2000 IONIX AWESOME POWERS MIKE PIAZZA Continuing on with our brief series of goofily named insert cards, this week we present for your consideration a 2000 Upper Deck Ionix Mike Piazza Awesome Powers. Yeah baby! Ionix was a one-and-done offering from Upper Deck, and it is as much a product of the year 2000 [...]
Opened a box of 2013 Topps Museum Collection over the weekend. Did I find any Mets? Watch to find out. Also watch to see me struggling to open the damn packs, which is entertaining in its own way...
We're nothing but a long nap away from summer at this point, so I'm going to give you a tough one to ponder whilst you sip your lemonade/roll hoops/catch dragonflies/cavort in fire hydrants. First person in the comments to name the Mets player pictured here wins a sweet PSA 7 1969 Topps Dan Frisella. Jump [...]
1999 FLEER BOYZ WITH THE WOOD MIKE PIAZZA The end of the Topps monopoly in 1981 led eventually to the insert-set explosion of the 1990s. However, the practice of adding these bonus cards to packs began with a whimper, not a bang. Topps included glossy all-star cards with its 1984 rack packs-- the cards were [...]
2007 TOPPS CO-SIGNERS JOHN MAINE/PHILIP HUMBER Once upon a time (the summer of 2007, to be precise), I pulled this card and I was happy. The Mets were in first place that July, and seemed well-equipped to remain there throughout the year. John Maine was a solid presence on the mound, and would go on [...]
2010 TOPPS NATIONAL CHICLE TOM SEAVER If you're anything like me, you've long imagined a world in which Tom Seaver was a malevolent force of pure evil. It is a world where Jim Qualls was savagely eviscerated on July 10, 1969. A dark realm where a disemboweled Leron Lee was discovered on July 5, 1972. [...]
1989 TOPPS BOX-BOTTOM KEITH HERNANDEZ Box-bottom cards are Spinal Tap-ian in both name and concept. They are the 18-inch Stonehenge of cards. These cards go to 11. Donruss began producing cards on the bottom of its wax boxes in 1985, and Topps picked up the glove in 1986. Donruss came to its collective senses quickly, [...]
1992 CLASSIC BEST ALAN ZINTER The convenient Alan Zinter narrative focuses simply on his status as another first-round draft bust for the Mets. This story is built around his 84 career plate appearances and .167 batting average, and the fact that none of this meager production was even logged in orange and blue. There's a [...]
1992 TOPPS TOP PROSPECTS #591 Today we travel back to a time when two-sport stars still roamed the Earth. Bo Jackson was of course the first of these majestic creatures, and his prodigious skills translated into a Pro Bowl appearance, an All-Star Game, and a whole raft of commercial endorsements. Perhaps inevitably, injuries derailed Bo's [...]
OK, the first two episodes of Mystery Met were the equivalent of trivia spring training. I was just working on my proverbial fastball, and breaking off the occasional metaphorical curve. But I'm loose and limber now, and ready to go a full nine... So here's the windup, and the pitch: Name the one-time Met pictured [...]
1992 TOPPS MAGAZINE HOWARD JOHNSON Back in the early '90s, Topps took the booming baseball-card market as their cue to develop a slick full-color magazine. They named the publication “Topps Magazine”-- no doubt after months of intense and costly market research... The editorial lineup was a medley of Topps history, baseball lore, current/past player profiles, [...]
2013 TOPPS HERITAGE MEMORABLE MOMENTS R.A. DICKEY As promised, I've now opened a full box of 2013 Topps Heritage. And I am here to tell you that this set is very generous in the R.A. Dickey department. I mean, it has more R.A.s than a college dorm. It has more Dickeys than an Orvis catalog. [...]