After I was a child within the late Eighties I beloved Bruce Nash and Allan Zullo’s Baseball Corridor of Disgrace books. They weren’t the one baseball books I learn however one thing concerning the tales of “so dangerous that they’re foolish” occasions have been precisely the sort of factor I preferred finest concerning the recreation. That the quilt artwork was finished by MAD Journal’s Jack Davis was an additional bonus.
Considered one of recurring chapters in every guide was titled “Bubble Gum Bozos” and lined baseball playing cards which have been both errors or simply foolish. Whereas I do know plenty of the technology of collectors who grew up with The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading and Bubble Gum Book and have had a kind of low-priority assortment going of each card talked about in that guide, I haven’t heard of collectors my age accumulating the Baseball Corridor of Disgrace playing cards.
After I was a child I didn’t want to gather all of them. However I did get pleasure from including a number of the sillier ones. This publish will undergo guide by guide for my recollections and assortment after which put collectively a guidelines on the finish for all of the playing cards that are talked about.
The primary guide comprises a handful of classics: Billy Martin flipping off the camera, Aurelio Rodriguez as a batboy, Jay Johnstone in a Budweiser brockabrella, Duane Kuiper posing with a broken bat, and Dick Ellsworth mistakenly depicted by Ken Hubbs. For a guide which got here out in 1985 it’s a pleasant vary of years starting from the mid Nineteen Sixties to the yr earlier than publication. For a child within the late Eighties, these planted the seed that there have been different methods to accumulate playing cards than what I used to be studying in Beckett.
Photographs could possibly be foolish. Errors didn’t have the be Error Playing cards. Little particulars in a picture have been price on the lookout for any being attentive to. I solely ever acquired two of the 5 playing cards listed right here however each have been treasured elements of my assortment.
The Billy Martin was one I purchased at my first card show back in 1989 when then Billy Ripken was all the rage. Kuiper got here as a part of a Giants staff set which value me approach lower than what my native store had priced a pack of 1983 Fleer. After I restarted TTM requests it was one of many first playing cards I assumed to ship out.
And sure this implies I someway by no means acquired a 1984 Fleer Jay Johnstone.
It took all of 1 yr for Nash and Zullo to publish a sequel. This time the baseball card chapter had 9 playing cards. A few of these like Claude Raymond’s multiple cards with his fly down, Tommy John following through with the ball still in his glove, “Lou” Burdette winding up left handed despite being a righty, Gary Pettis’s brother Lynn, and Red Wilson pretending to be the Venus de Milo are fairly well-known. Others resembling Joe Hoerner wearing a sun hat or the Len Barker perfect game card depicting Bo Diaz as an alternative of Ron Hassey stay extra obscure.
And one required deciphering a cartoon informing kids that the pitcher’s rubber is 24″ long as a dick joke. This felt like a particularly labored try at humor once I was in elementary faculty* and for those who can’t make an elementary faculty child chuckle at a dick joke then perhaps it’s not an excellent joke.
*Whereas I grew up listening to the USC band known as the “rubber band” I additionally discover myself questioning now what number of children needed to ask their mother and father what was humorous a few 24″ lengthy rubber.
For no matter purpose I didn’t get any of those playing cards once I was a child however remembered lots of them. The 1967 Raymond (1966 is a excessive quantity) and 1959 Wilson have been a number of the first issues I obtained upon returning to the passion and I used to be tremendous happy to get the 1985 Pettis a couple of years ago. And sure I ought to in all probability snag the Tommy John and Lou Burdette in some unspecified time in the future.
Nash and Zullo didn’t embrace any playing cards in guide 3 however they included one other eight within the 4th installment. Since this guide got here out in 1990 I’ve a guess that Billy Ripken pressured their hand. Along with Ripken they included Gino Cimoli swinging an invisible bat, Cal McLish with his eyes closed, Jim O’Toole with a hilariously graphic cartoon on the back, Tim Flannery with his surfboard, Dave Bennett as an 18-year-old 19 year old, Steve Carlton without a hand, and Norm Cash with his fly down.
Just a few of those like Cimoli, McLish, and Carlton really feel kind of like makeweights for the chapter. Particularly since not like within the earlier two books there isn’t any textual content describing the playing cards. Are the pictures sort of derpy. Sure. Are they apparently derpy? Probably not.
However the others are fully-worthy additions to the record with a couple of like O’Toole being completely incredible.
By the point this guide got here out I had began my quest to get one card from every year and I used to be tremendous excited to fill in my 1963 slot with this one. I additionally was fortunate sufficient to drag a Flannery naturally from packs. No such luck with Ripken although as that continues to be one of many iconic playing cards from my youth that I don’t personal.
Full Guidelines
☐ 1958 Topps #213 Crimson Wilson
☐ 1959 Topps #286 Gino Cimoli
☐ 1959 Topps #440 Lou Burdette
☐ 1961 Topps #157 Cal McLish
☐ 1963 Topps #70 Jim O’Toole
☐ 1964 Topps #561 Dave Bennett
☐ 1966 Topps #447 Dick Ellsworth
☐ 1966 Topps #586 Claude Raymond
☐ 1967 Topps #364 Claude Raymond
☐ 1969 Topps #653 Aurelio Rodriguez
☐ 1969 Topps #465 Tommy John
☐ 1970 Topps #611 Norm Money
☐ 1972 Topps #33 Billy Martin
☐ 1972 Topps #259 Sparky Lyle
☐ 1976 SSPC #456 Joe Hoerner
☐ 1982 Fleer #639 Len Barker/Bo Diaz
☐ 1982 Topps #1 Steve Carlton Spotlight
☐ 1983 Fleer #263 Duane Kuiper
☐ 1984 Fleer #495 Jay Johnstone
☐ 1985 Topps #497 Gary Pettis
☐ 1988 Fleer #582 Tim Flannery
☐ 1989 Fleer #616 Billy Ripken Error
Wanting on the full record of playing cards now I’m struck by what number of playing cards might even have been included. There’s just one wrong-player error and it’s not even one of many quite a few such errors within the Eighties. In actual fact, that there’s just one corrected error in the whole record makes this guidelines exist in a very totally different universe than the Beckett scorching lists that we handled as gospel within the baseball card club.
There might have been a bunch extra Fleer playing cards. No Glenn Hubbard. No Mickey Hatcher. No Mark Grant. The truth that Keith Comstock didn’t make it in in any respect is egregious. Terrible airbrushing would’ve additionally been a very legit class of entries. There are the pair from 1958 the place the bats have been eliminated however not one of the bizarre logos and colorization from the Nineteen Seventies.
Nonetheless, the spirit of “Bubble Gum Bozos” is what was actually vital. Particularly coming from the period when baseball playing cards grew to become “investments.” This isn’t a guidelines I need to full as a lot because it’s one I need to be impressed by. To nonetheless crack up when a player shows up with an open fly. To completely get pleasure from stupid jokes that never should’ve made it past QA. To recollect always that that is presupposed to be enjoyable and infantile.
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