1995 Comic Images The National Pastime Baseball

Hopefully someone can help me out with this unusual set.

Packs of baseball cards are rare in the UK, let alone boxes. So when a box of 'Phil Rizzuto Baseball' cards with 36 packs and 7 cards per pack came up for auction on e-bay, I jumped and won. Nobody else bid, so they must have known something I didn't.

Phil Rizzuto Yankee Legend. Check.

Comic Images? Right..

ALL CHROMIUM ! OK.

It should work, shouldn't it? But I'm not sure it does.

The box offers the possibility of:

• 6 Phil Rizutto MagnaChrome cards,
• 1000 Phil Rizutto Autograph cards,
• 'Diamond covers' 3- card subset,
• Limited Edition Medallion Card.

Here's one of the 36 (actually 30ish now-I gave some away)packs.

Judge for yourself.

47 Japanese Poster.

A 1950's poster advertised a game in the Japanese major leagues' Pacific Division.

40 Patsy Dougherty

A 1910 tobacco card featuring a well-known outfielder for the Chicago White Stockings.

33 Lorillard Chicago BBC

Lorrillard a tobacco company issued four trade cards in 1885. Each card featured a different team; this one is of the Chicago Base Ball Club, otherwise know as the White Stockings.

58 Scorecard Artwork

A 1940's illustration of a postcard issued by the St.Louis area tourism board.

25 Cincinnati American Association

An 1882 team photo. The card goes onto explain that uniforms were not worn by teams but that each position had a specific uniform. As a result, every catcher in the league could be identified by his uniform as could every left fielder, pitcher, second base, etc. Apparently it was a short lived practice.

64 Casey at the Bat

The art of the weekly children's magazine 'St Nicholas'. The message of the cartoon encouraged children to follow their dreams just like Casey.

48 Safe Hit Vegetable Crate Label

Baseball was all the rage in the 1930's and its images were popping up all over. This is label for fruit and vegetable crates.

Sorry there it is no MagnaChrome, autographs or Diamond studded subsets in this pack.

Plenty of plain old CHROME though and factoids about baseball.

Help me out!!

A Different Kind of Pack (2006 Parody Playing Cards)

While finding images of cards for my Indians Uniform countdown, I came across a card of Ken Keltner that showed him in caricature on a playing card. After searching the 'net for a while, I discovered the source of the oddball: Hero Decks by Parody Productions. Specifically, this is called "Hero Decks presents Cleveland Baseball Heroes."


Players are featured on standard playing cards, each featuring the years they played with the Tribe and a tidbit of that player's history with the Indians.


There are 52 different players, which surprised me because I figured the deck would simply repeat after the first suit. Wrong!!


Some of the information is funny, while some of it is simply a list of facts. I personally liked the "Nap" card blurb...


As you can see, the deck represents players from the team's beginnings up to 2006, including heavy hitters, all-star hall-of-famers and fan favorites.

You might want to see if they make a variation for your favorite team... It's one of those weird oddball things that you can show off to whomever it is you show your collection off to...

Letting in the oddball... (1986 Topps Tattoos)

When Ben Henry sent an "open cast call" to join P-A-D, I jumped at the chance. Little did I know that when my confirmation came, I would be heading to the Urologist to "have some work done." In a twist of fate, the doctor performing the procedure (yes, the same one Bob Barker recommended for pets) was named Dr. Pickelman. I digress for the sake of making as many folks on here wince as possible. If you happen to stop by my place (Indians Cards), you know that I am fond of the oddball items that are offered up in the name of collecting. Naturally, my first foray into the P-A-D family will be a reflection of myself - an oddball:

Yes, that is the unopened wrapper of a 1986 Topps Tattoos pack, featuring the banned-from-the-hall-forever, i-did-not-wait-yes-i-did-bet-on-baseball Pete Rose.

Each pack featured a piece of Topps gum, and this particular piece is now 22 years old. I had to stop my 5 year-old from popping it into her mouth! Naturally, the temptation to take a nibble of nostalgia pulled me in, but somehow that college degree in stupidity that I earned so long ago stopped me from a probable trip to the local poison control center... Then again, how bad could a 22 year-old piece of gum be for you?

The tats come on long two sheets of nine rows. Through the magic of digital image manipulation, I present half of the tattoos above, flipped so you can see what they might look like when applied to your arm, or forehead, or other preferred portion of one's anatomy. In addition to various named players, each sheet also features non-descript players in a variety of poses. After all, what kid wouldn't like to have a no-named player fielding a grounder on the back of his hand, right? This first set shows the likes of Charlie Leibrandt, Dickie Thon, Lee Smith, Dave Winfield, Julio Franco, Brian Fisher, Dale Murphy, Shawon Dunston, Bret Saberhagen, and Jesse Barfield. I may need to volunteer my daughter's arm in the name of research to see if these will still actually serve their purpose twenty-two years later...

The second (flipside) example from the pack has a lot more of the no-name poses than of named players. However, at least the players include Keith Hernandez, Goose Gossage, and Eck! Plus, there is a Moose to go with our Goose. Throw in Perconte and Moore from the Mariners to round out the pack.

I have an nearly full box of these unopened packs, so if you are interested in trading, by all means drop me a line and I'll send ya a pack. In return, send me whatever you feel gives the equivalent amount of collecting joy.