My Biggest Baseball Card Day, Ever

 

I have been both eagerly anticipating, and completely dreading, this particular day for a long, long time.

Today I finally discovered whether I still own my childhood Baseball Cards.

How could I lose track of such a thing? Well it wasn't a deliberate decision, that is certain.

Some 20 years ago now, my seasonal life working in different states at different times of year went through a difficult period as my Michigan apartment building was going to be re-modeled. I had a sweet deal there, only having to pay half rent the months I was gone, as my landlord didn't want to lose a tenant (I did mention this was 20 years ago). So with that economic fact and the concept of moving everything I owned out of a 2nd floor apartment and then back again, later, I wanted to cut a deal.

What we worked out was that I would put all of my possessions in one corner of the building while the first apartment was rebuilt. When it was done, that one would be mine and all of my possessions would only have to be moved 10 yards.

After many twists & turns to the story, I eventually learned that my former sweet deal of half-rent for an unused apartment couldn't continue, as my landlord had used public financing of some sort for the remodeling, and the State would now be a participant in the financial end of the renting, which also came with new low income eligibility requirements - no special deals for part-timers. Simultaneously, down at my winter job I was starting up a new business partnership with a co-worker after our previous employer retired - & I needed every last cent I could scrounge. I managed to avoid selling off Baseball Cards, that time, but I could not pay the many months of now full rent for an apartment I wouldn't be living in while launching a new business.

So down all those stairs (extra-tall first floor in a downtown business building) went all of my possessions. Or, almost all. I knew already at the time that a few things were missing, as contractors had been in the building for about a year at that point. But I couldn't worry about it, right then. Everything went to a storage unit and out-of-state I went.

Subsequently, I never could quite get that storage unit emptied, as I lived on-the-road (jobsites) ever more & more. Years passed. New Baseball Cards accumulated. Online Baseball Cards appeared in my life, which was-is wonderful. But all new Baseball Cards inevitably reminded me of my childhood Baseball Cards. And that, was only partially pleasant.

A couple-three years ago now, I finally emptied that old storage unit, after another sweetheart deal finally drew to a close. I was both eagerly anticipating, and dreading, that particular day for a long time. The dread hit, very hard — my record collection assembled in college was largely destroyed by what proved to be a leaky storage unit. The music on all those records is fine, but the value of them is generally gone (molded covers). Many thousands of dollars worth of value.

Plenty of my book collection had also succumbed. However this was only a problem amongst certain boxes stored directly on the floor; most possessions were just fine.

But - my childhood Baseball Cards weren't in that storage unit. The horror, the horror.

I did find a few card items, that might make for an interesting post one of these days, as it included an unopened Hobby Box of a mid-10s product. And my college days Baseball Cards had been with me all along, as those had been acquired after leaving the "nest."

The problem created by emptying the storage unit was simple. If my childhood Baseball Cards weren't in there, that meant either I had wisely trundled them back over to my parents' house on the concept of general Security - OR they had been in my old apartment, accessible to a random melange of contractors for a year. As I have described them before, they became Schrödinger Baseball Cards.

The only way to prove their existence, was to go spelunking in a cavern like this one:

That's the closing image from the first Indiana Jones movie, showing the audience where the Ark of the Covenant ended up.

My Dad's basement isn't that large of course, but it was stuffed to the gills with antiques and his lifetime of possessions, some of them valuable, some of them not. Except of course, to him, for whom they were ALL valuable and needed to be kept. Forever.

My Dad is still with us and will be for some time, I can report, but now that he can no longer walk the steps into his own basement, he has finally relented on allowing us to begin sorting it all out.

And after many months and weeks of occasionally hauling things to Goodwill, or Recycling, or the trash can once a week, or a Safety Deposit Box, I could finally reach an area of shelving holding a half dozen remnant boxes of my "stuff."

So today, my final 5 yard journey to find the fate of my childhood Baseball Cards commenced. Truly a pity I hadn't spent my many years of Odyssey away from them eating Lotus flowers with Charlize Theron (how pleasant that would have been), sigh.

What I was mainly on the look-out for, was the image seen above already -

The Topps Super Sports Card Locker

Although my childhood collection was a fair bit larger than what could fit in that well beloved Baseball Card product of my childhood, I was particularly far more keen to find it than a few shoe boxes of cards, because I believed my collection of 1975 Topps, the first Baseball Cards packs I had ever opened, would be inside. 

Instead,

The horrors didn't return as I had finally found the Super Sports Card Locker inside a box sitting on top of the crucial shoe boxes. So I knew my 75s were now just one more box lid away.

Reunification with 8 year old me's key collecting accoutrement was interesting. I kinda screwed up using it, by putting the little team labels down at the bottom of the card slots, instead of on the side panels as intended.

I have long been planning to put this device back into use, as each and every year I still faithfully first sort Series One cards by team, to help me know which player plays on which team - isn't that the point of Baseball Cards? Only much later will I ever re-assemble a set by card number.

Alas, these days the Super Sports Card Locker wouldn't quite work to lovingly pull out an under construction "Team Set" when my favorite team has a new opponent to study, as there are only 26 card slots. Because this product was created before the Mariners and Blue Jays joined Major League Baseball. 

The Locker is a cheerful celebration of sports however, let's admire a little:

Art by Ray Hammond

I think if I peel the protective plastic layer off the front/doors of this storage product, it too will look acceptable once again. So it seems likely come next February I will be putting some cards back in this, although the M's & Jays, and Rays & Marlins, will just have to squeeze in with some extra bunk mates, somehow.

Finally after that very short initial dopamine hit from Memory Lane, there they were:

Reunited

and it feels so Good!

1975 Topps!

I must have sure been proud of my collection of whichever set of Topps "Big" is sitting there next to my truly beloved. I'm sure I'll look through that stack of cards, someday. But not, Today. Today, is 1975 all over again. Hooray!

That picture doesn't reveal a simple thing - my modest collection of The Minis. That stack there with the Mike Marshal '74 Highlight is all Minis. Those came into my collection a few years after 1975, once my family had moved to Michigan, where all my new neighbors could only purchase Minis in 1975. I'm glad to have them, and they almost certainly explain the complete absence of doubles/dups in my regular size 1975 collection. Those are the other 2 stacks in the little shoe box, one standing vertically, one horizontal there next to Big Orel Hershiser. 

And thus I ended up with a new-all-over-again First Card, for 1975 Topps:

Unfortunately, I have zero idea why this card appeared on top of the stack of cards.

But, that's OK.

This card proved to be the just exactly perfect Baseball Card to dive into another long-awaited card enjoyment: finally reading Night Owl's 1975 Topps blog, some 14 years after I discovered it. I could never bring myself to start into that, knowing that Schrödinger's cat might have died in that storage unit, or a shifty contractor employee's grimy hands. So today has another wonderful and long hoped for milestone: really learning just who some of these players really were. And my first specific, as in, by-card-number reading of NO's blog revealed the mystery of that batting helmet, at long last, courtesy of another courteous reader of that entry, in the comments.

The mystery of the stack continued. Let's go back 51 years...

In a little better shape than the Brooks, but what was the connection? Was I pulling Stars out of the little slots in the Super Sports Card Locker, 20 years back? 

   Maybe.

What a relief to know I really do own my own copy of this Baseball Card, so easily memorable courtesy of Purple + Pink. And mine is as AUTHentic as it gets with centering like that. Just exactly perfect.

And I was of course, yeah, reading the backs, immediately. This one supplied the first treat:

- as the Topps card back writer gives us a sly reference to Ryan's nickname there in the cartoon / trivia question.

That little trio of cards soon surrendered to proper Baseball Card organization as decided on by 8 year old me: team by team, is The Way.

Thus next appeared a robust amount of 1975 Topps Detroit Tigers, probably reinforced significantly in the later years of the decade by my neighbors, after rounds of backyard Home Run Derby.

That held an answer to something I had been wondering through the 2010s, on the next card, as well as informing a bit of up-to-the-moment Baseball action -

What I had been wondering all through Lamont's run coaching for the Tigers while Jim Leyland was managing all those great teams 20 to 10 years back now - was where did Lamont play in the Bigs (Detroit, surprise), and what position (Catcher, like oh so many Managers, Coaches, and Broadcasters)? 

This card is a perfect one to enjoy for me today, as the Tigers' next series is with Pittsburgh, where a Fan Favorite from those Leyland teams, Don Kelly, is the Manager now. And he has in turn hired Gene Lamont to be his Bench Coach. 1975 Topps, still part of The Game. I would have to think Gene Lamont has to be the very last MLB paycheck receiving 1975 Topps card though. The 3 broadcasts this coming week will be a little sweeter now.

The Tigers collection also held an entry for my newest and long-overdue Player Collection, though that one was not launched until events in 1978:

Following along soon after was another Player Collection need, on another robust team effort as my Mom's family was from Missouri -

The team organization quickly made me move into a let's-cut-to-the-chase mode, no matter how much I was loving each and every Baseball Card flashback to 1975.

The one card the most on my mind though all those years of uncertainty,

was this one:

I'm fairly sure this Baseball Card is not considered one of the better Hank Aaron Baseball Cards ever made. 

But for me, THIS IS MY ALL-TIME FAVORITE BASEBALL CARD.

And it's not really close to the 99 other cards that might be in 2nd place. I pulled this Baseball Card from a wax package at some point during the 1975 Baseball season, with still fresh memories of being summoned to the TV set by my otherwise not-sports-fans-at-all parents, when Hammerin' Hank became the new Home Run King not long before.

And now, I owned Hank Aaron's Baseball Card! How freaking cool is that?

Infinitely cool. 

And even though I could have purchased a copy of this card at any time in about the last 40 years, a new copy wouldn't be MY ALL-TIME FAVORITE BASEBALL CARD, because it wouldn't have been the one I pulled from a pack. Simple as that.

Now of course, one can't peruse a stack of 1975 Topps Baseball Cards without pondering the two most famous cards in the set. I presumed I had pulled both of them as a youth, & -

- yeah, I'm still reading the backs and learning the workings of Major League Baseball.

Do you know how old Robin Yount was during his Rookie season in 1974?

18.

I did not know that until the year 2026, all thanks to Topps Baseball Cards. Truly an impressive stat when you think about it.

Alas, it does not appear that 8 year old me lucked into owning the other key Rookie card in the set, for a player on Kansas City's team. A slight disappointment to be sure, but that's nothing compared to the immense Joy I re-obtained today, with the Baseball Cards my Mom didn't throw out.

For now though, I have some Baseball Cards to read. Cya soon...

My last pack of Baseball Cards?

 

No, I am not quitting Baseball Cards, new, or old. I do however sometimes feel that Baseball Cards are quitting me. This is one of those times.

I can't shake the feeling that this "pack" shown above is the last "pack" I might ever be able to purchase.

I have always preferred absorbing Baseball Cards one "pack" at a time. And by "pack" I mean the single small package of a dozen or so cards, generally sold from a box holding a few dozen "packs."

Now, I can -almost- no longer purchase the classic "pack." The "pack" shown above is a 'Hobby' "pack," as designated by the illuminati-esque capital-H logo that says 'Hobby Edition' in the circle there (I had to use a magnifier to read it). 

I purchased the pack at my always friendly LCS this afternoon, some 6 days after the official Street Date for Series 2 of the 2026 Topps Baseball set. The shop received their S2 boxes several days late this year.

When some Baseball Card products release, my LCS will open a box and sell single packs from it. But once that box is emptied, "packs" are no longer sold there, from brand new Baseball Cards anyway. 

Elsewhere, single "packs" aren't really sold either. For about 10 years or so, I could purchase one "pack" at a time from my local Big Box store known as Meijer. That Michigan based chain is most known to Baseball Card collectors as the source of 'Meijer Purple' parallels, which arrived in a 'blister' that included the one parallel card and one retail "pack" of S1, S2, or Update, albeit with occasional hiccups in whether Update had Purples created for it.

Last year, the 'Meijer Purple' ceased to exist, in favor of another parallel called the 'Meijer Tinsel Foil.' I suspect that probably further hurt sales of the blister packs, which had obviously been in decline for some time. I say that because the blister packs with the single "pack" just sat on the shelves by the dozens, sometimes with multiple years available. Meanwhile various repack products routinely included the purple parallels, which indicate they went back to the distributor to be opened for use in repack products.

So when the blisters with the single "pack" didn't appear for 2026 Series One, I wasn't completely surprised, and knew I would probably have just this one last chance to buy a cheap single "pack" of Topps Baseball Cards, a routine activity for me ever since I was 8 years old. 

Topps still manufactures single "packs" of Baseball Cards - they arrive in what is called a "Display" or "Retail" box. This year they feature 14 cards, in boxes of 20 "packs." But I know of no retail store that still uses these to sell a "pack" of Baseball Cards. Target stores did for a time into the 2010s, but I haven't seen that packaging format at Target in many years now. Elsewhere, perhaps these can still be seen "in the wild," I suppose. But I don't expect to see the classic individual "pack" of Baseball Cards, ever again, unless I am able to visit a cooperative Local Card Shop right close to release time, which isn't always easy for me to do.

Ironically, as part of the very same purchase today, I also obtained a 'fat' / 'cello' / 'rack' / 'hanger' pack of 2026 Topps Series One Baseball Cards at my very same LCS. They sell a lot of retail Topps Baseball Card formats, but they aren't allowed to sell them until a certain number of weeks after the Street Date for the product. And they never obtain the display/retail box with single packs, either.

You may have noticed the single pack I scanned way back up there wasn't exactly cheap either. $8.75 for 12 Baseball Cards. Whereas the 'fat' "pack" I purchased at the same time was just $8 for 36 Baseball Cards. That's the price of Lottery Tickets, essentially, as a 'Hobby' "pack" has a higher chance of hitting an autograph from a young man in his early 20s who is destined to soon have a Major League career of Pitching just 39 innings or so. That is surely worth paying 3x retail prices, isn't it?

It was a great package of S1, too. A bunch of the League Leader cards I wanted, several Tigers, including Tarik Skubal, and also a Paul Skenes card - both Cy Young winners in the same package. I also pulled Houston's Hunter Brown while he was pitching tonight, a Baseball Card experience I always appreciate. The 3 inserts were also very good - I hadn't seen 2026 Stars of MLB insert yet (better than 2025), because that was my first (and last?) taste of 26 S1 retail...

I purchased the fat pack of Series One today because it is probably my last chance to open some Series One this year. I purchased a small stack of Hobby packs back on release day for S1 in February, then got real real busy at work. And before I knew it, 2026 Topps Series One pretty much sold out, everywhere. Sure, I could still order some. But I just like to purchase a few Baseball Cards with my groceries, a "pack" or two a week keeps me happy. 

That is no more. 2026 Heritage is no longer for sale, either. Until Series Two has rolled along, the grocery stores I frequent pretty much had no Baseball Cards for sale. During Baseball season. Massive piles of every other kind of trading card imaginable, but no Baseball Cards. During Baseball season.

So, I am not optimistic about my future of simply enjoying Baesball Cards whenever I buy groceries. I guess that's now just too much to ask of Life, and this always ever more Dollar obsessed Hobby. I will still purchase brand new Baseball Cards, when I see them. But how often will I see them?

Ok, ok, I can't wait any more either. What will be my last (?) First Card from a single retail "pack" of Baseball Cards?

Bummer. I just ripped the foil wrapper on my last "pack" of Baseball Cards. I collect the wrappers, too. Or, did.

I am live-blogging the results here. Sorry, no pop-up What Not store to offer these incredibly valuable collectibles for sale. You'll have to go find your Lottery Tickets on your own. Good luck.

Now, let's take a look...

Yay!

A player I really like.

A cool image, always nice to see something unique, rather than it being used by Topps for some limited edition card instead.

Kwan is having an uncharacteristic poor season; I hope he gets over what is nagging at him. I can't say I am all that optimistic about the Guardians' chances later this season after they got swept at home by the Evil Empire last week. I root for all the teams in the Central Divisions, the AAAA League that loyally keeps Baseball working on the coasts, where it matters.

At least I will remember that card, easily. Onwards...

another easily memorable card

...of a player not playing this year, oops. (PED suspension, followed by injury)

I do like the 2026 horizontals; this design is growing on me much more than 2025 ever did.

another small victory

I quite like the Future Stars cards this year

I collect them, every year

&, I just finished listening to the Tigers-Astros game

this is why I buy brand new Baseball Cards

to see what the players look like

A Series Two standard - a sort-of journeyman, sort-of backup Catcher

a lot of complete Baseball players in 2026 Topps Baseball,

seems to me - not a torso-after-torso-after-torso set. Good.

'nothin but net?

I thought I was looking at a Basketball Card there upon first glance

I'm not sure what Lourdes is doing there in that image as he approaches third base, but I suspect it might be against the Unwritten Rules perhaps. Maybe this is OK if Arizona's dug-out is on the third base side of the field at home, so his ... gesture? ... is for his teammates. 'Cuz otherwise I would expect some chirping.

This card is quite a contrast to a bunch of cards I saw this afternoon as I delightfully lost myself in some Dollar Boxes at the LCS. Those were absolutely loaded with various Bowman and Bowman Chrome cards, 'cuz Baseball Cards are all about Prospect Baseball Cards. Those Bowman sets were so jammed with Batters Batting and Pitchers Pitching - and almost zero other images - I bet the Fanatics Baseball Card miners assigned to Bowman production must sometimes fall asleep at their workstations. Am glad to see this image diversity in 2026 Topps Baseball. Let's hope the roll continues -

who? more Series Two, that's who

Just as I babble about a Hitters Hitting card I immediately hit one. This card gave me huge flashbacks to all those Bowman cards this afternoon, but for a different reason - in those cards I kept seeing a Detroit Tigers card of a player I had never heard of, last name of Massey. I hate it when I see a Baseball Card of my favorite team and I can't even figure out who it is on the card. Thus I don't Bowman, bro.

You can't stop Series Two.

You can only hope to contain it.

the Baseball Card gods are smiling on this last "pack"

the best "packs" have a card from your favorite team in it

luckily for the Topps Baseball Card miner creating up-to-date Baseball Cards via software wizardry, the Tigers had #59 available for Valdez to wear this year, too

bonus points for this being the 2nd card in the "pack" to be from tonight's game

I love Baseball Cards

two leg-kick cards in a row

how cool is that?

I'm slowly falling into a Hunter Greene collection, maybe. That's probably more because I keep finding him on cards I want for various themes; he was a Dollar Box score just this afternoon for a "None More Red" collection you will see here, some day. Dig the red glove on this card, too.

But, yeah, I read the backs...on this Baseball Card I learned that Hunter Greene already has 500 strike-outs, and here I haven't even got his Rookie Card onto a binder page yet. So many Baseball Cards, so little time.

And your 2004 Major League Leader in Hits was...

ain't no insert like a Series Two insert,

I'll just say that

Cesar Izturis, batting for the Dodgers, was 10th in Hits in 2004

bet you didn't know that

Central Division hot pack!

who needs all those famous Baseball Players from the coasts

I've got Series Two Baseball Cards to entertain me

if you are thinking this card might depict a Home Run trot,

well you had always best read the backs,

which confirms the suspicion by talking up Wallner's Homers

well played, Topps

plus, I gots me some Canadia!

They are Central-division located, kinda-sorta,

so a Central-division team kinda-sorta finally made the World Series again

Great Lakes division? 

works for me

the back of this card really didn't work out for the Topps Card Back writer

it has Jays manager John Schneider declaring:

"Tony is going to be huge for us."

sorry, Jays

Santander (as with Johan Rojas) hasn't played this year. For me, this card is a perfect example of something that is really nagging at me about the game of Baseball: Veterans are becoming pointless to hire. To succeed in the game today, human bodies must be so perfectly fine tuned to perfection that they then can't handle regular athletic activity. Mike Trout and Kris Bryant are the poster children for this problem, amongst 2010s stars. On the Tigers we are seeing this now with Gleyber Torres; a great re-signing who really lengthens their line-up - when he can play. Which is not often, any more. Gonna need more Bowman cards, sigh.

nothing says 'fallen-hot-prospect-now-just-good-everyday-player' 

quite like moving to Series Two

Well I certainly won't forget my last pack of Topps Baseball Cards. That's just how my brain (mostly) works, sometimes. Blogging about cards does help in that regard. I hope you enjoyed them, and I hope the retail businesses of the world, or, more specifically, northern Michigan, somehow, somewhere, step up and bring back a single pack of Baseball Cards for me to purchase. Please?

And then the repacks came back

 

The other day right here on this very blog I was musing about how I could ever hope to find, umm, "older" Baseball Cards via my preferred method of: completely randomly.

This used to be easy to do via "repack" products.

But things change in Life, which is what creates "reactionary" people. I could no longer buy repacks in my preferred style of just a big stack of cards, randomly stacked together, from multiple decades. Two things had happened. 

First, the large distributor "MJ Holdings" which handles retail Baseball Card distribution into WalMarts and, in my town, Meijer, basically abandoned loose card repacks. They still produced repack products, of a sort; instead of packing cards in what they now call "Mystery Box"es, they pack packs into them. As in unopened packs. This can excite people when the wrappers are just visible enough to be identifiable, but that excitement might be a bit of a fool's errand in desiring retail base rookies. If I had wanted a 3 year old pack of Topps Chrome I would have purchased it 3 years ago.

Even before the development of the Mystery Boxes, MJ had been selling loose cards in their line of "Power Cube" products. These were quite disappointing; it was clear they were created by MJ simply opening unsold card product, extracting anything of potential value to sell elsewhere, and then dumping the left-overs into the "Power Cube." The result would be getting a stack of 59 base cards from a 3 year old product, leavened for variety with a 2nd stack of 38 base cards from a 4 year old product, and 3 high print run inserts from one or the other. Boring.

The other bye-bye repacks development in my little ole home town was that my local Walgreens quit selling cards altogether. They are serviced by MJ's main competitor in retail card distribution, Fairfield, who also handles cards for Target and thus have access to the same mountains of unsold retail card packages as MJ does.

Fairfield also sells "repacks" that are just randomly assembled sealed packs from unsold blasters, mainly. But for a long time they still offered repacks that featured 100 loose cards in a box, for about a Five spot. Those were clearly assembled by fans of Baseball Cards as the "cover card" you could see before purchasing was often a limited edition card created for distribution at "The National" - the ultimate/biggest Sports Card show in the country. 

Not surprisingly, that soon inflated in price some while also switching to a 50 card + 1 loose pack format. The glory of 100 random cards at 5¢ each was already an obtusely pricey way to find a small handful of "keeper" cards, but it was fun. At 10¢ per....you might think about it a little much.

Unfortunately even that fun disappeared once my local Walgreens once again dropped cards altogether. 

The other day I scrounged up some motivation on this topic and asked Google, hey, what's up with loose card repacks? It couldn't parse that question too well but eventually I got things rolling with a variety of search term combinations. 

Turns out, Fairfield still produces what it calls "Collector's Edge" boxes and they are sold at Walgreens. The weblinks on my laptop screen even suggested that the Walgreens in my very own small little town had some of these ... IN STOCK! 

I felt this had to be an error. Turns out, the Internet is quite adept at helping you buy whatever your heart desires, whenever you wish. But I expect you already knew that. So yesterday thanks to the combined efforts of a mega corporation, a large corporation, and one small corporation, everything on my screen was true and I was soon the new owner of a box promising me:

and that's precisely what I wanted.

Let's peek at the insides -

This created some concerns. A 2023 Topps Baseball Christian Yelich card is not what I wanted in a repack. (Baseball aside - I find Yelich cards depressing in that they remind me of the inequities within Baseball far too much. The small market Brewers sign an MVP to a going-rate, premium contract and then the whole project falls apart when the MVP is injured a couple times, blowing up their payroll budget for little reward. Something which contributed to seeing their latest high-quality player, Willy Adames, leave in Free Agency. Without the Yelich contract, still not generating the necessary ROI, could the Brew Crew have kept Adames? Rob Manfred and Scott Boras will never tell. None of that is in any way Yelich's fault of course.)

Aside from the buzz kill of the specific player on the First Card, I was also disappointed to see a 2023 card there at all. The other elements in the picture were somewhat expected - there is still unopened Junk Wax packs out there. I mean, I do my part by buying these goofy repack products and then opening that wax, but I can't seem to keep up with denting the supply.

It's not completely clear in that photograph, but just above the wax pack was a stack of white cards, clearly all from the same product. This is not unusual in a repack but with a 2023 card on top I was already worried the repack would be no different than what I could find by just randomly reaching onto my own card desk still covered with stacks of cards from the last several years. I want old Baseball Cards in a repack, not new ones.

It was too late however, my $6.50 in cash had already been deposited on the barrelhead at Walgreen's and the surprisingly strong cardboard box holding these treasures had already been destroyed. With a bit of a deep breath, I soldiered on:

This was very comforting. It is a little known rule of Baseball Cards that a true repack product can't be assembled without a representative from 1989 Donruss.

An upside-down card was also a great sign that the cards would be decently randomized, rather than being just all from some same recent set.

I quite liked that I instantly recognized that iconic scoreboard, too.

Obligatory Oooohhh, Shiny

Not as exciting as some 1990s Pacific that I always hope for. I can't say I understand a reason for Topps Gold Label to exist (again), unless maybe it is supposed to keep the nostalgia fires lit for the 1990s:

The amazing thing about the 2 Fleer Flair cards is that they were issued in packs 30-ish years ago, stuck in some sort of container somewhere for a long long time, shipped to the repack factory, then placed loose in a cardboard box which was put in a bigger box and then loaded on a truck with several forklifts involved before being unloaded out back of my local Walgreens and then jostled around in a big plastic tub of toys and stuff before finally being hung on a peg for me to find. And they still have 4 sharp corners! I grade them in Mint+ condition (gloss not even scratched!) though for everyone else in the uptight 21st Century that is surely just a PSA 4.

Mandatory Hall-of-Famer

This was another wonderfully re-assuring find, proof positive that the loose-card-repack rules were being respected at Fairfield. Everybody knows you can't just stuff packages of Baseball Cards full of players nobody knows or likes. Kills the return business. Are you listening, Topps?

That was something I long understood about repacks: 1 Hall-of-Famer, every time, despite all that this-isn't-really-gambling legalese Baseball Card companies are legally required to try to fool us with. Sure, it's just another 1989 Donruss Baseball Card worth precisely 0.0¢ in the Real World. But if I were to assemble a small collection of just Hall-of-Famers pulled from repack products, well, after a while that would be some eye popping pages of Baseball Cards. Sounds like a challenge. Accepted.

And did you know they actually let Hall of Famers do something called "Bunting" back there in the 20th Century? Man what a weird game Baseball was, back then.

1st Educational Card

Did you know that Mike Trout played enough Baseball in the year 2022 to make it on to a League Leader card? Amazing. I did not know that.

I surely just left this card in a pile along with its pack mates when I saw it for about 1.3 seconds back in about April, 2023. There was no way I could retain this key factoid from out of all those crazy triangles and pseudo triangles all over the place. Until this repack got the job done by simply handing me the card upside down, information first style.

Mike Trout hit 40 Home Runs in 2022 - in just 119 games. Confession Time: I had non-Baseball Card help with that 2nd part. Amazing. Quite the star-powered card there. But then that's the way a Home Run Leaders card should be.

Most Existential Crisis Card

What If?

Bowman cards -aren't- Photoshopped?

Could I still dislike them as much?

This card grabbed my attention immediately. That particular Sox logo is only supposed to be seen on warm-up jackets several decades back; it is rarely seen on cardboard. The official ChiSox logo in the 80s (as already seen here on that 89 Donruss) isn't the same as this uni doesn't repeat Chicago White Sox underneath.

At first, I thought this was a Photoshopper down in the Bowman mine just lazily pasting Sox logos on some photo of Dylan Cease from a Minor League game. That's because in standard Baseball Card fashion, the card informed it was a 2018 card by listing 2017 as the previous year's stats for Cease. And I knew he didn't come up to the Bigs until 2019.

But as a nice stroll around White Sox uniform history finally revealed to me, this is a real uniform — their Spring Training uniform. Those are something I almost never ever see; even then largely via Baseball Cards and Baseball Cards only, and such Baseball Cards are quite few and far between. Few Spring Training games are ever televised to start with, and I still don't own a Television. Just, Baseball Cards.

The I-did-my-own-research 2020s achievement badge was granted when I finally tracked this down in the Getty database; this is a real photograph -

GLENDALE, ARIZONA - FEBRUARY 28: Dylan Cease #85 of the Chicago White Sox pitches against the Texas Rangers on February 28, 2018 at Camelback Ranch in Glendale Arizona. (Photo by Ron Vesely/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

I would have never in a million years ended up owning a copy of that Dylan Cease Baseball Card if I hadn't "wasted" $6.50 or so at my local Walgreens yesterday. Would I pay $6.50 for that Baseball Card? No, I wouldn't even pay 50¢ for that Baseball Card. But it will look great on my page(s) of unique Chicago White Sox uniform thingie stuffs. Way to go, repack.

Only the best Names

I laughed. Sorry, Tom. I mean, what do you think 11 year olds did back in 1990?

Yesterday I saw some big confirmation that the easier-than-falling-off-a-log decision to keep the "35th Anniversary" design re-use dealio will continue in 2025 Topps Baseball sets. How did I learn this? I saw the mock-ups for the big news that Barry Bonds is coming back to Topps next year. Hurry and pre-order your pallets & cases, now.

The good news is that Topps does seem to understand that the 1990 design is improved immensely when Team-Color-Match is used on it; the Pirates card shown for Bonds went straight to that principle. I do have to give the 1990 Lichtenstein/Mondrian-esque design credit for being one that improves over time. Dark green corners, ehhh, not so much. But pink-heading-out-to-meet-purple stripe? I'm down. The "Mojo" pattern that will arrive in "Silver Packs" might be extra funky too. There will surely be some glorious train-wrecks of colors, but probably also some sneaky good hey-this-actually-works cards, too. About 49 days till Pitchers & Catchers report...

Bonus Hall-of-Famer

91 Donruss, I could live without.

Bonus Fan Favorite

'course, more than just Hall-of-Famers are famous to baseball fans. There are also those guys from the Hall of Very Good, like the Big Cat here.

I can't say I want very many 1990 Score cards although they would make one heckuva great Oakland Athletics team set, I expect.

But I also needed at least one more 1990 Score card for the Powder Blue Collection, since the Powder Blue is right there on the card, outside of the photo. A nice touch on '90 Score. Only trouble is, all my '90 Score cards are of teams that never wore any Powder Blue.

Thus a Powder Blue Team Logo bed on a card with an authentic Powder Blue uniform being worn by an actually famous Baseball Player is thus just exactly perfect. And the Racing Stripe collection can't call dibs here, either.

This is precisely what I was overly-worryin' about when I mentioned my sadness over no more repacks - how would I find cards for the Powder Blue Collection? Bitch, and ye shall receive.

need-it

yup. 23 Heritage is gaining momentum.

Here I am finding cards for it in a repack already. Nuts.

Double Bonus Fan Favorite

Not really a fan of 89 Fleer but it was fun to read, essentially, the early career history of Cecil Fielder. This card tells me was probably injured in 1988, appearing in only 74 games, after a somewhat promising but also only partial season result in 1987. That in turn helps me understand how he became a Detroit Tiger not long after this, something I could no longer recall very well. Not sure what I will do with this card, but I appreciated the details, cuz even with repacks, Yeah, I Read the Backs.

Oldest Card

Another bittersweet find. I often miss my set of 1978 Topps Baseball, the very first I ever completed. Though I also enjoy remembering what I got in exchange for it, something I could never repurchase, ever again, unlike a set of 1978 Topps Baseball.

I am starting to look forward to 2027 Heritage some. Hopefully by then Fanatics-Topps gets their crap together on producing it, with adequate staff time assigned to get the basics right. 2024 Heritage was an insult to the brand, essentially, if you ask me.

I think I have another copy of this 1978 Dwight Evans card floating around somewhere, also pulled from a repack product. It is a somehow striking card for yer average Batting Cage shot. The combo of Spring sunshine and lurking Palm trees probably helps a bunch; nor does the batting glove image hurt either. The letter perfect framing, which clearly shows us what Dwight Evans looks like while still letting some a-day-around-the-game-of-Baseball authenticity in seals the deal. 

And what -IS- that patch so prominent there on Dwight's left shoulder? Let's take a closer look:

Was a Massachusetts Bicentennial running late, not being celebrated until Spring, 1977? 

Google led me to the right place to get started: a Baseball Card blog! That's a post from a cool 17 years ago. We are Immortal, down here in Bloggle land. I guess.

That linked post wrestles with whether the Red Sox wore the patch in both the 1975 and 1976 seasons and though it does present evidence from 1977 Topps, this 1978 Topps goes unremarked. So, my guess: either Topps used a photo older than Spring, '77, or maybe just a few '76 jerseys were still around the clubhouse at the beginning of '77 Spring Training.

A keeper Baseball Card, -that's- for sure.

2nd Oldest Card

Mostly showing off this one because it has the best possible card back text for a Pitcher: "His 2-run Homer produced Game-Winning RBI in 5-3 Complete Game Win at San Diego, 8-7-83."

Man 20th Century Baseball sure was wild. They are all up in excitement about the GWRBI stat back then, Pitchers were throwing Complete Games and even hitting Home Runs! Epcot.

The Scary Part of the (re)Pack

This was the top card of the run of clearly identical set cards sitting above the sealed pack. Another definite relief that this wasn't just a dozen+ cards from 2022 Topps or something.

Though I partially bought these cards just to find old Powder Blue unis, this one won't get promoted up a century, for the Powder pages, nor the Racing Stripe pages. A little too much color saturation and simultaneously too much shade. Though if you need a little extra light to help you navigate the sleigh while you deliver Christmas presents tonight, maybe this card can help.

Frame breaks galore in 90 Fleer, a very serviceable design amidst a bit of over experimentation in some adjacent sets and manufacturers. Maybe a little under-rated in it's elegant allowance of the team logo to do the talking, without a text repeat of City, Team? We're about to find out...

more Famous Fan Favorite action

red Empty Seats!

(these cards have just enough bow to make them fight sitting still on the scanner, and thus a little crooked, sorry)

Prospects, Rookies, what's the difference?

Maybe, plenty. My initial thought on seeing this card was - bring on the famous Fleer SuperStar duals!

But, yeah, I read the back. This one had an intriguing stat line for Scott Hemond, who I have never heard of:

1989 Statistics

Club—Athletics

AVG—.000

AB—0

HR—0

RBI—0

Had I finally pulled my very own Never-Played-in-MLB-but-has-a-Major-League-Baseball-Card Rookie Card card? 

Nope. Hemond did appear in 4 games for the 1989 A's. He just didn't get to actually Bat. And he did go on to appear in almost 300 games in the first half of the 90s.

Bobby Baseball's Dad. Can't go wrong.

First Base Guy goes into the Set Position.

Don't see many cards like this one.

Famous Starter the year after a World Series victory?

Now we're cooking with gas.

&, I get it now - Team Color Match design. Nice.

Triple Hall-of-Famer box?

Not sure if this one counts.

Well that last run of the loose cards was a nice stroll through a less commonly seen reminder of the **** wax era. It's not j**k where I live. And it was a handy prelude to the actual wax pack in the box:

I was thinking 88 Donruss when I saw just the edge. Oops.

15 cards & 1 Sticker.

ooohhhh, what would be on the back of the sticker?

Fleer was the king of Sticker Backs.

Finally some Tigers ACTION.

Though I'm not sure how stickers get into ACTION.

Is the Tiger going to eat Chief Wahoo?

I can't take the suspense...what will Fleer bring me?

These brain twisters have ya stumped?

Keep scrollin'

I always thought this guy should be a politician.

Just because of the name alone I guess.

Batting with Sunglasses on will always look cool as all Hell on a Baseball Card.

A 4th Hall-of-Famer? Pack Fresh!

Man, these repack boxes are loaded.

The Powder Blue card I was waiting for.

MLB's current semi-revival of the Powder Blues obscures the history that they were largely used as road uniforms, back in the day.

A 17 year Veteran at this point.

Get me to the Casino, stat!

I could feel the vibration of this one while I was still waiting in line at Walgreen's.

I'll bet you didn't know Urquel played Major League Baseball.

I also bet you don't know who Urquel was.

Catchers should never be photographed with their gloves while they are standing up. That ain't right. Things always go weird, in a hurry. Don't ever smile like this. There are cameras everywhere, these days. You will regret it.

More Fan Favorite, In Action!

My Racing Stripe Collection says gimmeee, gimmeee.

I love a good late afternoon Baseball Card.

Always gives me pleasant memories of watching the Game of the Week.

That show's not on any more.

And that's a shame.

Welp, looks like now I'm collecting 1990 Fleer I guess. I didn't expect that when I fatefully wheeled into that Walgreens parking lot. I have been working on a 1991 Topps project almost all of the year 2024 and I'm still not done with it. Adding another early 90s Complete Set to my shelves just isn't in the, uhhh, cards. But it will clearly be enjoyable to merge these nifty 90 Fleer scores with whatever else I might already have in inventory, which would all be from repacks purchased back in the good ole 10s.

I'm happy it looks like I will be able to buy some brand new old Baseball Cards, even if they have gone up from a nickel apiece to a bit over a dime apiece, and most of the dimes will obtain useless cards.

So I hope there might be one of these little boxes of memories under your tree here in 12-36 hours or so.

Merry Christmas!