A Weird Card for a Weird Player

First of all condolences to Blue Heaven. Secondly, condolences to me. The Dodgers were willing to give up Andy LaRoche and a pitching prospect for Man-Ram when they already have too many outfielders, but they wouldn't bite on Tex? Stupid GM. I hate L.A.

In honor of what the hyperventilating sportswriters are calling the surprise blockbuster of the century, here's a card I stumbled upon today while looking for trade bait. I could have inflicted this upon the A Pack A Day readers, but I decided they couldn't handle this. The fine regular readers of this blog however have the intestinal fortitude to not be overly shocked and appaled by some of the strange crap I post. A warning though - this is very, very wrong on several levels. If there are small children, pregnant women or the elderly around, now is the time for them to put on their special 3D glasses. Ok, here it is:

First of all, I want to make it abundantly clear that I did not purchase this thing on purpose. It was the special bonus in one of those twenty dollar junk wax boxes that I bought several years ago. I learned my lesson, I only buy ten dollar junk wax boxes now. This is an actual pack that was sold by reputable dealers that contains one graded card with a game used piece of what was formerly memorabilia from the player on the card. I think it originally cost twenty to twenty five dollars a pack. It went over so well they ended up as bonuses in junk wax boxes. The card was graded by Beckett Grading Services and the card is guaranteed to be graded 7.5 or higher. A 7.5 grade for any card produced in the past 30 years is better known in hobby circles as 'toilet paper'. Ah, but it was also genuine GGUM... Graded Game-Used Memorabilia. Thank the Maker that 'gum' never caught on as a euphemism for a game used card in hobby circles. Can you imagine how annoying it would be if those horrible Rip Master parties had people squealing about how they got a piece of GUM in their pack every time they pulled a hit? You've seen the pack, so lets move on to the monstrosity within.


A Manny Ramirez 1995 SportsFlix UC3 lenticular 3D card graded, with a square chip of wood purportedly from one of Manny's bats also encased within the card's plastic tomb.

Just let that sink in a bit, folks.

A GRADED 1995 UC3 three dimensional plastic lenticular one-off oddball forgotten by history card, with a little square piece of bat on the label where the grade normally goes. Oh, and it's not even his base card, it's an In-Depth subset card. I'm gonna go all Joe Collector on ya and declare here and now, before God and all His creation, that this is a 1/1 card. Yep, I just went there. Ya know how I know this is a 1/1?

BECAUSE NO ONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD EVER HAVE A CRAPPY 3D SUBSET CARD THAT BOOKED FOR FORTY CENTS SUBMITTED FOR GRADING TO ANY COMPANY EVER.

EVER.

I mean, I've got a few graded cards lying around here and there, I can sort of see why some people would want to have their cards graded, and if I had a lot of money and very little space maybe I'd want to collect them. But seriously, a forty cent card? Who grades stuff like that? And the card itself is ugly as a bucktoothed angler fish to boot. When you add on the game used chip, the ridiculousness level goes through the roof. My mind just can't fully comprehend the insanity. It's like if the Great Elder Cthulhu showed up at my door dressed like Elvis, bringing scones and biscuits for tea.

The back is pretty surreal too. Beckett breaks down all the individual grades that make up the total. The centering gets a 9.5 sub grade. Can someone explain to me how you can possibly grade the centering on a full bleed lenticular 3D card?? I guess the only reason it didn't get a 10 is because the grader wiggled the card while grading it. It was a 10 grade, but Manny moved to the right a little bit. The surface is graded a 9. The lenticular plastic surface. There's only two grades with that kind of card as far as I'm concerned. Either it's Mint, or some kid took a nail to it and made some cool zippy noises and now it's a 1. And you gotta be DRUUUUUUUNK to grade a 1! I never graded a 10, but one time, I graded five twos... Ok enough of that. the corners and edges bring it down to an 8 because the stupid black back of the card shows all the dinks. So instead of a solid 9 that I could sell for the big bucks, I got a stupid 8. Can you imagine the poor schlub who paid twenty bucks for a pack and got a SportFlix card graded 7.5? Ha!

In addition to the grading, there is a nifty website on the back. That hasn't been updated since the Clinton Administration apparently. Among the five extremely informative pages on the site, is one that shows all the actual memorabilia they destroyed to create these abominations to humanity! I can look through the list and see the exact bat used in my card, um, case. Or not, since there are three of them. Best of all you can submit a card for grading and make your own GGUM card. Or try to at least. The guy taking your order mike look at you funny, but it's worth a shot for a chance at getting a 1996 Collector's Choice card of Andruw Jones graded with a real piece of his pants inserted into the slab! That's right, this pack was all an elaborate ruse to get unsuspecting collectors to get their crappy cards graded with BGS so they could get a chunk of something stuck in the case with it. For a nominal upcharge. Ingenious.

So that's my bizarre Manny card. Almost as weird as Manny himself, don't you think?