Friday, August 16, 2013

An oddball featuring Cutch, Alvarez, Marte, and Walker

Back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s many companies used to produce oddball cards of baseball players that you could only find regionally.  As an Andy Van Slyke collector, I've managed to grab a few of these.  However with the exclusive license to produce MLB cards given to Topps, oddballs are becoming more and more scarce of current players.

Almost all minor league teams produce cards of that year's crop of prospects and filler onto cardboard and sell them as team sets around $10 at stadiums.  Occasionally though, they'll do something like what you see above.

That is the back of a set of playing cards given out at Altoona Curve games this year.  It was part of a promotion where you could save up all four of the "Tailgate" themed giveaways to receive a tailgate party pack.

The cards feature 4 of teh Pirates top positional players on the roster as Kings of Curve, Pa.
Clubs: Andrew McCutchen
Heart: Starling Marte
Diamonds: Pedro Alvarez
Spades: Neil Walker

I'm not sure if it was intentional, but the suits of the player actually suit the player pretty well.
Cutch is the face of the franchise (club).
Starling Marte often plays through his injuries and will gladly take one for the team by getting hit by a pitch just to get on base (heart)
Pedro Alvarez was the Pirates 1st big draft signing bonus (diamonds)
and Neil Walker is a player every team has in spades, but can't win without

I'm happy I was able to pick these cards up.  The only problem is I don't know how to organize them.  I have a binder of just Cutch cards and have a binder full of current players that I collect (Marte, Alvarez, and Walker).  I could put the kings of each card in a page of that player, but what do I do with the other 50 cards? (52 cards + 2 jokers - 4 kings)


GIVE ME YOUR SUGGESTIONS HOW YOU WOULD STORE THESE....

1 comment:

  1. That's a tough one. I would put them in my binder where I have my Topps team sets. The ones that come out every year. That's where some of my oddball stuff ends up.

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