banned from baseball for life for betting on games."  A sad epitaph indeed.

Easy as Pi.

If you know the words, sing along...

3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974
94459230781640628620899862803482534211706798214808651328230

Not enough for you?

You can always go look at my breakdown of the classic Topps American Pie sets.  As for me, I am going to have a nice big slice of cherry pie for breakfast.

Crushing Dreams One Unsolicited Email At A Time.

       I don't understand the internet and yet I openly embrace the internet; it is a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.  This blog of mine has opened my eyes to many quirks in the world of the interwebs.  I have lots of wonderfully introspective and (IMHO) well-written posts that barely anyone has read.  I have a few hokey and sarcastic posts that have a large amount of hits.  And then there is the odd yet very revealing fact that the most read posts I have are the two that have the word "post" in the title.  And there is one post that gets a huge amount of hits on google - I even mentioned it in my last post - and I can't quite figure out why...that is my entry on miscut cards.  It gets a ton of traffic, even after almost two years, and on the google images tab, the term "miscut cards" gives you just about all of the scans from that post right on the first page. 

       Another quirk of this post is that it generates a lot of random emails from non-readers, all of them asking about the value of their miscut card (as though I am some sort of expert).  I am sure I could throw up a half dozen of these emails with a simple search through my email folders, but I will instead show you this quick exchange between me and a dude named Kyran from last week as it perfectly captures what I am trying to say to anyone who writes me one of these emails.

On Thu, June 29, 2014 at 4:47 PM, kyran r <xxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

I was checking out your cards and I have a 1976 Pete Rose miscut. Half him and half some other player. I have had it for 25 years and always wondered if it had value. Would you have an idea on its value?, its like new. Thanks

Okay, having worked at a baseball card shop and been to a thousand baseball card shows as both a vendor and a customer, I know what Kryan is looking for here.  He wants to hear that what he is holding is very rare and unusual.  He wants to hear that he is special and that he has hit the proverbial cardboard jackpot.  He wants me squeal with girlish glee and tell him wonderful amazing things about his card.  And, 99 times out of 100, hell 999 times out of 1,000, this does not happen.  Alas, this is not that one time.  While it sounds like he has a pretty neat card, it is not going to make him rich.  I had to let him down easy.  Sort of how Pete let Ray Fosse down easy.

On June 30, 2014 8:34 AM, "max meyer" <xxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

I always love when people ask what baseball cards are worth.  The first knee jerk answer is always "whatever someone will pay for them..."  The most important thing to remember is that baseball cards are not commodities as much as they are a medium of nostalgia.

Seriously, a 1976 Topps Pete Rose books for about $20-25 in near mint condition.  The modern trade of cards has rendered book value practically meaningless unless a card is professionally graded.  When a card has a quirk like a print error or a miscut, that becomes even trickier.  A professional grader will merely assess it as such and to a collector of such things, the card is pretty worthless.  To a casual Reds fan or a Pete Rose fan, the card might have amusement value but not much more.  A crazed lunatic who obsessively collects Reds or Pete Rose stuff might offer you a lot of money for it but the real trick would be finding that person.

In closing, you will not be putting the kids through college with a miscut card from the 1970's, but if you enjoy owning it, it is priceless.

Hope this helped.

max

This reply contains a lot of the rote responses I have for people when asking about the monetary value of baseball cards.   People somehow think they have intrinsic value rather than adscititious value.  However, use these words and people will stare at you like a dog that's been shown a card trick.  So I put it in terms people can understand, e.g., you won't be able to put the kids through college with a bunch of 1991 Donruss cards.  A little stark humor can go a long way. 

I must say, he took it well...

kyran r  3:32 PM (1 hour ago) to me Thanks for you're reply. So much for early retirement. Guess I'll just hold on to it for the memory. Traded a bunch off cards for it when I was young. Thought it was the coolest and I had never seen one before.  Thanks again, Kyran

Kyran put it better than I ever could when he said he "thought it was the coolest" - you can't put a price on cool.   That's the real point isn't it?  If you enjoy what you have, you cannot put a price on that happiness or satisfaction.  That goes for baseball cards or life.  Too bad he didn't send me a scan of the card, perhaps I could get more cheap hits from it. 

Who Wants It? Pete Rose Edition.

       I recently busted a blaster of 2012 Leaf The Living Legend Pete Rose that I bought at Target for $13 strictly for the autograph...but there were 10 packs of 6 cards in there too.  If the collation had been perfect, I would have gotten the entire 50 card set with 10 cards leftover to make a nine pocket page and one to put in the spokes of my bike.  Alas, that didn't happen, there were doubles and triples galore because there is no such thing as perfect collation.   Anyway, I made my page for his player collection and I don't own a bike and I put the many triples on listia.  But that leaves me with 42 of the 50 cards and I have decided I don't really want or need to make this set...
But maybe you do? I figured this is as good a time as any for another one of my anti-contest giveaways.  If you would like these 42 of the 50 cards from this set, just be the first one to comment on this post and then email me your address.  No muss, no fuss.  So, who wants it?

Tease and Re-Tease.

     Thursdays always bring me the same errands and appointments, I am kind of a creature of habit that way.  I like to have one day a week where I bang out the nonsense chores and I have found it is infinitely easier to do it on a weekday rather than a weekend.  I usually try to interject some fun into the slog of doctors and pharmacies and supermarkets, so I always stop in the card aisle of Target when my day finds me there.  I had seen on some other blogs that Heritage packs had been spotted in retail settings so today I made sure I got to the right spot.  Alas, it was not to be.  Two Targets, zero packs of Heritage found.  But there was a fine consolation prize...

A discounted Pete Rose The Living Legend blaster.  I have seen this product in a few different places and think I bought a single pack of it at one point during a former trip to Target.  I had even seen it in this cheap form amongst the blogs, but I had never come across this kind of autograph-promising blaster.  I decided to take my chances, because really, what are the odds Leaf would ever properly fill a redemption card from this product?  I tore it open and boom!

I got an autograph right in the box, just like it said.  It was even already nestled in a top loader.  So that's a pretty good trip, I got me a Pete Rose autograph for $13.  It is a halfway decent picture on the card - though it is a sticker - and in my estimation there is even a 50% chance he signed it himself and not some assistant or his crazy Asian girlfriend.  The other 60 cards in the box are mostly filler, though I am sure I will make a page out of them.  The real interesting ones are pictures of Pete in an Expos uniform or highlighting his horrible haircut and/or fashion choices.  The man was one of the highest paid players in the league during the 70's, you'd think he could get someone to do better by him, look wise. 

That blaster was the only card related thing I bought at either Target today, a rare display of restraint by yours truly.  But then I was driving home and I felt empty and unfulfilled.  What I really wanted was Heritage and a Pete Rose autograph, no matter how cool, was not going to cut it.  So while I was trapped in traffic at the 4 and 17 interchange, I darted up route 4 instead of heading up 17 and made a beeline to the one store I knew would have Heritage, a hobby shop.

So this evening I will chill out with some terrible TV and tear this bad boy open, my first hobby box of Heritage in 6 years. Some Thursdays, I will not be denied. 

A Day Late and a Father Short.

     When I decided to start this blog in the dead of winter, I didn't have a job and my social life was a barren wasteland.  Needless to say, I had spare time to spare.  Now I suddenly find myself (mostly) gainfully employed and my social calender has a little more ink splashed upon it and my blogging has suffered for it.  While most people would blame my short attention span for blog abandonment, rest assured, I have not left Starting Nine on the side of the road, nor do I plan to.  I just gotta prioritize my time these days and this poor cardblog has suffered for it.  Oh for the days when I spent all my time in my pajamas waiting for the phone to ring and I had hours to sit and think of something to write about.

Anyway, yesterday was Father's Day, which is usually a rough day emotionally for me.  For the most part, I grew up without a father - and the brief time he was around was not exactly Ozzie and Harriet quality parenting - so having a designated greeting card day allocated to remind me of that fact is not my idea of a good time.  One nice thing we did in my family a while ago is we decided, since my poor mother was the only parent, she got both holidays in celebration....and we still all get her cards and gifts on Father's Day.  And since she somehow kept me and my siblings out of prison and the morgue, it seems the least we can do.

Baseball has a rich tradition of fathers and sons, so it seems like the perfect day to showcase the good the bad and the ugly of baseball families.  First off is the absolute epitome of father/son perfection, the Griffeys.

Ken Griffey Sr. was the first player in major league history who got to play with his son at the same time he was still active.  They upped the ante when, in 1990, they became teammates and got to play together on the Mariners for a year and a half.  Then they put the cherry on top of the feel-good story when they hit back to back homers on September 14, 1990.  To me, that is the alpha and omega of father/son feats in major league history.

Bobby Bonds is probably the best father who is also the second best player in his family.

Bobby Bonds was a player way ahead of his time.  He was a speedy power hitter who struck out a ton.  These kinds of players were all the rage in the 1980's, but Bobby played all through the 1970's, for seemingly every team in the league at one point or another.  He retired in 1981 with 332 homers, 461 steals and 1757 strikeouts.  Then, in 1986, his boy Barry came up with the Pirates.  Now, I was way ahead of the curve in hating Barry Bonds, so the less said about him in my world, the better.  If he had retired in 1999 with his 445 homers, 460 steals, .288 average and tiny head, he would be a first ballot hall of famer.  Instead, he took his jerk factor and multiplied it by 10 by injecting himself with lots of B-12 and ruined a bunch of great records.  Man, all I can say is, fuck Barry Bonds.

On the other end of the jerk spectrum is Pete Rose. 

I was never a Pete Rose guy, but I could understand those who were.  Rose was never the most talented player or greatest athlete, but he played his ass off.  Sadly, his nickname Charlie Hustle now applies more to his gambling and lying about it then to his play on the diamond.  His kid, who was on a 1982 Fleer card with his dad at the age of 12, is also a disgrace even though he worked his ass off.  Even less talented than his father, Pete Rose Jr. played for a decade in the minors and then got himself a cup of coffee with his dad's hometown Reds in 1997.  Sure, it was probably a publicity stunt, but he made it.  He played in the minors for another decade, until he was busted for selling steroids.  So both father and son have been in federal prison.  Classy family.

And then there is Yogi Berra...

...Yogi could never be described by anyone as anything other than loveable.  Everyone loves Yogi Berra.  Being a swell guy does not guarantee having a fine son, unfortunately.  Dale Berra was a fringe player, and there is nothing wrong with that, but he was also a junkie and a dealer, and in the end, there is something tremendously wrong with that.  I wonder if Dale and Pete Jr. had the same parole officer?

As an aside, let's cover my favorite Father's Day moment:

...granted, it was done 11 years before I was born, but Jim Bunning throwing a perfect game on Father's Day is pretty damn sweet, even if it was against my Mets.  Jim Bunning has seven kids, so he knows a thing or two about being a father.

Right now, the best player with the worst kid recently in the majors is probably Phil Niekro.

Phil was the master of the knuckleball and won 318 games in about 1000 years in the majors.  Plus, Niekro looked old and paternal even on his earliest cards.  His kid, Lance knocked around for the Giants for a few years and then tried to reinvent himself as a knuckler as well.  That didn't go so well.  He is currently a free agent and coaching for a college in Florida.

The best "son" in the majors right now is no doubt Prince Fielder, son of the titanic Cecil.

I always had a soft spot in my heart for Cecil Fielder.  He was a big dude who hit the ball a long way.  It took him forever to establish himself in the majors, with a detour to Japan thrown in there as well, and he fell off the cliff just as quickly as he rose to fame.  He was grand and larger than life and played ball like every game was gonna be his last, I always loved Cecil.  Then he showed himself to be a bit less jolly and more of a lunatic when it comes to his relationship with his son.  They are estranged, a nice way of saying Prince wants nothing to do with his dad.  So sad.  Other than the Griffeys, it seems all these father son stories are kind of a bummer in one way or another. 

Post script- Some people believe in the triplet (game used, autograph, rookie card); I like the quad (game used bat, game used jersey, auto, rookie card).  I have a great Quad of the Fielders:

I never did find a jersey card of Cecil to complete his quad, so I have Prince in there to pinch hit.  I also love that the autograph I have from him is from his Japanese days.  That bat card didn't scan well, it is actually quite shiny and the 1986 Donruss rookie of Cecil is a great looking card.  I was never one for the 1986 Donruss design, but the Blue Jays cards look great with that border and you get that great 80's BJ logo not once but twice.  I'll have to scan and bring out some more of my quads to help keep this blog going.

Cleaning.

       It's been raining the last couple of days.  While I am not exactly Rain Man when it comes to the rain, I tend to mope around the house hoping my sinuses will stop throbbing when the spring showers come.  The rain plus insomnia led me to do a little spring cleaning.  I tackled some of the boxes I have previously shown awful pictures of; I delved specifically into some of the oddball memorabilia boxes, the stuff that is not strictly baseball cards, but more baseball card related. I will just randomly grab a few things and write about them, since I am sick of trying to figure out why I bought most of them in the first place or what the hell I am going to do with them.


OOOOoooo.... off to a good start, a couple of old school Mets pictures.  These are photographs, not cards or post cards.  I have no earthly clue where or when I got them.

The names of the players are written on the back (Al Jackson and Wayne Garrett) in different inks and handwriting.  I recognized the players, I do not recognize the handwriting (it is not mine, anyway).  These are still kind of neat and I will find a spot for them in my Mets books.  I need to catalog my stuff better, I'd like to know where these came from.

These are pretty cool too.  Some of you may have seen these before - they are from the late 70's - they are patches that are 2½" x 3½", so they are baseball card size. 

I do actually know where I got these from...a local card shop had about 1000 of each of these in a box in the back, so I bought a couple of them a while ago.  I am puzzled as to what to do with them and this is obviously not the first time I have been puzzed by them since they ended up in one of these boxes.  Should I put them in top loaders and treat them like cards, or should I find a garment and treat them like textiles?  I guess this conundrum is why there haven't been more issues like these.

OK, crazy food issue time.  It is a promo sheet of Ritz Cracker Don Mattingly cards from 1989...

...in fact, there are two of them...

...and I would be lying if I told you I didn't just look these up on ebay to find out what the hell they are.  My love of wacky food issues would usually be trumped by the subject being a Yankee, but since these aren't licensed, perhaps I made an exception seeing as the interlocked NY is nowhere to be seen.  I also found this in an envelope with these:

A Don Mattingly autograph from a 3x5 signature book.  It is not an index card but a page from one of those little scrapbooks (how odd is it to have this of a living recent ballplayer?).  Somehow, I imagine I was going to combine this bizarre cut signature with the Ritz Cracker sheet to make some kind of framed Mattingly collectable .  Or something like that.  Maybe, I dunno.  I really have no idea where I got either of these things.  Maybe I will now shift gears and make my own Donnie Baseball custom card with the cut signature, perhaps when a streak of arts and craftiness strikes me.  Sounds like a fun project to me.

Oh boy!  A box...a flat box with no identifying marks whatsoever...



It's a collector's plate.  Um, OK.  It 's all gold a shiny, even through the wrapping.  Let's see who it is...

Why, it's Nolan Ryan.  This is from Topps and it is from 1993.  I recognized the photo of Ryan from that card, but...

...the back of the plate clinched that notion as that is the back of his 1993 Topps card.  This thing fit perfectly on my scanner, which should give you some idea of the size.  I would love to eat my breakfast, lunch, and dinner off the all time strikeout king's face everyday from now until the end of time, but alas, that little blurb there on the bottom of the back says that this is a display piece and not suitable for food use.  Sad.  Yet it also says to hand wash the plate, so in a way, maybe they are daring me to eat off of it.  I just hope I didn't actually spend real money on this thing.

Let's go out on a better note than that.  I found these oddball oversized cards:

Well, I don't think they are cards, per se, it says on the front that they are pictures.  I don't remember these at all much less where I procured them.  I only have three of the packs and it says there are five.  I can't see if there is anything on the back of them.  Since they are career leaders, I assume there are some all-time greats inside.  Listings on eBay show that they are from 1983 and that they actually fold out, accordion style, just like on the front icon.  How freaking weird are these things?  I am torn, do I open them?  Tear them apart?  Sell them on eBay?  Does anybody really really want these things and has something to trade me for them?  I might keep the pitching leaders, though, no matter what, seeing as there is no doubt a Tom Seaver in there.  I just wish I could remember where I got them from.  See what happens when you don't organize and write things down?  Maybe I'll just throw all this stuff back in the box and wonder about them all over again 5-6 years from now.  Sigh.