I'm Hungry

So lets have some Hostess cards from the closet box of oddball 'stuff'. 

Here is a 1975 Brooks Robinson. Obvious spring training photo session with the shadows of Brooks, the photographer and the support crew visible.

Jim Palmer's card from that 1975 set was shot in Yankee Stadium.

A trio of 1976 Hostess cards. Mike Torrez pitched for 18 seasons and won 20 games once... as a member of the '75 Orioles, his only year in Charm City. By the time this card was cut from a box of Ding Dongs he was pitching in Oakland courtesy of the Reggie Jackson trade.

Here's Brooks again in a spring training shot. That's Miami Stadium's curved roof behind him.

 Don Baylor was on the same April flight to Oakland as Mike Torrez since they both were part of the Reggie trade. It's surprising to me to look back at Baylor's numbers as an Oriole and see that he hit only 57 homers for them. He had 25 in 1975.

Finally this is the 1978 Jim Palmer. '78 was Palmers last 20 win season. He was coming off a second place in the Cy Young balloting after having won the award three of the previous four seasons. He was headed for the back side of his terrific career but wasn't done quite yet. In 1982 he pitched well enough to finish 2nd in the Cy Young voting.  

Monday Morning Quarterback #29 Wade Wilson 1991 Domino's QB Challenge card

In this ongoing series of posts I am going to feature cards from my fantasy football player collection, specifically the 117 quarterbacks I've had on my team's roster since 1980. I have one selected card for each player in my All-Time Flyers binder. Through the years I've tried to use as many different card varieties as possible while holding on to my preference which is: a card issued in a year I owned the player showing him in the proper team uni in a vertical format. Card availability and my whims have had a big impact on that standard as we will see. 

NFL Info: Wilson is another in the long line of journeyman quarterbacks I had rostered in the 80s and 90s. He played his college ball at East Texas State (now Texas A&M-Commerce) and was drafted by the Vikings in the 8th round of the 1981 draft. He played for the Vikes for 11 seasons and made the 1988 Pro Bowl in a season in which he led the NFL in completion percentage. Most of his time with Minnesota was in a reserve role. He played for several other clubs after leaving Minnesota and was the Saints full time starter in 1993. He was a quarterbacks coach for a couple of NFL teams after his playing days.

Fantasy Impact: I had Wilson in 1990 and he made one start for me. I used him as my qb in Week 2 that season and he threw  three scores to help me win my game. Odd thing is that Dan Marino was my regular quarterback and I sat him that week in favor of Wilson. I can't imagine why I did that, but I'm glad I did. I went on to win my first league championship that season. Looking back at Marino's 1990 season shows that he threw 21 touchdowns which was his lowest total since his rookie year. I even went to Steve DeBerg several times that year including the final two games of the regular season and the semi-finals, all of which he won.

The Card: For a food issue card this Dominos set wasn't too shabby. The company logo isn't splashed across it, the player photo takes center stage and the design is pretty clean. The back is better than a lot of regular set cardbacks with it's different photo and listing of the player's facts including numbers and highlights. The Upper Deck logo appears on the back and they get a tip of the cap for doing this right.

I can say with a lot of confidence that I've never bought a Domino's pizza so there is no telling where I got this card. I would bet that it came from one of my students back then because we did a lot of trading of football cards with the school kids.

Three Billy Pierce Vintage cards

1964 Topps Billy Pierce. he's a San Francisco Giant and it just seems odd. Love the card though. Typical Pierce with that grin. Nice team-related colors and the blue sky sets off the uniform well.

The back is a different story. I'm OK with the 'wall of stats'. In fact I enjoyed reading through these numbers on veteran players' cards when I was a kid. What I didn't like (and still don't) is the orange on white format. I have a hard time reading these things. Funny, the cardback takes on a darker hue when the scan shows up on my screen. Holding the actual card next to the image shows quite a contrast. The image onscreen is waaay easier to read.

1963 Topps '62 World Series subset Game #6

That's Pierce out there working in the Candlestick Park wind, mowing down Yankees left and right. In Game Six the Giants were against the wall trailing the Series three games to two and they called on Pierce to even it up. Which he did. He had lost Game Three in Yankee Stadium despite a fine effort through six innings (see this post from last week for details). Back for his second try Pierce didn't disappoint as he scattered three hits in the 5-2 win. Pierce was perfect until Roger Maris touched him for a homer with one out in the fifth. The Yanks collected their second run in the eighth on a Clete Boyer double and Tony Kubek single.

Even with a rested bullpen Alvin Dark kept Pierce in the game and he was rewarded as Pierce retired Bobby Richardson to end the threat and in the ninth he got Tommy Tresh and Mickey Mantle on flyouts and whiffed Maris to send the Series to a Seventh Game.

For about $5 shipped I was glad to add these two cards as I close in on finishing my Billy Pierce collection.

And finally, a late edition to the collection that was waiting for me when I got back home on Sunday night. The 1962 Post Billy Pierce. I nabbed this as part of a small lot that included a couple others that I'm shipping off to someone who may like them. The Post cards from the early 60s bring back some good memories for me. I collected these with a fervor back then. I made sure I went on my mother's grocery trips so I could have 'input' on which boxes we bought. But I'd never have as many as a family down the end of the block that had about five boys and went through cereal boxes like there was no tomorrow. Those kids had Post Cereal cards to burn.

Well, SOMEBODY liked the stuff

Got home from the football games Saturday night and discovered that my dog had found the Kellogg's box-back cards on the chair in my office. Looks like he didn't think the vanilla flavored cereal was so bad. He liked it enough to chew up the cardboard even though the nasty stuff it contained was long gone.

Doesn't matter I hadn't planned on keeping this anyway.

Kellogg's 2012 Team USA Olympic Cards

Since I'm a guy who avoids the Olympics as much as I can (they let the pros in, use crooked refs and judges and never show wrestling anymore) I'm not as burned out as most of you probably are. So when I passed this box of Kellogg's 2012 Team USA cereal on a Kroger endcap I was intrigued. It's been awhile since I've seen any food issues. Particularly cereal box issues. I know there are some, maybe a lot, but I haven't bought much cereal since my kids grew up.

I had assumed there are different cards on different boxes but a cursory googling didn't help me there. I only found pics of the same cards I got on my box. I DID find folks selling these boxes on eBay for $8.00 or so, or at least trying to.


EDIT: I found a thread on some card forum that indicated that these cards were also printed on at least one other Kellogg's cereal, Rice Krispies. The poster showed a scan of the front of the box and there was nothing there to indicate the cards were on the back. I find that kind of weird.


There are eight Olympians on this box, six of whom I've never heard of. I remember Summer Sanders as a swimmer and kids show host and you simply can't avoid the beach volleyball women (I don't know why that's in the Olympics but that's another story). The rest don't register with me but I'm sure they do to some of you.

Kellogg found some pretty good action shots of the athletes to use here. The 'Team Kellogg's' logo is a bit too big but the cards are attractive for a promo issue. The cards are not standard size measuring 2 3/8 by 2 3/4. The back of the cards contain a blurb about how each of the athletes got their 'start' in their sport.

Obviously my skills with a pair of scissors isn't much better than it was back when I was chasing Post cereal cards. And before you ask, the cereal itself tastes pretty bad. A 'vanilla' flavored cereal sounded odd and tasted that way as well. Most of it ended up in the trash although my dog seemed to like the handful I gave him.



Oh yeah, I almost forgot... Summer Sanders still looks pretty good.