Batting leadoff, an apology: Last week's Mystery Met episode was too damn hard, and for that I am truly sorry. Sure, our subject resembled Ken MacKenzie or Craig Anderson or any other random 20-year-old Camelot-era dude who would pass for a modern-day 45-year old. But unlike MacKenzie and Anderson, this guy never made it to [...]
We're just a couple of days away from August, that hot and holiday-free bastard of a month. The air is thick with humidity, and damn if the Mets are not in the thick of a pennant race. The GM has made a couple of minor but meaningful moves to date, bringing in some versatile bats [...]
NOBODY BEATS THE WIZ BOB FRIEND When I was a kid, I felt betrayed by negative numbers. Don't get me wrong-- I loved numbers at first. They helped bring order to the world, and the linear act of counting was very centering. One, two, three. I have three Jerry Grote cards. Then I went to [...]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Qggi-W8kAg
1969 MILTON BRADLEY METS TEAM Random passers-by on the street will often stop me and ask, “Card of the Week, what is the single most heinous Mets card of all time? Like, I'm talking no redeeming qualities whatsoever. A pox on humanity. Something designed and printed in the ninth circle of hell.” “Well, random passer-by,” [...]
TOPPS ALL-STAR ROOKIES Since 1959, Topps has been naming an annual All-Star Rookie roster, composed generally of eight position players, a left-handed pitcher, and a right-handed pitcher. Along with a 40' yacht and a roomful of supermodels, each player named to the squad receives the All-Star rookie designation on their following year's card. Up through [...]
2015 TOPPS PRO DEBUT T.J. CHISM Editor's Note: The results of a recent reader survey are in, and it has come to our attention that the Card of the Week column is doing a poor job of connecting with the Millennial demographic. Feedback indicates that the feature is mired in references to obscure and semi-obscure [...]
1974 TOPPS STAMPS TOM SEAVER So many magical mysteries, in the immortal words of Ass Dan... And this one ranks right up there with, “Who is Brazil?” and “Are children small or just far away?” Topps issued a set of 240 stamps in 1974, containing ten players from each of the 24 teams of the [...]
1996 SPx JASON ISRINGHAUSEN The 1990s were Tomorrowland. Ownership of personal computers skyrocketed throughout the decade, rising from 15% of all US households in 1990 to 35% by 1997. We all took our first tentative steps onto the World Wide Web, enabled by one of the gazillion AOL diskettes that came wrapped with our Sunday [...]
2014 TOPPS JUAN LAGARES FIRST EDITION My distant progeny will no doubt be thoroughly confused by aspects of my card collection. Sure, they'll probably understand all the Old Judge and T206 cards, although they might scratch their collective heads and wonder why each and every last card features a player from Brooklyn, be they Bridegrooms, [...]
2002 TOPPS BRUCE CHEN It is always bittersweet when a human time capsule like Bruce Chen retires. You look back at his first career start-- a 21-year old lefty for the division-leading Braves facing a distant-second Mets squad in an essentially meaningless September game-- and the names that float through the box score speak of [...]
Keeping it simple this time around. Identify this Dax Shephard-looking dude, win a prize package of Mets cards. No fuss. No muss. Good luck. Now with 100% more hinty goodness: Never made it to the bigs, but would have been the only player in Mets history with his particular initials if he had made it [...]