Mail Call: Dog Sitters Aren't Supposed To Sit On The Dog.

       I recently spent a week dog sitting my brother's dog Stella.  You have seen her here before as this is certainly not the first time I have done the staycation thing with my favorite canine.  A lot of people think this is not a good way to spend your off time but I honestly cannot think of a better way.  I am not big on travel and adventure; the notion of going to Rome to see the Colosseum or to Tokyo to try to figure out a language that is way over my head sound like more trouble than they're worth.  Plus, going to Disney World with two small children, like my brother did this time around, sounds like pure unadulterated torture.  But spending a week of solitude in a large mostly secluded house with a very low maintenance and adorable yellow lab?  Pure heaven.  In fact, part of my motivation to reignite the blog came from my memories of writing curled up on a couch with the dog sleeping at my feet.

       The only really good part about coming home to real life is the big pile of mail waiting for you. Specifically the cards, the bills can go get fucked.

So let's take a look at the goodies inside these envelopes and packages.

       There is one Listia seller that I really enjoy buying from (he also has a dog as his profile pic. Coincidence? I think not...).  When I order a lot of 6 cards from him, there is always 9 or 10 in the envelope.  I like this both for the surprise and for the maximum efficiency of his mailing as this is about as many cards as you can get into a PWE before you have to add extra stamps.

Can you guess which card I bought this lot for?  Hint, it is not the Bobby Bonilla.  Oddly, it is also not the amusingly named Pete LaCock, who has a wonderful family history.  X for the center square if you knew the answer without clicking.

       There were some players I collect in that pile too.  That is a Frank Thomas I needed as well as a couple of Big Papis. Saints vs. Colts? I always like how that turns out. Also, that's Ron Meyer (no relation).

Joe Flacco has officially been categorized, the verdict is not elite.  But also, still not the worst QB to lead the Ravens to a Super Bowl victory. So he has that going for him, which is nice.

This year is an Olympic year so when I saw this lot, I had to have it to make a page.

These are 1996 Collect-A-Card Centennial Olympic Collection cards and I'd be lying if I said I had ever heard of them before.  The photography is nifty but you would expect that since the Olympics are pretty much the Olympics for sports photographers too.

       Speaking of collections, these are from the famous (and infamously overproduced) 1992 Sporting News Conlon Collection.

While this batch seems to make a tidy page, they are actually destined for other things.  A few name collections, a couple photo collections, and one is going with my Babe Ruth cards.  Your rudimentary knowledge of baseball history should tell you which.

       Okay, now things get a little more random.  That 1960 Joe Cunningham All Star card is bound for a small collection of cards that I will reveal, well, around the All Star Break (I bought that one on eBay).  That Rocky IV card is one from a set I never knew existed and captures one of the more ridiculous moments in a most ridiculous movie. Apollo Creed deserved better, dammit, and Rock should have thrown the damn towel.  I got that lot of Piazza cards for the MLB Debut insert that I didn't have but it included that UD Masterpieces which might be my favorite non-Met Piazza card. 

Lastly, I bought a set of cards on eBay that I ran into by accident looking for something else, but seeing it, I just had to have it.

        I am sure they are going for a Where's Waldo thing here, just another example of manufactured whimsy from Topps Opening Day.  While nine card sets are ideal, I don't mind ten when I can pluck one of the cards for a player collection - in this case, David Wright - and use the rest for the page (even if it includes a Chipper Jones card). 

I do love how busy this page looks and it will find a place of honor in my weird insert collection binder.  There was also a 2020 Topps blaster waiting for me, but that will have to be another post.  I needed something to cheer me up from missing that cute damn dog.

Christmas In July.

       When we last left off, I was about to open about 7000 pieces of mail that accumulated over my dog sitting staycation.  Of course to do so, I needed a staycation from my staycation (how's that for pealing out the watchword?)  Anyway, I finally got to give The Stack the attention it rightfully deserved.  Let's just hit the ground running...

I bought a very random lot of oddball 90's food issues from an ebay seller and he mailed the cards in 9-pocket pages.  With a few changes for aesthetics, this page of 1993 Jimmy Dean cards is one of the rare ready-made pages in my collection.  We'll get into the rest of the cards in this lot in a moment.

I had to reorganize the pile of mail into something I could handle.  It went from this to this:

I am going to need a second cup of coffee...I mean, there are 35 PWEs alone here:

Included amongst the Jiffy packs were some trades and contest entry winners and they will get their own write ups soon.  In fact, Night Owl already got his. 

Okay, that is enough Postal Porn, let's get back to the cards.

Also included in that madcap food issue lot were some 1992 Jimmy Dean cards, and...

...a 1992 Score P&G All Star Set.  I already have this set broken up into a page and players, so if anyone wants this one, just shout.  It has a wonderful early 90's look and checklist. 

The reason I bought this lot was it had some of the 1992 Mr. Turkey cards and I couldn't tell you why, but I find this to be one of the great all time oddball sets: the name, the design, the airbrushing, this set has it all.   I still need three more to make a page but I am working on that.

The other set in here was a 1992 French's set, something I had never seen before.  Even though this is an 18 card set, I am going to go against my best instincts and break this badboy up into a 9-pocket page and for player collections.  A few of the leftovers might even find their way to you in trades. 

I was on a real Mr. Turkey binge and also bought the 5-card 1993 Baseball Greats set. 

I nabbed this particular one, over all the others on eBay, because it came with an official Mr. Turkey Baseball Greats notepad.  All of my correspondence will be done on its pages from now on. 

I got a little carried away with my 527 eBay purchases:

The top three all came from the same seller, you know, to save on shipping.  The others all came in a combination of low price or short impulse.  I have four binders full of low price and short impulse buys on that front.  Where else can nameless/faceless rookies hang out with the likes of Mario Lemieux and Brett Favre?

Going back to early 90's oddballs, here is another set I only recently found out existed, the 1992 Upper Deck Heroes Highlights.  It is ten cards of early retro vintage goodness:

I immediately put nine of the cards into its own page courtesy of the other oddball seller.  This set is wonderful in its Upper Deck-ness: the player selection, the terrible computer color adjustment on otherwise awesome photos.  Given my love of the Upper Deck Heroes series and faux-vintage, it had to be mine.    What happened to the other card in the set, you wonder?

It is none other than Reggie Jackson and that card will go into my player collection.  It was a hard choice between his and Ted Williams but the Splinter's card just looked better on the page. 

The other cards on this scan all come from those PWEs and Listia.  I have decided to jump on the Yasiel Puig bandwagon.  I figure anyone who makes traditional sportswriters that uptight must be doing something right.  I will need six more; please check the player page want lists for further information.  Also there are two Mike Piazzas I needed and one that I didn't.  Also some nifty Goudy reprints and a 1963 Topps Dal Maxvill.  I am not 100% sure why I bought these, but hey, the price was right. 

Here are some more puzzling cards from Listia:

The top three cards were all bid upon at the very last minute for 200 credits or less.  My motivations were nothing more than "oh, look, card!"  I figure, any OPC card with a trade line is fun and the blue parallel of a Kansas City Royal is quite good looking.  I also got lots of 2010 Topps and 2014 Opening Day with the similar thoughts and theories.  I love that photo of Big Papi and not only is that EY card have a fine photo, it is his "rookie card."  Sold and sold.  While looking for a few Roberto Clemente cards, I found one Listian with a bunch of small faux-vintage lots of different players.  I won the Clemente, Al Simmons, Tony Gwynn, and Buck Leonard lots.  I am willing to bet that is the first time those four players have ever been in the same sentence together, much less the same envelope.  A simple search of Google proves my suspicions on that front to be correct, at least in the online world.

Sorry folks, we aren't even close to being done.  Did you see that pile?  I mean, this scan is just the "bonus" cards I got in all those envelopes:

I find that a lot of Listia sellers throw in random bonus cards or use non-baseball cards in as toppers.  None of these cards remotely goes with anything I bought but they are appreciated nonetheless.  The Rickey and Buster Keaton cards are especially appreciated. 

I didn't get a lot of other sports cards, but there was just enough to make up a single scan:

Those hockey cards were all nabbed last minute while I was browsing.  I bet you'll never guess why I got that first one?  That 1992 Dave Krieg finishes my Topps page for that year.  Would you believe I finished my 1960's pages before I finished the 90's?  I really didn't buy any football cards back then.  Those bottom two Prizm cards are very very shiny and those scans do them not justice. 

Speaking of shiny blue Prizm cards:

I picked up a lot of seven baseball cards and now I have to decide whether to get two more of that year or make a Frankenstein page of those shiny wonders.  I lean towards the hate side of Prizm, but shiny is shiny and those blue cards are good looking.  Of course, they don't hold a candle to the Topps Blue Refractors.  Maybe I should just send them all to Chris at View From the Skybox and be done with them.  I also picked up a huge lot of 2013 Allen and Ginter dirt cheap.  The big cards are not shown here, the minis are.  While I don't want all cards to be mini, there is something just so enjoyable about those little devils. 

Wait, where are all the Mets cards?  Don't worry, they're coming...

All these 2014 cards come from Listia, including that camo parallel Jon Niese.  I might have to do his rainbow now that I have one of his low numbered parallels.  While I usually like Mets parallels to be in blue or orange, there is something organic and baseball-appropriate about the green parallels.  Topps has used a lot of white for the base the last decade or so, but I think a light green color like this might also do nicely.  I was always a fan of the 2001 Topps set for this reason, though the color on that border leans a little too teal for what I am talking about.

This Matt Harvey comes from that Opening Day lot from earlier, but he migrated down here.

The other cards on this page are random and diverse.  The second card is a rare shown-as-a-Met Richard Hildago card.  The Orosco, Kingman, and the bottom three were all in a couple of random Mets lots I got on Listia for nothing more than I like to tear open envelopes and pull out Mets cards.  The two Tom Seaver cards are the oddest of oddballs.  The middle one is a Sportsflics-esque card from Kellogg's back in the early 90's.  I remember actually pulling this card out of a cereal box.  I couldn't remember if I still had it or not, so I picked it up for nothing on Listia.  The other card comes from eBay.   It is from 1995 and not only have I never seen it before, I can barely find any information about it.  It's a cool looking card, so my $2 was well spent.

Last but certainly not least, let's look at the non-card items:

I got a couple of 1987 Mets schedules on Listia, which actually document the fact that the Mets once won a World Series.  Stop laughing, it's true!   I also got a free Saints car air freshener on Listia because hey, free air freshener.  The other thing here that I picked up is a Mets 101 board book for my niece's 1st birthday.  Even though I am aware that indoctrinating your children as a Mets fan could be considered child abuse, please do not report me to the authorities.

Post Post.

Rejected titles for this, um, post:

       Past Posting.

       Post Haste.

       Post Tense.

       Post Modern.

       The Post With The Most.

       If You Come To a Post In The Road, Take It.

Okay, that last one is a little bonkers, but still.  Anyway, one of the most viewed entries in this blog was my dissertation on miscut cards, which itself was an off-shoot of a posting by Night Owl about the dangers and misadventures of cutting vintage cards off of boxes.  My love of oddball food issues has been pretty well documented on this blog.  What is just inexcusable on my part is that until this week, I did not own complete pages of the classic 1960's Post cards; all I had was a single example of each year hiding in the back of my retired players binder.  I am not sure what came over me, but I decided to remedy that woeful situation and bought lots of each year from the same seller (saves shipping after all).  These are the pages that came from that eBay buying spree.

1961:

The Jim Coates was the original card I had, the other eight are what I selected from a very eclectic lot.  Names like Marvelous Marv and Vinger Bend come to mind when looking at these, not to mention that Moon Shots, while impressive, are the second thing one thinks of when looking at Wally Moon - especially when looking at him.  Coming off cereal boxes, the backs of these cards are boring. but someone tried to make this one at least a little cooler. If I was a kid with a blank back, those ruboff tattoos or stickers would definitely have found their way to the vast landscape of empty cardboard. 

1962:

Post adds a little more color and a logo to the fronts of these but keeps the basic design the same.  In fact, given that they were using only one side of the card, this is really the most efficient design you could ask for.  You get a sturdy photo, a line of yearly and career stats, and a nice write up about the player.  You would be hard pressed to come up with a better one.  The Felipe Alou was the original card I had, the others chosen to fill out the page were either great names (Bubba! Blasengame!) or due to their sparsity in my collection.  I really should have more Don Zimmer and Bob Allison cards.

1963:

The design sticks to the basics of the last two, with a tip of the cap towards the 1961.  I have no idea if all these cards were owned and trimmed by the same kid or not but I must say, he did not get better with age.  Maybe he had the bad habit of eating his cereal while trying to cut the cards off the box.  The original card here was the Drysdale, which was altruistically donated by the aforementioned Night Owl after he posted about his Post cards. I must say, Post did like to get players posed with a bat on their shoulder.  I actually had to pick and choose to keep the whole page from being nothing but players with lumber on their deltoids.  1963 was a pretty good year to be a kid and a baseball card collector as you had the Post cards, the seminal Topps set, and the first Fleer set with modern players.  

Sadly, for some reason, Post stopped putting baseball cards on their cereal boxes and wouldn't make another set for 27 years.  We would have to eat Frosted Flakes and Twinkies in the 1970's and Drakes Cakes in the 1980's to fill the void.  I might have to start picking up some of those to make complete pages of them next.   If I am gonna be an oddball food issue collector, I better be willing to go all the way.

Mail Call: Double Dutch.

       As of the beginning of March, I had never traded with continental Europe and now, just six weeks later, I have done so twice - both times have been with the appropriately named Dutch Card Guy.  When I posted my Topps Heritage box break, the big "hit" I got from that box was a CC Sabathia Mint card with a 1965 nickle embedded in it numbered to /15.  A neat card for certain, but not one exactly in my wheelhouse.  Enter DCG.  I knew he was a CC collector but I wasn't sure if he'd want the card so I put it on eBay.  I got a bid on it immediately, which wasn't too surprising, but low and behold, it was by the aforementioned DCG, which was.  He messaged me that he wanted the card and was willing to bid for it.  I told him, nonsense!  I am sure we can come up with a trade for it.  He told me he had this card he pulled last year:

A coin for coin swap?  Perfection!  I pulled the card's auction immediately and we hammered out some details and this wonderful trade was complete.  I don't know if I am ready to become a Mike Trout super collector but a card like this might get the ball rolling on such a thing.  If I can trade awesome hits for cards like this, it might be doable; his cards aint cheap, ya know...

The details included that wonderful 2005 Topps Steve Trachsel red x-fractor you see below.  Those red refractors really pop and I have found for some reason, the 2005 ones really work, not to mention that is a nifty picture of The Human Rain Delay.  I didn't have a Mets one of these and now I do. As good as the scan here shows it, believe me, it is ten times shinier than that, even.

He also threw in a couple awesome unexpected goodies, that 2014 Donruss Puig and that 2008 UD Masterpiece Ryne Sandberg, great cards both, ones I did not have and will definitely keep.  So thank you once again, Jeroen, for a unique trade. I also want to thank the Dutch Postal Service, which once again got a package across the Atlantic to me in less than 10 days. Sometimes the USPS can't get things across two states in less than 10 days.

***

Also in the mail today were these two cards, both interesting in and of themselves even if on the surface they appear rather bland.

I picked up that Roy Campanella on the right from Listia and is just a glorious card.  It is a TCMA card from 1979 and it emulates the classic 1953 Bowman Color set.   It does two things for me: it completes my Campanella player page and it also shows him on a card with a full photo standing - something I neither had seen before nor owned.  Given his tragic accident, I think this was a necessity for his page. 

I picked up the other card on the left from eBay and it doesn't certainly look extraordinary at all, does it?  I mean, it is a player so obscure I had to look up since I have never heard the name - turns out Mike Leclerc had himself a decent couple of years in the NHL before retiring at the tender age of 30.  I will chalk up his anonymity in my world to the fact that he played on the west coast and the Devils don't play the Western Conference much.  I kinda like it because it shows the old garish purple and teal-green colors of the old Anaheim Mighty Ducks plus that so-awful-it's-kinda-neat logo of theirs.  It is a jersey card too, so I get to touch the fuzzy.  But the key to this card is the serial number; anyone who has dug deep into my wantlists knows I have an affinity for the number 527 and lo and behold, yes, this card is serial numbered number 527.  But there is something very special about this particular card, look at the back and see if you can spot it:

Here, I'll make it very obvious for you, in case you are missing it...

Enhance!!!

^^^^^^^ look here dummy.                               

Yes, you are seeing that correctly.  That is a card serial numbered higher than its supposed edition.  I gotta say, there is a lot of reasons that Pacific went out of business and I wanna say quality control might be one of them.  I have never seen such a thing on a trading card?  Have you?  

Heritage '14 (or is it '65?).

       I think I have bought at least a little Topps Heritage just about every year since it first came out in 2001.  Back then, it was a sensation due to the ascension of faux-vintage and some would go so far to say it was the absolute pinnacle of that trend.  After all, Topps has the deepest history of design and tradition, so it seemed right that if anyone was going to mine this properly, it would be them.  I built that first 2001 set with a lot of boxes and patience and some help from that new-fangled internet thing eBay.  I have since sold off that first set but you never really forget your first.  I think pound for pound, the most fun I have ripping boxes and packs for set building purposes has been Heritage, at least since it came out.

       But like all things, eventually the excitement died.  For me, it was around the time they stopped putting gum in the Heritage packs, which was half of the joy.  I mean, gum? With baseball cards?  What an innovation! (sarcasm alert)  In 2010 and 2011, now that I think of it, I don't think I bought any Heritage at all, since I recall those 1961 and 1962 sets being on my want list for page completion for a while.  I dabbled a little with retail purchases the last couple of years and then this year, as I covered the other day, I dove head first back into a hobby box.  I did this out of excitement and boredom.  I did this because I love the 1965 Topps set.  I did this because I am an impulsive pain in the ass.

So let's take a look at what came out of the first hobby box of Heritage I have bought since 2008 (the also beloved by me 1959 set). 

First and foremost, I have decided to not build the base set.  I don't find it as annoying and daunting as some with all of Topps' short prints and such, I just decided not to.  So the official nine pocket page will be the shining reminder of this box break:

The 1965 is such a great simple design with vivid colors.  Topps got a lot right with this set.  They integrated the new teams like the Marlins and Diamondbacks (or Blue Jays and Rockies as shown above) using the same border colors they used back in the day.  They didn't get cute.  Another nice thing is that since the team name gets smaller at the end within the pennant element, the infuriating copyright/trademark symbols Topps insists on including are deemphasized.  Both of these things go a long way to keeping the set looking very clean and pure to its roots.  I found that one or both of those things were miserable failures of the 1961, 1963, and 1964 Heritage designs.  These look as good as the 2003/1962 set did. 

The '65 backs are also wonderful and Topps also did right by those too:

The font is right, the cartoons are right, and the complete stats are always appreciated.  I also found out there is a great trick to finding out if you have one of the many short print or variations without having to go insane looking them all up.  Amongst all that disclaimer fine print is a little code at the end.  Base cards have a number of 7119, anything else has a different code.  Those specific codes can be found here and thank you for the Cardboard Connection site for teaching me that.  I have no idea if that is a new thing or not, but it is new to me. 

Speaking of short prints, these are the high numbers I got. 

At a ratio of 1:3, I got the proper amount in my 24 packs.  The Chris Davis there is both a high number and an action short print.  The portrait photography in the set is consistent with the original and it is funny how an action shot sticks out.  You certainly don't need a code to figure that short print variation out.

I don't do pack-by-pack breakdowns, so instead we will look at a few of the other base cards.

The league leader cards lead off the set and they look great.  They are also very consistent with how the original set looked, i.e. since the 1965 NL ERA leaders card only had two players on it (and two pretty damn good pitchers at that) the 2014 Heritage set only has two pitchers on it.  This is a shame because it denies me another Matt Harvey card in the set since he came in third in the league last year.  Consistency giveth and taketh away.  The Coco Crisp card is a stark contrast to his card in the flagship set with his afro brushed down instead of out.  It also sadly emphasizes his receding hairline (I feel your pain, Coco).  Carlos Beltran knows how to take care of such things, just shave it all off. The rookie cards are handled properly in this set, which is a relief since they bungled it so badly the last couple years.  They happily don't repeat anyone and they have the design correct.  It is kind of funny to see the word Diamondbacks fade away into such tiny nothingness.  On the other end of the hair spectrum, Bryce Harper's pseudo duck tail look is given full attention, which is odd because I don't know why they would take a hatless photo of him since the odds of  Bryce being traded are about even with the odds of me breaking into the Mets starting rotation.  The last two are nice photos I cannot seem to recall why I highlighted.  Let's just stick with that, they're nice.  Moving on...

One cool thing, as always, is the old school Rookie All Star Trophy...

...and I pulled six of them.  That will definitely help with my want lists.  I also am keeping the only World Series card I got and the great image of poor Ryne Sandberg managing the Phillies.  He put all those year in with the Cubs only to have them screw him over for the likes of Jim Riggleman and Dale Sveum.  That's loyalty.  Lastly is Miguel Gonzalez, the latest major leaguer to share my birthday.  Lucky Gemini.

Let's get to the parallels and inserts.

I got two chrome parallels and a single refractor, which is under-performing the claimed ratio, but since I don't really care about these cards, it's just as well.  Just about all of these cards are destined for eBay unless you see something you must have, in which case you should email me ASAP before I post them.  The New Age Performers and Then and Now are well worn veterans of the Heritage sets and these particular designs are fitting and near perfect.

More inserts:

This is how I feel about the News Flashbacks but the Baseball ones are pretty cool, especially when they are Sandy Koufax and Roberto Clemente.  I supposed Topps made them vertical this year to mix things up.  One new insert set this time around is the 1st Draft which is appropriate since 1965 was the first year of the draft.  The draft concept is one I hope they make a regular feature as it is always great to pull old stars and getting a babyfaced Nolan Ryan in a Mets uni is greatest of all.  The last card there was my big "hit" (I suppose), a CC Sabathia Mint card with an actual 1965 nickle embedded in it.  Considering I have a 1948 nickle in my pocket as we speak, I will try to contain my elation.  That it is numbered to /15 gives it all its "value" - I can't get this thing on eBay fast enough. 

Alas, in all this pack ripping, I only got four Mets (aside from the aforementioned Nolan Ryan).  Really, it is three and a half Mets since there is a Phillie prospect sullying the card with Wilfredo Tovar on it.

All in all it was not a tremendous box but luckily, also not a terrible one.  It was well collated with not a double to be found.  The set itself is very well designed and executed and it's nice to see that Topps can actually do that when they try.  I guess they figure that since this is the one real big set set-building lovers love, they better not muck it up as much as they have in the past.  I still miss the gum, though.

Mail Call: Ten! Ten Plain White Envelopes!

       Ahahahaha! Okay, well, to be all nit-picky and specific, it is nine plain white envelopes and one yellow one...

                                                                                                                                                                      ^^^ See? Yellow one.

I swear to god, my postman hoards my mail and delivers it all at once.  This represents almost two weeks of purchases on Listia and eBay all spread out on different days and yet somehow, magically, they all get delivered at once.  I mean, yeah, there was three snow storms and a holiday but still, it makes me imagine the Newman style of postal delivery.

Now sprung from their PWE prisons, what you see here is an odd mix - but really, if you read this blog with any sort of regularity, it all makers perfect sense...

In the first row, you'll see I picked off that Pujols and those two 1985 Topps hall of famers for literally nothing on Listia.  I grabbed that gold Jimenez parallel on eBay for a dollar for my pages.  In the second row is some very typical Max pickups, New Orleans Saints and New York Mets cards.  I got that Sid Fernandez for 100 credits on Listia and bought a whole lot of nine cards to secure that Hojo, which I am 98% sure I don't have.  Of course now I have 8 Mets doubles - that I will probably put on Listia.  Oh the circle of life.  The final row shows a couple of Oakland A's players who are both #527 in their respective sets.  Somehow, I still have not written my post about my 527 collection.  At least I - and by extension you - have something to look forward to.  Lastly is one of those Olivia II smutty art cards.  Shiny and boobies for free?  How could I resist?

Mail Call: You Ain't Got No Alibi.

       I acquired a few odd things on Listia and eBay this week and I was stumped as to what tied them all together.  Then I laid them out and I realized there was one very obvious trait that spanned across all of these seemingly unrelated sets and designs: they are U-G-L-Y ugly.

First off is the 2012 Panini Cooperstown:

This design is trying way too hard to be old-timey and instead looks like the framework for one of those sepia toned gangster novelty photos you'd buy at the mall or at an amusement park.  And the design is the least of the worries for this set.  Without a MLB license, Panini can't show logos.  And in not showing logos, instead of airbrushing, they decided to crop the photos in as awkward a way as possible, oddly cutting off the top halves of heads. 

2013 Panini Cooperstown is a step up from last year, but really. it had nowhere to go but up and it is a very small step.

The design and colors are somewhat better this time around. Plus they seemed to try to use better photographs and where that didn't happen, they used the hall of fame logo on top of the photo frame to do the dirty work of copyright protection.  Still, pretty terrible rather than ungodly awful. 

In 2010 I was not living near a baseball card shop, so I was never able to pick up the HTA giveaway set from that year.  I found one cheap during a search of eBay for other things and impulsively decided to grab one. Now, I had seen these cards before but never in person...

...and believe me, scans do not do justice to how ugly these cards are.  They are flat in both color and texture.  The jeweled border is too busy and the font they use over it gets lost in the busyness so you can barely read the player name.  The idea of having the MLB logo match the team colors seemed like a good idea, but the logo takes up far too much real estate and just sits there like a lump overwhelming everything else.  Due to the appalling design elements, the photo of the player only gets about 40% of the area of the card and then it gets super imposed on a background of more team colors shooting up like a demented sun ray (or perhaps those humungous MLB logos are radioactive).  If this was made in a first year GD class, it would get an 'F' and a 'come see me' on the cover page. 

Vintage players don't fair much better...

...the only slight improvement is the older style photos pop much better against all that modern color rather than getting hopelessly lost.  These would get a 'D-' instead of an 'F' from Professor Max.

Also on Listia, I bought a lot of 2013 Topps Strata football cards, a brand I had seen at Target but decided was too expensive.  Even for free, I might have gotten ripped off on these.  Take a look:

This is a design straight out of early millennium Upper Deck.  Circles and color everywhere and worse, words in the circles, all against a super-modernist metallic grey robotic background.  And as if that was not enough, Topps decided to add a team logo jutting out of the bottom element, thus giving a nice odd cover to 75% of the crotches of the players.  It's not the worst crotch logo of all time, but certainly it is a topper to an ugly ugly design.  I am getting vertigo just looking at it.

The pièce de résistance to all this hideousness is a set I never knew existed at all.  Feast your eyes on the 1991 Foot Locker Slam Fest card; they are a new low in oddball awful.  I got these off Listia and the auction showed the checklist and the promo sheet, but not the cards themselves.  I saw the players involved and decided I should own this set, wondering why this set wasn't more popular and why I had never heard of it.  Then it got to my mailbox and everything became abundantly clear:

In and of itself, the design is not atypical for unlicensed oddball giveaway cards: very large promotional logo, simple lines, red white and blue color scheme...not all that bad, really.  But, and whoa is it a big Coco but, the photos in this set are too horrible for words. 

As an unlicensed set, you know there can be no logos, and since they are advertising their store and their TV special, Foot Locker decided to get photos of everyone in the uniform from that special.  Now, special is not a word I would use for those uniforms, the word I would use is amateur...on a ghastly level.  Not to mention most of the pictures look like they were taken with a disc camera and then the photos themselves developed by a technician's assistant at K-Mart. 

I also love that it says Limited Edition on them too.  I wonder how many of these they made?  250,000?  500,000?  One million?  *pinky to lip* 

I am just gonna show the whole set of these because they have to be seen to be believed.  I had to scan them with the lid closed because they are so curled, the stock they used so cheap.  I wonder if they would look any better against a dark background?  I wonder if they would look better on fire?

If you haven't been paying attention, some of the names in this set are Ken Griffey Jr., Barry Bonds, Wilt Chamberlain, Calvin Murphy, John Havlicek, Tim Brown, Carl Lewis, Eric Dickerson, Earl Monroe, Deion Sanders - you can see why I took a chance with this one.  I might just keep it in tact in the set portions of my binders as a warning to the others.  This thing makes some of the Fleer boxed sets from the 1980's look like the 1957 Topps set in comparison.

Lastly, you can see from the backs that they issued these cards in series.  Yup, you had to go into to Foot Locker more than once to get your hands on these babies. 

There were even coupons inserted into the mix but alas, they expired in August of 1991.  Even back then though I knew Domino's Pizza sucked so it is just as well.