Four Baggers and Foreclosures

For much of the early 1990's, my card collecting habits could be summed up as a Junk Wax Prospector. This was back when you could find packs of even Minor League baseball cards in retail outlets like gas stations and grocery stores! During the era where every card was way, way, way, waaaaaaay overproduced, I paid extra attention to acquiring cards of the hottest rookies before they made the Major Leagues. Surely those would be worth more money someday! I was correct on a few of players for whom I predicted stardom, and wrong on quite a few more... The Junk Wax Prospector is a series I'm starting to highlight my favorite early 1990's prospects, both good and bad, and how they fared... I don't want to be overly negative (despite it coming easy for me), but it's a lot more fun to write about things that are bad, than things that worked out okay... First up is a former first round draft pick (#3 overall) from the Minnesota Twins, David McCarty! 1991 Classic 4 Sp...

The celebrate the one week anniversary of Four Baggers and Foreclosures, I'm going to do something special and send a nod to my hometown of Coon Rapids, MN. There are certain landmarks that have always been of particular interest to me, even if there is no particular reason to be interested at all. If you want a hint before I reveal it, enjoy this advertisement from a May 1990 issue of Minnesota Twins magazine... I do love that little baby blue cartoon ghost engine! The former Amoco station in Coon Rapids was high on the list. I was alive during it's entire lifespan, from construction to demolition. Though I probably was inside that particular gas station maybe once or twice that I can remember, it was always driven past on my way to somewhere else. Much like that town, it's what you drive past on your way to somewhere else... In the mid 1980's, a new highway was constructed crossing the Mississippi river. It temporarily ended in the middle of town, before b...

From 2002-2005, Topps had one of the best ideas for a card set in a long time, Topps Total. Unfortunately it didn't catch on.... When I started collecting in the late 1980's, each card company (and there were five of them in 1989, vs one and a half today... I can't give full credit to Panini and their unlicensed efforts) had their flagship set, weighing in at 600-800 cards. The effort was put in by all five to ensure that each set was a fairly accurate record of the season before it. Nearly all the members of each team got a card. If you were a below average middle reliever, you got a card! Backup middle infielder, pinch hitter, bench riding role player, you all got cards! As the 1990's dawned, each company introduced more and more smaller sets every year, most relied on gimmicks instead of substance. In 1988, Topps released one comprehensive set that covered 792 cards of nearly everyone on the 26 teams, with an additional 132 card update set at the end of the se...