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Sunday, March 23, 2008

Baseball Card Tournament: First Round - Washington D.C.

It's tourney time, so let's have a tournament. Here are 64 random cards from my archive of scans. I will seed them and match them up into brackets. Each card that advances to the next round gets more written about it. If you want to know more about a card, vote for it - your votes determine the winner.

First Round - Washington D.C

West Region

#6 1994 Upper Deck Fun Pack Greg Maddux/Roger Clemens

I love this card for the way Greg Maddux's greatness almost totally eclipses that other guy. He's only 7 wins behind so more eclipsing will be done this year.
vs.
#11 2006 Upper Deck All Time Legends Jimmie Foxx
X is the first
Of two x's in Foxx
Who was right behind Ruth
With his powerful soxx.Ogden Nash




#3 1888 Duke N133 State and Territorial Governors Florida
These beautiful triple folder cards make up my absolute favorite nineteenth century set. Bar none. The backs are just as fascinating as the fronts.
vs.
#14 1980-1981 Topps Rudy Tomjonovich, Eddie Johnson and Doug Collins
The other half of the triple card bracket features Eddie Johnson in a coach sandwich. I bought a vendor's box of this stuff for 7 bucks back in the 80's. I got a complete set out of it, too bad it's a separated complete set.




#7 2000 Fleer EX Jose Canseco
Anyone who remembers the outstanding 1998 and 1999 EX sets will understand how disappointed I was to open five packs of this stuff and find this. At least this Canseco I recently picked up didn't peel off the front like my Jeter did.
vs.
#10 1993 Upper Deck Robin Yount Glow Stars
What a beautiful, beautiful mess this card is. Back when companies actually put some effort into the cards they marketed towards kids.



#2 2002 Fleer Greats of the Game Tony Oliva Autograph
Tony was one of the absolute best hitters of his time, but since he hasn't made the Hall yet no one knows who he is anymore. Thank goodness for ignorant collectors chasing rookie 'graphs looking for the 'next big thing' that allow me to pick up an auto like this for 5 bucks.
vs.
#15 2006 Topps Chrome Declaration of Independence Stephen Hopkins Refractor
One of the funniest characters in 1776. "Give her a flourish for me, young feller!"

Final Scores:

Maddux/Clemens 2, Jimmie Foxx 3
Governor Perry 2, Tomjanovich/Johnson/Collins 3
Jose Canseco 2, Robin Yount 4
Tony Oliva 3, Stephen Hopkins 2

6 comments:

Chris Harris said...

Upper Deck Wall Stars: The Fatheads of the 90s.

Captain Canuck said...

Maddux
Duke
Jose
Declaration of Independence

Kevin said...

Going for all the underdogs this round, to mix it up. Especially the Jimmie Foxx, another great player from the Eastern Shore of Maryland who doesn't get enough dap.

ernest of canada said...

Foxx,
Tomjonovich/Johnson/Collins
Canseco
Oliva

DaveH said...

Maddux,Duke, Yount, Oliva

MMayes said...

#11 Jimmie Foxx. As much as I love Greg Maddux' cerebral approach to the game, he was weighted down by teammate Clemens being distracted by all the taunting of the Duke crowd in the arena in D.C. Foxx has a big inside muscle game and wins a close one.

#14 Doug Collins. Duke assistant Chris Collins gives his dad some help in getting by Governor Perry, who played lackadasical and slow, almost like he was dead.

#10 Yount. Consistency abounds for Yount, as they play several 4-year seniors. Yount, staying with one team his career, developed teamwork, while Canseco (pictured with Tampa) was gunning for individual stats and fell short. In the closing seconds, Canseco then started blaming everyone else for his problems.

#2 Oliva. I'm a sucker for those brave men that signed their names to the Declaration, knowing the Crown would be after them. However, Oliva also bravely fought for freedom, fleeing Communist Cuba to play baseball. The pictured Oliva is actually Pedro, having used his brother Tony's identity to escape Cuba.