Card of the Whenever: Merlin Olsen

1971 Topps Football Game Insert: Merlin Olsen

Sadly this sort of last minute post on the very last day of the month has become a sort of standard thing for me lately. I hate that. Anyway for lack of any other enthusiastic energy to make an entertaining post. I present one of the cards from the 1971 Topps Football Game Inserts. I'm not sure if I have all of these. I think I finally finished it up. That or I still have about 5 or 6 cards to get. It has been way too long since I've updated my Zistle. ACK!

So here is card #27 From the 1971 Topps Football Game Insert Cards Merlin Olsen Los Angeles Rams

 1971 Topps Football Game Insert 27 Merlin Olsen Rams

(Front and Back)

EDIT: ACK! I was totally wrong I need a bunch of these: 1971 Topps Football Game Insert Cards
1971 Topps Game Inserts: 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 24, 25, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 38, 40, 43, 44, 45, 48

GOING GOing Gone!

The following post is a presentation of the Nachos Grande: 2013 Blogger Bracket Challenge Launch. Please do not panic but keep your arms and legs in the blog tram at all times.

GOING Going and Gone!

GOING:

Going, going, GONE! That is what happens when you play this card as it is intended for your 2011 Topps Attax game campaign. You hit a Home Run. If you're lucky and your HR is a GRAND SLAM! All the Mascot cards will do a celebration dance for you (OK maybe not all Bernie Brewer rarely does anything but drink and slide). If you played your cards right, at the bottom of the 9th with 2 outs, you win the game and the satisfaction of seeing your opponent's face go from a big wide grin to a droopy gloomy sour puss pout.

GOING:

Featured on this card is Carlos Lee when he was playing for the Astros. When this image of Carlos was first captured he was only thinking of knocking the ball out of the park, or pretending to if it was a staged photo op. Little did Mr. Lee know that he would have only one more year wearing Astros Orange and that the Astros would only have one more year at the bottom of the National League, OK he might have know of the impending League move for his then current team.

GONE:

So Carlos bid farewell to that baseball in 2011, then in 2012 farewell to Astros' Orange in exchange for Marlin's Neon Orange. The Astros bid farewell to the National League in 2012 and Hello to the American League in 2013. Out of the league's cellar and into the other league's... well cellar.  Oh and Carlos has since bid baseball farewell and said hello retirement. 

2004 MLB Showdown Card Game 11 pack

A while Back  (WOW back on 20 May) I had gotten some packs of cards from Target that I mentioned in this post Target Fairfield Value Pack Box This package consisted of 4 packs of baseball cards, 100 random baseball cards and a bonus of an additional pack of cards. I already mentioned the cards I got, but I decided I would show some of them. The few from the packs anyway, the 100 card deck I might only show a few choice ones. I haven't decided on that yet. I like getting these boxes/packages from time to time but I had forgotten that they "super" glue (it's not really the super-glue brand but the glue is really tough) the packs on the box supporting cardboard, making it nearly impossible to pull the packs off totally intact for those collectors who like to keep the pack wrappers.

BONUS PACK!

2004 MLB Showdown Card Game -
Trading Deadline Edition

(11 card pack)

I first became aware of this series/game when I got a Nick Johnson card (I've got to check that one out to see what his card says you are to do in the game, and to scan it someday). Anyway this is a CCG (Collectible Card Game) or TCG (Trading Card Game). I"m not sure how you play this game, or how long it takes, but I sure like these cards for some reason. I think I'll try to get the base set (how many hundreds of cards that is. I just researched and found they started making cards for this game in 2000 and ran the production each year until 2005 so six years worth. OK so make that 1,000s of cards). Anyway the set mixes in some game Legends and Vintage Hall of Fame players as well. It wasn't until I had scanned the pack wrapper and tried finding some of these cards on sportlots that I noticed I had the "Trading Deadline" Edition. Uh-oh that means it's more and more like Magic The Gathering as I feared. Maybe I won't go for a complete set, maybe just my fave teams, super stars and hall of famers.

There are two card backs since these cards are intended to be used for a game.  The base players backs are plain silver/gray while the "strategy" cards (The ones with the plays on them) are still silver/gray but with a red border.

2004 MLB Showdown Card Game - Player Card Back

 

2004 MLB Showdown Card Game - Play Strategy Card Back

010 Khalil Greene Padres

014 Brian Schneider Expos (Kool)

065 Randy Johnson D'Backs

066 John Burkett Red Sox

097 Jay Payton Padres

115 Roger Clemens Blue Jays
Chromy thing +5 Control card '97 Super Season

117 Luis Aparicio White Sox

(Cooperstown Collection)

118 Lou Brock Cards

(Cooperstown Collection)

S1 Dialed-in Offense Padres

S15 Great Reactions Defense Mets

S21 Feast Or Famine Utility Giants

Player Checklist 5/8

2004 MLB Showdown Game Instructions
(Back of Checklist Card)

2004 Upper Deck Power UP Baseball 9 pack

A while Back  (WOW back on 20 May) I had gotten some packs of cards from Target that I mentioned in this post Target Fairfield Value Pack Box This package consisted of 4 packs of baseball cards, 100 random baseball cards and a bonus of an additional pack of cards. I already mentioned the cards I got, but I decided I would show some of them. The few from the packs anyway, the 100 card deck I might only show a few choice ones. I haven't decided on that yet. I like getting these boxes/packages from time to time but I had forgotten that they "super" glue (it's not really the super-glue brand but the glue is really tough) the packs on the box supporting cardboard, making it nearly impossible to pull the packs off totally intact for those collectors who like to keep the pack wrappers.

2004 Upper Deck Power Up Baseball

(9 card pack)

This interesting series I didn't see until a couple of years ago when I got some Orioles cards from a trade or a box break, or team traders group. I got the Jay Gibbons card, and it seems I keep getting this card. I have at least 4 maybe 5 of this card now. Anyway these Power Up cards are part of some kind of online contest or game each card has a code on it and each card has some points that you get while playing this game or entering the contest. The player's heads are big out-of-proportion like the old Goudey "Heads Up" cards At first I thought these cards were stupid, but the big head caricatures of the players are fun. I'm not sure about the lime green color theme though.

The backs have a disembodied headshot and a few personal stats, plus points for the game, contest whatever the thing is. The font used for the card number and the player's name is too unusual. The numbers are sometimes a little hard to figure out, it took me some studying to figure out the 3 (was it a "3" or an "8"?) The chrome Shinning Through insert card(s) give more points and the backs look more like a standard card with the player's stats.

2004 Upper Deck Power Up - Sample Back

2004 Upper Deck Power Up Shining Through -
 Sample Insert Back

2 Rafael Furcal - Braves

3 Larry Walker - Rockies

15 Hank Blalock - Rangers

18 Garret Anderson - Angels

23 Orlando Cabrera - Expos

38 Jay Gibbons - Orioles

15 Phil Nevin - Padres

61 Sammy Sosa - Cubs

ST-66 Daren Erstad - Angels

2004 Upper Deck Power Up
Game Instructions - Front

2004 Upper Deck Power Up
Game Instructions - Back

1968 Topps Baseball

 

Card 278 Checklist 4th Series (for cards 284-370)

I was going to make this a post about just one card I had gotten recently (Jim Brewer), but I figured I'd talk about the whole set for this particular year. 1968 Topps Baseball. I think I had a ton more of these things when I was a kid than I do even now with buying what seems like a ton of them one or two cards at a time every few months. I'm not sure exactly which year was the first year I personally ripped open a trading card wax pack, but I do recall 1968 as being one of the first years I remember having cards from. I think 1970 or 1971 was the first year I personally opened a pack, or "bought" one. When you are a kid your "purchases" are usually really your parents or an older sibling "buying" the item for you while you wait impatiently to rip open whatever package it is you are about to get. I also recall that for the '68 cards the background pattern for some of the cards was really funky. the detail in the pattern of the dots or splotches seemed to vary. I couldn't decide if they were going for the look of a cork bulletin board or burlap sacks.

 298 Jim Brewer Dodgers

The most recent '68 card I've acquired.

114 Ron Swoboda Mets

Yes my card is cut off like that on the bottom (miscut)

 159 Don Kessinger Cubs

 235 Ron Santo Cubs

Ron also appeared on card #19 in the 

Insert Game cards Topps Released in 1968

(That is for another post)

While I'm mentioning Ron Santo Cards

1971 Topps 220

 1973 Topps 115

1971 Topps Inserts: Pin-Ups

1971 TOPPS Insert Game Mini Poster Pin-Ups

In 1971 Topps produced a Football Card Game similar to their Baseball Card Game from 1968. In addition to the cards (set of 52 cards) they produced a set of 32 Mini Poster Pin-Ups that had the game board on the back for the card game. The Pin-Ups were folded up in the packages with the cards, they are the size of 4 cards put together.

 

 A special "field Postion" marker card was an extra card for the set. Apparently you were supposed to cut it in half using one half to mark the ball on the field and the other half for the first down marker.

I'm pretty sure I had a few of the pinups back in the day, and a few of the cards, but I don't know where my original ones went. The ones I have now have come mostly from Ebay purchases, some of the cards have come from trades.

 Pin-UP # 1 Gene Washington - 49ers

#8 Roman Gabriel - Rams

#10 Bart Starr - Packers

 

 #17 Sonny Jurgensen - Redskins

 #32 Larry Brown - Redskins