I am a terrible person

I just realized this and I learned about it from here. Didn't even figure it out by myself.

I have brought shame upon my family.

Murph Variation from a Met Fan

Got this in the mail the other day, totally out of the blue from Stats on the Back. Maybe because I helped him with his Allen & Ginter project, maybe just for the halibut. Who knows? It was one 'variation' card, with a note:

OH DEAR HEAVENLY JEEBUS WHAT DID THAT MET FAN DO TO DEFILE POOR MURPH???

I was almost afraid to look...

Huh. Just a nice normal 1986 O-Pee-Chee Murphy card, totally undefiled. Not even mildly blasphemed. I really like the '86 Topps set and this is a nice card of the two time MVP who hit the crap out of the ball without taking anything stronger than an aspirin to enhance his performance. The O-Pee-Chee logo clipping his hat is odd though. So what's the variation? I flipped the card over:

GUM-USED RELIC CARD!

Brilliant! Anyone who has ever opened n old O-Pee-Chee pack knows what's going on here. Old gum. Permanently fused to the card. Never to be completely separated. Awesome. If I had the money to burn, I'd send this puppy to PSA to get slabbed.

1986 OPC Dale Murphy With Gum: PSA 10 1/2. Population: ONE.

Awwww yeah.

DON'T CHEW THE GUM

I'm not talking about this gum:

I'm talking about this gum:

Brand spankin' new right out of the first pack of Heritage High Series I opened.

Oligato House put out a warning about the gum in 2008 Heritage High Series. I couldn't believe that Topps gum would taste bad. Not that it ever tasted really good, but it was baseball card bubblegum flavor. This stuff ain't Bubble Yum, but it's passable gum. Topps originally printed up the cards in order to sell more gum in the first place. Gum is what Topps does. So I ripped open my serial numbered pack of gum and started chewing...

Oh. Dear. Lord. What fresh hell is this???

This is not Bazooka gum. I don't know what the heck it is, but it's not good 'ol Topps gum. this gum has a really weird sour taste to it. Not Sour Patch Kids sour, more like milk that was left in the fridge for two months sour. It has sort of a sauerkraut/fermented goat curds/hákarl combination of flavors to it. I chewed it for a couple minutes before having to spit it out and i still taste the nasty stuff. It's really rancid and I'm not talking about the good kind.

What is going on at Topps? Squirrell cards are silly but I can deal. Adding an unobatinable card 661 to the set is really freaking annoying but I will persevere. But fucking up the gum?? What... how... that's just beyond wrong. I don't know man, there's a sickness... there's a serious sickness in Duryea and I don't know if they're going to make it though this one. I sincerely hope they are just setting up a really elaborate punchline for that Sklar Brothers show, because otherwise it's a sad day in the card community.