Trick or Treat II - Electric Boogaloo

After getting my pants scared off by SlangKo's Halloween Contest cards, I figured there was nothing in Tribe Cards' Trick or Treat package that could phase me anymore. It couldn't possibly be any worse than last year, could it? I mean, Sandy frickin' ATE Bruce Hurst! Let's open 'er up and see what we got.

Oh Lord, the first card is an Indian. Here we go again...

Ah, Kenny Lofton. Well, nothing wrong with that, Kenny's pretty cool. Wait... Oh No!

Kenny's got that crazy look in his eyes again! Kenny noooooooooooooooo

Oh wait, I forgot. Kenny's the devil. Well, at least in Atlanta he is. If you are the guy that came over in the trade that sent David Justice away you better expect some backlash. Let's see what other horrifying things are in this package.

Aaaaah! A POG! Quick, someone throw a heavy metal disc at this thing. What the hell is a Daemonite anyway? Is that what happens when a daemon enters the Earth's atmoshpere, burns up and crashes to the ground? Huh. I'm not too far off. Looks like a bootleg Xenomorph to me. Anybody heard of this critter before?

Wildstorm comics. That's one of those independent companies that popped up in the early '90s comic boom which quickly turned to bust. I think they got gobbled up by DC and put out some good stuff from Warren Ellis later on. It's a nice POG, I'll say that, there's some chrome stuff over on the side that probably would be utterly destroyed the first time this was used in an actual game of POGs. That's enough of that, let's see some cards!

Oh noes! Greg Maddux is stuck on a tiny island in the middle of a raging flood and it's hailing baseballs and two mutant Gojira-sized Cy Young awards are about to attack! And Greg looks BORED. Because Greg Maddux is the most cold blooded badass on the planet. I wish he'd come back and pitch for a couple more decades.

Frightening things about this card:
1) The amount of money the Braves could have ended up paying Andruw.
2) The amount of money the Dodgers did pay Andruw.
3) That he will likely be a free agent again this offseason.
4) That the Braves need a cheap power-hitting righty outfielder so badly that be might end up being a good fit.

Aaaaah! I skeered myself! I mustn't think about such things. Next card.

Hm. Glavine. So what's scary about this card? I guess you could pretend those lavender splotches on either side of Glavine are The Blob closing in to munch on poor Tom. The embossed stitches could be seen as teeth about to gnaw on his bones. Tom could actually try to make another comeback next season... *shudder* Scared myself again.

Nothin' scary 'bout Dave Justice! The scary thing is how many 1991 Score cards I have. I bought packs right and left back then and when I almost had the entire set I went and bought the factory set for some reason. I have enough of these cards for about four sets now. Why? I have no idea.

Of course that means I have lots 'o Chippah rookies. I think this one is univerally regarded as his worst rookie card, which of course means I have enough of them to wallpaper my garage.

There were four other cards in the package, but they weren't scary at all and are in fact awesome enough to deserve their own post.

Yay! I got treated and not tricked! Thanks David! The scariest card in the pack was just Kenny. Nothing wrong with Kenny. Of course the Braves have never won a World Series since they traded off Marquis Grissom. Maybe it's the Curse of Kenny?

Naaaah, nothing scary about Kenny Lofton.

Book from TribeCards = COTW

Here's another oddball from David at TribeCards. Remember Collect-a-Books? Little card-sized booklets of a player that were sold in 8-card boxes for about 3 bucks? You don't? Well, neither did I, at least not the baseball version. I had all of the basketball and football sets and was irritated that there wasn't a baseball set. Yep, David found something I'd never heard of before... Good Job David. This particular set came out in 1991 and was published under the Line Drive brand which also did minor league cards if I'm not mistaken. This booklet of Dave Justice is #33 out of 36 books.

Here's the front, looks like a plain ol' card doesn't it? Ah but wait...

Witchcraft!!! It opens up! Page two is another full photo of Dave and would make a decent looking card in its own right. Page three has another large photo and some personal highlights. Highlights for Dave include being born, gaining weight and going to college.

Ah here's the good stuff... A little story about Dave's rise through the minors, getting a chance when Nick Esasky went all goofy and subsequent rise to phenom. the Line Drive logo signifies the end of the narrative.

Ahh, stats. Gotta have stats. These are full career stats too. Remember, Dave was in his 3rd year in 1991. Page 7 has a photo of him checking out a girl in the stands while some kids look on cluelessly, a quote from Dave and a Did You Know question. Dave talks about how he was happy to win the Rookie of the Year award. Then the card asks if you knew that Dave won the Rookie of the Year award. Of course we did, you dummy! Dave just told us!

Last pake, or page 8 or the back of the card. Take your pick. Here we have a cartoon of Dave in full headdress leading the Supreme Court and some career highlights. Oddly enough, winning the Rookie of the Year wasn't a career highlight for Dave. Getting drafted? Yep. Going to the Appalachian League All Star Game? Yep. Hitting 12 homers in Triple-A? Yep. Having a phenomenal rookie season and running the face of the franchise out of town? Nope.

There you have it, another oddball from Dave. And there's more to come! SPECIAL BONUS! Since I've been wrapped up in Card Show posts all week I'm promoting this card to Card of the Week since otherwise I won't get to it until next week. Hooray! I've got that out of the way!

Trade from Mike

I'm late on posting this trade, but Mike was late in sending it due to a brand new Wii Fit. That's cool, as I'm still trying to remember if I sent anything to him... That pile of Red Sox and Piazza cards is missing so I probably did. Anyway, I got the two cards I needed to complete my T205 set and a bunch of Braves. Since the cards were more or less organized by player, I'll post 'em by player.

Oddballs:

Did you know Bazooka Joe was a Brave? Well, he wasn't. It's all a cynical marketing scheme by Topps and their army of airbrushers. Everyone can tell that's an airbrushed Giants cap.

Also: 1 Avery, 1 Deion, 2 Loftons and a Sheffield bazooka mini card.

Four Chipper Jones:

It's hard to find a Chipper card I don't have that isn't a relic or auto or some pricey insert, but Mike found one here. This is from some weird Team Out! baseball card game. I remember seeing these at Target years ago but I never picked one up. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of gameplay on the card... Maybe it's momory for baseball fans.

Also: '97 Donruss VXP, '97 Fleer Million Dollar Moments, '98 Pinnacle Swing for the Fences.

Seven John Smoltz:

I like finding Starting Lineup cards loose because I never opened any of the ones I got, especially not the Braves. It looks like this card was from a Classic Doubles package from 2000 featuring Smoltz and Pedro Martinez.

Also: '93 Classic, '95 Ultra Gold Medallion, '97 Pinnacle Inside checklist, '97 Fleer Million Dollar Moments, '03 Fleer Focus, '03 Bazooka Comic

Two Dale Murphy:

I don't know what oddball set this is from, but it looks like a sticker and I keep trying to peel it. It's some kind of '86 Topps set but I'm too lazy to look it up in the SCD right now.

Also: '87 Boardwalk and Baseball

Four Fred McGriff:

There were too many good ones so I couldn't decide which one to post. We have here a 1996 Collector's Choice Crash the Game card that is wonderfully obnoxious, a 1995 Fred McGriff NAtional packtime card that probably deserves a post all it's own and a spectacular '95 Topps All Star card with the Big Hurt. Awesome stuff right there.

Also: '97 Pinnacle Swing for the Fences

Three Javy Lopez:

Javy Lopez. Durham Bulls. I bet he's wearing Annie's garter.

Also '92 Classic Best, '97 Pinnacle Swing for the Fences

Three Tom Glavine:

Tom Glavine is radioactive. Literally. That sucker glows in the dark! It kinda glows in the light too. Gotta love early '90s card design.

Also: '93 Classic, '94 Post

Four Dave Justice:

I have never seen one of these cards before. Not ever. And I've seen a lot of cards. It appears to be a Canadian version of the Post cereal cards. Probably inserted into Kraft Dinner or cases of LaBatt's. That's a typical Canadian breakfast, right?

Also: '93 Classic, '94 Post, '94 O-Pee-Chee offer card

Three Andruw Jones:

This is quite possibly the greenest card in existence.

Also: '97 Donruss VXP, '98 Donruss Playstation

Six Greg Maddux:

I've posted the VXP card/CD/thing before, but I don't think I've shown off the case for it. This is another card that really deserves its own dedicated post. I've seen a lot of these around lately, I'll bet another warehouse full just hit the market.

Also: '94 UD Fun Pack, '97 Pinnacle Inside checklist, '97 Donruss VXP, '03 Bazooka Comic, Team Out! baseball game card

Great group of stuff, as always. I'll leave you with this cartoon from the back of Greg's Fun Pack card that shows how I looked when cracking this package open: