Killer Kelleher

Mick Kelleher
Third Baseman-Shortstop, Chicago Cubs
1981 Topps #429

Topps Fact: Mick was nicknamed "Killer" by his teammates.
GMT Fact: Mick is the first killer to be named firstbase coach for the NY Yankees.

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Come out and Play

Ross Baumgarten
Pitcher, Chicago White Sox
1981 Topps #398

Topps Fact: Picked up victory in Major League debut, Aug 16, 1978.
GMT Fact: A year later he starred as Vermin in The Warriors.


About Vermin (From fringeunderground.com): If The Warriors were The White Shadow, Vermin would be Salami. He's white, horny and in charge of making sure the gang gets where they need to go. Being that he looks roughly 10 years older—and 20 pounds heavier—than any other "kid" in the film, Vermin's claim to fame is a freeze-frame moment when his stunt double gets thrown against the subway bathroom wall and shatters the mirror. Well, that and having more hair on his chest than every gang in the film combined.

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Zorn Star

Jim Zorn
Quarterback, Seattle Seahawks
1981 Topps #125

Topps Fact: Jim has learned to play the violin.
GMT Fact: More recently, Daniel Snyder taught him to master the 'Skin flute.

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SI Reflects on the Begining of the End

Last week Topps put its proverbial foot on Upper Deck's throat. This week, SI takes a look at the story behind the card that became the Alpha and Omega of the sports card industry.

The Last Iconic Baseball Card

Twenty years ago one teenager made a bet on the stardom of another teen, whose rookie card would become one of a kind. It would also signal the beginning of the end of a once-thriving industry

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Paul Lukas at the National Sports Collector Convention

Uni Watch's Paul Lukas highlights some of the most interesting collectables at the National Sports Collector Convention.

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NYT: Topps Gets Exclusive Deal With Baseball, Landing a Blow to Upper Deck

Via Watchdog's Neil Best at Newsday:

Interesting story by Sandomir of the Times regarding MLB signing an exclusive deal with Topps for baseball card rights.

I had forgotten people still buy baseball cards, although apparently much less of them than they used to.

For those of you too young to remember the early 1990s, the baseball card market was a really big deal in the period preceding the Beanie Baby, real estate and Twitter bubbles.

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Gay Collector's Cards to be on Display at Gay Community Night at Citizens Bank Park

Not that there's anything wrong with that...



From the Philadelphia Gay News:

For Bob Szwajkos, baseball is more than just an American pastime; it’s his family’s pastime.

The openly gay Bucks County attorney began collecting baseball cards and other memorabilia as a child, continuing a tradition his father started nearly 80 years ago.

A portion of the Szwajkos Family Baseball Card Collection is currently on display in Citizens Bank’s Hall of Fame section and will be open for guests with Hall of Fame box seats during Gay Community Night at the Aug. 4 Phillies game.

H/T JoeSportsFan

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Remembering World League Football with Pro Set

Stan Gelbaugh
Quarterback, London Monarchs
1991 Pro Set #704

Pro Set Fact: Named World League's offensive most valuable player after leading London Monarchs to title in 1991.
GMT Fact: Named World League's most offensive mustache after gluing a caterpillar on his upper lip in 1991.


Wayne Davis
Linebacker, Orlando Thunder
1991 pro Set #23

Pro Set Fact: Two-year National Football League veteran was top overall selection among linebackers in the 1991 World League Draft.
GMT Fact: First World League linebacker to dress like a "G-d damn" lemon-lime popsicle.



Roman Gabriel
Head Coach, Raleigh-Durham Skyhawks
1991 Pro Set #24

Pro Set Fact: Former all-pro quarterback and most valuable player in 1969.
GMT Fact: When Gabriel heard the coaching gig came with free red slacks and a Haines 50/50 ash-colored sweatshirt with a poor man's stealth bomber on it, the deal was sealed. To make said deal official, Gabriel simply shot the Skyhawks owner the old finger gun and winked.



Jason Garrett
Quarterback, San Antonio Riders
1991 Pro Set #31

Pro Set Fact: Ivy League Player of the Year while at Princeton in 1988.
GMT Fact: Today, no one would know who Jason Garrett was had he not starred opposite Jim Carrey in the Truman Show.



Todd Hammel
Quarterback, New York-New Jersey Knights
1991 Pro Set #19

Pro Set Fact: Also was in camp with Atlanta Falcons
GMT Fact: No helmet can possibly contain Todd's massive f*cking cranium and aerodynamic mullet made of space age polymers.

Kay Stephenson
Head Coach, Sacramento Surge
1991 Pro Set #27

Pro Set Fact: Former Buffalo Bills head coach was in real estate business in Florida when Surge came calling.
GMT Fact: Stephenson remains the first and only real estate agent ever hired to coach both an NFL and WL football team. Can still get you a great deal on a 3-bedroom, 2-bath in Bocca.

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Video: I Got Baseball Cards

Via: @HarrisonKeith

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Pro Softball's First Superstar

Jerry: What happened?

Kramer: Well, you know, we were playing a game and, you know, I was pitching, and I was really throwing some smoke. And Joe Pepitone, he was up, and man that guy, you know, he was crowding the plate.

Jerry: Wow! Joe Pepitone!

Kramer: Yeah, well, Joe Pepitone or not, I own the inside of that plate. So I throw one, you know, inside, you know, a little chin music, put him right on his pants. Cause I gotta intimidate when I'm on the mound. Well the next pitch, he's right back in the same place. So, I had to plunk him.

Jerry: You plunked him.

Kramer: Oh yeah. Well, he throws down his bat, he comes racing up to the mound. Next thing, both benches are cleared, you know? A brouhaha breaks out between the guys in the camp, you know, and the old Yankee players, and as I'm trying to get Moose Skowron off of one of my teammates, you know, somebody pulls me from behind, you know, and I turned around and I popped him. I looked down, and woah man, it's Mickey. I punched his lights out.

---

I'd bet to say that none such shenanigans ever happened in the American Professional Slo-Pitch League where Pepi was treated as royalty.

Oh and for all you Philly readers and WIP listeners out there, check out who rode the pine for the Philadelphia Athletics club back in '78...none other than Ray Didenger:

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Philadelphia's B & G's Ice Cream & Sports Bar

Via Philadelphia's City Paper: "Ben Gollotti, who's been selling sports memorabilia for 35 years, opened this combo shop — collectibles and ice cream! — in the Italian Market two weeks back."

See also: Baseball cards and banana splits: B & G’s Sports & Ice Cream Bar (Meal Ticket)


B & G's Ice Cream & Sports Bar
814 S. Ninth St., 215-218-9923

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Topps Gives Us Head(s Up)

Knock. Knock.

Who's there?

Kebon Meeshle.



Kevin Mitchell
Outfielder, San Francisco Giants
1990 Topps Heads-Up #15

Topps Fact: None given.
GMT Fact: Mitchell decapitated the cat of a former live-in girlfriend.

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HHR: 1977: The Year of the Pro Slo-Pitch Player

The 70's was a different era. It was a time when a man was a man, and wasn't afraid to flaunt his masculinity.

It was also a time of cockamamie ideas as evidenced by the short-lived and ill-fated American Professional Slo-Pitch League - a startup founded by a gentleman named Bill Bryne that featured a dozen teams, including the manly Pittsburgh Hardhats, Kentucky Bourbons, and perhaps the toughest team of all, the Minnesota Goofy's.

Click Here to Learn More.

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Unconventional Methods

Brady Anderson
Outfielder, Baltimore Orioles
1991 Donruss #668

Donruss Fact: Career Homeruns (3 Seasons): 8
GMT Fact: Taking a page from Looney Toons, Anderson stepped into the batters box in '91 with an unheard of 7 bats in his hand. When that did little to improve his power numbers, he turned to sticking needles in his ass.

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Have You Gotten Your BlogsWithBalls Tickets Yet?

Who are three people who have never been in my kitchen?

Ooooh sorry. The correct question was, "Who are 1984's three AL active career strikeout leaders, two of which will never be Hall of Famers?"


Bert Blyleven
Pitcher, Cleveland Indians
Don Sutton
Pitcher, Milwaukee Brewers
Jerry Koosman
Pitcher, Chicago White Sox
1984 Topps #716

Have You Gotten Your BlogsWithBalls Tickets Yet?
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Cocaine is a Powerful Drug

Doc Gooden
Pitcher, New York Mets
1993 Topps Stadium Club #514

Topps Fact: Rookie Card 1984 Topps Traded
GMT Fact: While most people remember Gooden as a pitcher, when times got tough and Doc needed a quick score, certain pushers in Harlem (and certain Topps photographers) insisted he turn around and be a catcher.

Note: For the life of me, I can't figure out the stat line on this card. It must be an error, no? It has Gooden playing 31 games, hitting .255 with 93 runs, 11 HRs and 86 RBI.

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Have You Gotten Your BlogsWithBalls Tickets Yet?

Evidence Barry Bonds Was Juicing in 1991

While many point to the 1998 McGuire-Sosa homerun chase as the pivotal point in which Barry Bonds decided he longed for the attention that went with being the greatest player on the planet, I recently uncovered indisputible evidence that Bonds was using anabolic steroids as early as 1991.

Bonds' '92 Score "'91 Score All Star Team" card clearly shows a head an estimated 125% the size of his torso. 'Splain that.

Barry Bonds
Left Fielder, Pittsburgh Pirates
1992 Score #777

Score Fact: Barry can pretty much do it all.
GMT Fact: Barry's an asshole.

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Giff Likes His Backfields in Motion

Kathie Lee Gifford
Wife, New York Giants
1992 Pro Line Portraits #12

Pro Line Fact: "...I see Frank enjoying football after all this time, and if anybody had a right to be tired of it, it would be Frank."
GMT Fact: Funny, Frank felt the same way about his marriage.

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Baseball's Folk Hero

Dan Boone
Relief Pitcher, Baltimore Orioles
1991 Score #715

Score Fact: The most heart-warming story of '90 might just be the return to baseball of Dan, the seventh generation nephew of the famous frontiersman.
GMT Fact: Boone was once ejected from a game for circling the bull pen car around Joel Youngblood and trying to give him 'blankets.'

GMT Bonus Fact: Dan was 36 when Score deemed him a "Rookie Prospect." At 36 Daniel Boone was slaughtering Indians in Kentucky like it were his job, whereas Dan felt the need to carry on the family name by harassing Chief Wahoo in Cleveland.

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Bafangool, NPH!

Steve Sax
Second Baseman, Los Angeles Dodgers
1988 Topps Big #46

Topps Fact: Steve was NL Rookie of the Year in 1982.
GMT Fact: Despite several forgettable TV appearances including roles on Sabrina the Teenage Witch, The Simpsons, Who's the Boss and Square Pegs, Steve never got over the fact he was passed over for the role of Vinny Delpino in favor of Max Castella on Doogie Howser, M.D. The other shoe dropped when Bobby Deniro laughed in his face (a little bit) when he expressed his interest in playing the overrated actor's son Calogero Anello in 1993's overrated stereotypical Italian-American flick A Bronx Tale.

In turn, he took his frustration out on Tommy Lasorda, defense and "hot trim everywhere."

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And...BOOM Goes the Quarterback

Gary Hogeboom
Quarterback, Phoenix Cardinals
1990 Score #529

Score Fact: With Neil Lomax out the whole '89 season (and subsequently retired), Gary, who signed as a Plan B free agent, became a valuable starter.
GMT Fact: When Plan B fell through, Gary opted for Plan C: identity fraud. In 2005, Hogeboom was a contestant on Survivor: Guatemala, on which he posed as landscaper named Gary Hawkins. His cover went boom when a fellow contestant, Kansas sportscaster and pageant queen Danni Boatwright, pointed out that she recognized the then 47-year-old ex-NFL quarterback. Viewers cried foul, because, let's face it, Gary's parents couldn't pick him out of a lineup.

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Just Like His Sister

Scott Hamilton
Figure Skater, Team USA
1991 Impel US Olympic Cards

Impel Fact: "At age nine he wanted to learn to skate like his sister..."
GMT Fact: Of course he did.

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Keith Jackson's 227 Audition Photo

Keith Jackson
Tight End, Miami Dolphins
1993 Classic Pro Line Profiles #524

Pro Line Fact: When Keith Jackson was growing up in Little Rock, Arkansas, his mother Gladys had to work two jobs to provide for Keith, his brother Byron, and his sister Gwenitt.
GMT Fact: Following his mother's example, Keith sought additional employment by testing his acting chops. He was said to have auditioned for the role of 227's Lester Jenkins by simply handing them the family photo that wound up on his 1993 Classic Pro Line Profile card. Ultimately, he lost out to Sanford & Son's Officer Smitty, Hal Williams.

Bobby Grich's Specialty

Bob Grich
Second Baseman, California Angels
1984 Topps #315

Topps Fact: Walloped 2 Homers at Kansas City, 6-25-83
GMT Fact: Walloped George Brett and Dan Quisenberry with 2 of his patented "stink palms" following the game.