This is What Massive Power Looks Like...

...according to the 1995 Emotion card for Ryan Klesko.

Seeing as this is my largest baseball player collection and I need to get my havelist up to date and into pages and out of stacks, I will continue to share some of my favorites as I go.

First up we have the horizontal cards, starting with the already mentioned 1995 Emotion set.  All three of these cards scanned great and have good color, especially the Emotion.  The Emotion card brings up a fact you may not know about Klesko, that he is a former pitcher. He pitched at Westminister (Calif.) High School, and an arm injury sustained while pitching for the USA Junior Olympic team halted his pitching career. This AJC article from 2011 mentions if not for this injury he may have been drafted as a pitcher.

As I've mentioned I always enjoy cards where players are signing autographs for fans.  Klesko's autograph should be an affordable one I can add to my collection someday.

I have at least 6 copies of this 1999 Topps Klesko, which means I should show off at least one of them on this blog post, right? The fun fact from this card back reads that Klesko hit a home-run against St. Louis that allowed Atlanta to break the 1941 Brooklyn Dodgers record for most consecutive games with a homer, the 25th straight game for Atlanta. I love baseball cards for these type of facts.

And that concludes the Braves portion of the post.

This is the only black and white card in my Klesko collection. This is another set I will likely want a team-set of Braves and Orioles from. The second card... well I just enjoy Topps Heritage.

Here we have different post-swings from Klesko. Looks like he hit both of these balls in the air. I'm going to assume they were both home-runs. The 2001 Topps Opening Day notes that Klesko led baseball in stolen bases among first baseman in 2000, stealing 23 bases. Impressive for a power hitter.

And lastly one of my favorite die cut sets from 2003 Upper Deck Standing O. Despite this being a tiny card, the die cut still has room for three years of stats and a lengthy write-up on the back. 

One of these days I'll have my full Klesko collection listed!

From the Binder- 90s Cal

As mentioned in an earlier post, while unpacking after a move a few months ago I came across a binder of Orioles and Braves cards from my childhood.  Much to my delight, one page was full of Ripken cards, which I will share with you now.  

I have always been a sucker for shiny, glossy, and chrome cards, so I was excited to see Cal's card from  1999 Topps Chrome.  It's currently my only Chrome Ripken, something that needs to be fixed.

The All-Star Connection card in the center looks much better in person than in the scan.  At first I assumed this was a regular Upper Deck insert, but then realized it was from Collector's Choice.  I opened a lot of Collector's Choice in second half of the 90s mainly due to affordability.  Upper Deck definitely put some inserts in there that I appreciate today. The base set design not as much, but at the time I was pleased to open any kind of packs.

At first I thought the 1999 Topps card on the right was a gold parallel, but it appears the base 99 set has a gold border and the gold parallels that we see today didn't start for a few more years, which I'm sure you readers already know. How obvious is it that I was paying more attention to basketball cards than baseball around this time in my life?

The first card in this row from 1996 Pinnacle is one of my favorites.  The back of the card notes that Cal won MVP awards in 1983 (sadly before I was born), and 1991.  Being awarded MVP eight years apart (and not missing a game in-between) is an impressive feat that certainly makes him worthy of being in a subset called 'Hardball Heroes'.

The only comment I have on the middle card,  is I've always appreciated the cursive font in combination with it being shiny, like an Electric Diamond card from 1995 Upper Deck, or Electric Court as I remember it from collecting Hoops.  Also, the card back says that Cal's hobby is basketball and his favorite show is Seinfeld.  It's like we're the same person!

Rounding out this row is a card that at first glance I recognized as from a Z-Force set, but is actually listed as Skybox Circa Thunder.  I always appreciated the inserts from Z-Force sets and I imagine there's some good ones from this Thunder product as well.

That's all for now- more Cal's to talk about soon!