The first in a series of 98 explorations into how seemingly every player depicted in the ’49 Leaf Baseball set earned their nicknames. Before the advent of Rapper’s Delight, Hippity Hop could carry a decidedly baseball flavored mearning.
Get out your boom sticks and prepare to chant your favorite player’s name. It’s time for the crossover between Japanese baseball and 1952 Topps baseball cards.
With an ambitious set collecting project finished and my 1952 Topps project well into the later innings, it is time to explore an even more demanding effort.
For a guy who made his debut at 26 and struggled to get full playing time after turning 30, Wally Westlake sure has some interesting baseball cards. How many other players can claim to share their rookie card with Shoeless Joe Jackson?
In the summer of 1990, a seemingly ordinary baseball card emerged that would forever alter the collecting landscape, yet few understood its true significance at the time. Beneath its pristine white borders lay a concept that would shape the way checklists are constructed to this day. What made this card so different, and why did it become the catalyst that changed everything about modern baseball card collecting?
Richie Ashburn was a man of extremes: Excelling in the polar opposites of base hits and putouts.
What if there was a player in the 1952 Topps checklist just as scary to face as Carl Hubbell or Bob Gibson?
We’re two games into the 2025 World Series and the Dodgers and Blue Jays are tied at one game apiece. Coaching for the Jays is Don Mattingly, who is getting his first ever taste of Fall Classic baseball. With the end of series just days away, now is the time to look at my shiny card of “Donnie Baseball.”
Pick any Don Mueller card at random and you will see one of his two poses: 1) Confident slugger watching a double sail deep into the outfield; or 2) A closely cropped portrait of a guy who was just asked a surprise math question.
Ah yes, the existential dread of discovering your favorite “modern” baseball cards are increasingly being seen as vintage. Someone should remind the last guy left in the checklist to hit the lights on his way out.
