Kin at I Feel Like a Collector Again recently posted one of the 2001 Sunoco Dream Team cards. It's been five years since I showed these and I think they deserve another look. Speaking of another look check out card #10, Amazin'Championships. I just noticed an error that escaped me five years ago. Gary Carter is listed as Gary Garter. No shame in overlooking the mistake. It's a well known fact that our brains do that on a regular basis, a sort of organic virtual autocorrect.
From February 25, 2012
I picked up this oddball set on Ebay for 25 cents plus shipping. According to "The Standard Catalog of Baseball Cards" these cards were sold in three-card packs for 49 cents with a gasoline or Coke purchase. Other than being on thin card stock they're pretty nice. I love the titles on the back. They remind me of the 1960's combo cards.
You sure seem to hear the word "fake" a lot these days. ----------Don't worry, I'm not going to go there. We get enough of that. I never get tired of this.
Here's a card I found on eBay for 18 cents shipped. I'd call it a "fake" action shot. I mean, he's not standing still but it's not in a game. In fact I can't imagine you'd ever see anything quite like this in a game. Still, I thought it was a cool looking card.
Pat never made it in the NFL but bounced around other leagues, including NFL Europe. He had two successful seasons with the Frankfurt Galaxy. In 1999 he shared QB duties and a World Bowl Championship with future Carolina Panther, Jake Delhomme.
Apparently Pat had an interesting time at Cal. Here's an excerpt from a 1997 Sports Illustrated article:
Is the No Fun League ready for Pat Barnes? This is an oversized
kid who wrote several college papers his freshman year with
12-packs of beer beside his computer; who showed up tired for
some games after late-night arguments with his girlfriend; who
once took in a homeless man as a temporary roommate; and who
tormented his parents, Colleen and John, with phone pranks in
which he claimed to have crashed his car or landed in jail. "Pat
has always been a little kid in a big body," Colleen says of her
6'4", 215-pound son. "An extra year of college would really
benefit him because he's basically somewhat immature. He has
grown up a lot the past two years, but maturation takes time."
The seller sandwiched my card between two others:
If you understand Italian this may be interesting.
In my experience whenever the subject of a literary classic comes up in conversation there's almost always a reference to high school or college: "I had to read that in high school" or " I read that in college. Often it's, "I never had to read that." Perhaps it's more a reflection of my intellectual shortcomings than the the talent of the teachers I had but I didn't really enjoy most the books I read in school. One of the classics "I never had to read" is Herman Melville's, Moby Dick.
So what pray tell does this have to with cards? This--I've always thought, in collecting terms, of the phrase "White Whale" as something that you're always hunting for and can never seem to acquire. And I guess in reference to Moby Dick that's true enough. But what if you finally do get what you've been searching for? Wouldn't it be true that by definition it was never a "White Whale" to begin with?
Here's a card that I thought was a "White Whale". Happily it wasn't. It did take me years of sporadic looking and lost bids to finally add this to my collection. While not the priciest card I've ever bought it's the most I've spent on a single item in years.
If you're interested in learning more about this set here's a great article from Sports Collector's Daily.
Here's my only other Milk Dud's card which, graded the same, makes a nice companion. It features Ronnie's road roommate Glenn Beckert:
A short while back P-Town Tom of Eamus Catuli (formerly Wait Til Next Year) sent me a bunch of his extra Kerry Wood cards. Kerry's always been one of my favorite Cubs. I'm not alone there. Tom probably increased my casual collection of Woody's by about 40%. Here are my favorites. Thanks Tom!
Interesting that so many of us seem to relate cards with music, at least in our blogs. When I think of Woody this song instantly comes to mind.
