30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Saturday, June 9, 2018

Saturday Night Five: The Brown Box

What's the best way to take your mind off of work?  Well the past few weeks, it's been getting my daily steps in, then rewatching the first season of The Handmaid's Tale on Hulu.

When I came home today, I switched things up and opened up a package I received from P-town Tom over at Waiting 'til Next Year.  He had recently sorted two 5,000ct. boxes and offered to send fellow bloggers cards of their favorite team.

Two weeks later, this brown box showed up in my mailbox:


That's a 400ct. BCW box filled with lots of late 80's/early 90's Oakland Athletics cardboard.  Since I'm running a little short on time, I've decided to utilize my Saturday Night Five format to help keep the scanning to a minimum.

However before I show off my five favorite cards from the package, here's a look at the contents of the entire box:


As you can see... Tom hooked me up with a bunch of 1990 Donruss, 1990 Fleer, 1990 Score, 1991 Donruss, 1992 Topps, and a bunch of other colorful cardboard mixed in.

Always... without further adieu... let's check out the Saturday Night Five...

#1:  1993 Upper Deck #49


1993 Upper Deck is one of my favorite sets from the 90's and this card is one of the coolest in the set.  It depicts McGwire with his new Bash Brother... Ruben Sierra who was acquired in the trade that sent his former Bash Brother to the Texas Rangers.


#2:  1982 Donruss #19


Mike Norris will go down as being the first Oakland Athletic to be featured on a Donruss Diamond King card.  Not Rickey Henderson.  Mike Norris.  With that being said... I was a pretty big fan of Norris back in the early 80's.


#3:  1985 Woolworth's All-Time Record Holders #17


Speaking of Rickey... there's no way he wasn't going to make an appearance on this list.  I may or may not already have this card, but I do know that I've been trying to add this 44-card box set to my collection since I was a teenager.


#4:  2011 Topps #04


Tom sent a few different Kurt Suzuki cards... but this was my favorite.  


#5:  1992 Score #500


I've never been a fan of 1992 Score until tonight.  I think I've always just lumped it in with a bunch of other early, sub-par Score designs.  But after taking a few seconds to look over this card, I realize I probably need to take a closer look at this set.

I'll go ahead and wrap up this post with an interesting Cooperstown fact that was on the back of Tom's note:


Thank you Tom for this generous box of Oakland Athletics baseball cards.  I recently purchased a large collection of sports cards.  I've sifted through it once and pulled out the keepers.  The next step will be to copy you and sort the rest by teams.  As soon as I've accomplished this, I'll be sending you the Cubs.

Until then...

Happy Saturday and sayonara!

12 comments:

Laurens said...

The weird part about that Upper Deck Sierra / McGwire subset card is it looks faked - like they shot Sierra's picture in a studio and then superimposed the image onto a picture of McGwire crossing home plate.

Jon said...

I hadn't even noticed that until you mentioned it... how strange!

The Snorting Bull said...

Have to agree with Laurens on the McGwire/Sierra A's team card. Definitely some airbrushing going on there. Still a cool card though, I really like that subset within the 1993 Upper Deck set.

P-town Tom said...

Glad you liked the cards and happy that I could provide a little blog fodder, especially for something as cool as the Saturday Night Five!

Fuji said...

Laurens - I kinda thought it looked funny since Sierra was standing straight up, but didn't even consider it was airbrushed or edited. Good call!

Snorting Bull - I like the individual titles they used. That set is so awesome!

P-town Tom - It was nice to take a break from life and sift through those cards. Thank you so much! I really needed it.

Jafronius said...

Haha yes, Sierra looks photoshopped in. If only he pretended to be running or walking they could have gotteb away with it.

BobWalkthePlank said...

A friend of mine was waxing poetic about the Handmaid's Tale. Haven't taken the plunge yet. Been trying to spend as much time outside as possible.

Bulldog said...

Some sweet cards. I always like Norris too but definitely not the first player that comes to mind for the honor of 1st Diamond King. The McGwire-Sierra card is also pretty sweet. You were done right and it looks like a lot of fun.

Bulldog said...

Bad photoshop at that. Totally weird look to it.

Pro Set Cards said...

Wow!!! Woolworth's! I didn't know they had cards out but then again they were pretty much gone out of my part of Canada before the hockey card boom. I do remember the store vaguely though and my Dad taking me there to eat once... lol

Sweet Ricky!

SumoMenkoMan said...

I think I had all of the oddball sets in the 1980s. They were definitely quirky. Nice box!

Fuji said...

Jafronius - Gotta wonder... who the heck did they crop out?

Matthew Scott - If you like those "future society" kind of shows... it's pretty cool. It's definitely good to get out. I'm in the midst of my 10k per day challenge. I just threw out my back AGAIN though... so things like golf and riding my board is on hold.

Bulldog - After thinking about it... Norris was probably their 2nd biggest name back in the day.

forestrydave - I'm gonna have to ask around and see if there were any local Woolworths in my neck of the woods. I personally don't remember going to any.

SumoMenkoMan - Love those oddball boxed sets of the 80's. Btw... I haven't forgotten about your package. Gonna pop it open on Friday to celebrate my first day of summer! Super excited.