Bill February 11, 2021 2 Comments

While I love opening old boxes, I had to start breaking out a bit. So a lot like the Pacific Senior League cards I got recently, I’d been looking for something else a little different. Part of that was something a little different to open and another part of that was a little bit of something different to TTM with.

I didn’t look up anything about these cards before I got them or opened them. I have only a few, but what I’ve seen I’ve liked. They are really colorful and that makes them fun. Seeing all the old minor league logos is a fun part of that too.

The design, while kind of simple, I think really works on a lot of levels for me. The name of the player is clear and bold and a good size. The team logo is on the card and while the cards aren’t “team colored” per se, the fact that they are so colorful with colorful uniforms really helps. I also like that the team name and position are smaller but really clear. I think the white border, while big, makes the cards stand out.

If I had to pick on anything, it’s that the Line Drive logo and card type are kind of intrusive. I get the need for marketing, but it kind of feels out of place compared to the design of the card. It’s not in a bad place for the cards though.

So let’s see what we can find in this box.

The Bigger Names

So again, I didn’t really look up anything about who could be in the box. It was fund to see Bernie though. That’s a guy that was in the league for a while and I feel like sometimes the best players, you just forget they could ever have been minor leaguers. Some of that could be where I was in my life at the time, but I think there just isn’t the focus on that level that there is today in the media.

Eric Karros and John Wetteland appearing here make me realize how many Albuquerque Dukes showed up in this set. Probably the same as other teams, but the red uniforms really make them stick out. It was also probably that the Dodgers had a lot of good names in their system.

The Middle Names

Oh, hey Jose! Look everybody, it’s another member of the Albuquerque Dukes….

Mo, Mickey and Jose aren’t the biggest names, but you probably know them. Mo appears to be large and in charge even back then. Mickey on the other hand appears to be part of one of the biggest team names in the world with the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons.

The Old Names

These guys really surprised me. We all know that guys are on minor league contracts and stuff, but it surprised me that they gave them cards. All these guys had been in the major leagues for some time so seeing them hit minor league cards was almost odd. Another thing I think I realized was that I probably confused the Tucson Toros with the Albuquerque Dukes and is the reason I thought there were so many of them.

Strike A Pose

One thing I started to wonder when taking a look at the cards was if the “In Action” images were really in action or if they were… inaction. My guess is that these are all posed. This is what made me chuckle a bit.

All these grounders above feel completely posed and while they make the pictures come out well, they look silly. I don’t think you can ever really pose in an action and still make it REALLY look like the action.

Uh oh! Are we stepping up the difficulty on the poses now? The play at the wall like Julio I feel like we’ve seen in the MLB cards before (Larry Walker maybe?). But it was probably a little more involved on that level. Ted is definitely holding that one leg up and reaching. There’s no way that’s a run.

Pete Coachman and Apolinar Garcia have to be real actions shots, but with all the others it makes them look funny. I really got to thinking thinking that the ball in Pete’s card is on a string or something. There is some blur in Apolinar’s card though, even though the ball looks like it’s coming out funny.

Darnell Coles is quite obviously a pose, but it made me think that maybe we need some new options for school photos.

The Name Game

Rocket and Razor, those just seemed like classic minor league names to me. The combo of these names is amazing to me… Rockets and Wheels for Rocket Wheeler! Razors and Shiny for Razor Shines! Pretty awesome stuff. Way to go Rocket’s and Razor’s parents! Well, I guess we have to congratulate Rocket’s friends for nicknaming him. Razor is actually Mr. Shines middle name.

Terry Wells doesn’t really have anything different about his name. I just thought he deserved to show up in the blog because of those Horace Grant style glasses. I saw someone got this card signed via TTM so I’ll have to give it a shot.

Closing It Out

Of course I always save a few packs and set aside the TTM names I find. I’ve been seeing a few of these come back from some of the standard names in the set as well as from some of the more unknown guys in the set so I’m hoping I can start sliding these into my TTM requests in the coming weeks and months.

These cards look really great signed. I think in general a signature generally goes on them well and I think the colorful nature we talked about really adds to it as well.

Overall this was fun. It was surprising to see some of the names come out of the packs that you never think of as minor leaguers. There were also some laughs (OK, maybe more like chuckles) at the poses. Overall it was fun and I might have to try another box in the future so see if I can fill out more of the set.