Blog Bat-Around - Nice Cards Of Teams I Don't Like

After reading both Night Owl and Fuji's take on the latest topic (originated by Joe @ The Shlabotnik Report and Mike @ Not Another Baseball Card Blog ), I knew I had to jump in.  If nothing else, because Bat-Arounds are the best!

I liked Fuji's take on it, as he selected players that he respected even though they were on rival teams in three different sports.  So that's what I'm gonna do too.   Warning: This is gonna get lengthy!

One thing I wasn't sure about ... Do all of the cards you show have to be in your collection?  These are about half and half...  They're the teams I dislike the most, but the players I still like (or respect at minimum).  And almost all the images are from COMC.

5. New York Giants

Washington's NFC East rivals were the first ones I thought of for this post, and except for a nice Ron Jaworski auto I have on COMC right now, I couldn't imagine any Eagles that I really cared for.  But Eli Manning is one of Angela's favorite players, and he's pretty funny as Chad Powers.
I like the 2008 UD Rookie Debut set, and this card is a nice color match to the Giants uniform.  (The decent one.  The red jersey is lame and the white jersey with the grey pants always look like a rec league outfit.  The best are the all white 90's.  But I digress). 

Another reason to like Eli is his brother - who is Angela's #1 favorite - on the Broncos.

Not to mention that a few of the images of Eli with a stunned look on his face have made it to cards.  He looks like he's still recovering from the last sack.  Peyton loves putting up these kind of shots on their Monday Night Football broadcasts. 

Speaking of Monday Night Football, I wish I had more Frank Gifford cards.  This one is cool, but not one I own.  Gifford is really old school.  It seems like he was playing before they fully developed helmets, etc. 

I do have this 1960 though.  I have his 1958 Topps as well.  

If you're old enough to know him at all, you probably know him from the 70's broadcasts. 

And finally, I couldn't do the Giants and not include one of the greatest players of all time, Lawrence Taylor.  The dude just eminates intimidation.

He should be card #1 in any Greats of the Game set.  

 

4. Boston Red Sox

As an Orioles fan, I watched the recent Red Sox play mediocre for most of the game and then come back in the last inning and win too many times.  Good for them in 2004, but I was over it quickly.  I like the old school Sox much better.  But Big Papi is such a fun guy - he had that show where he tried all these different jobs.  So any cards with a happy David Ortiz are cool.

Plus, he gets a pass since my guy Brian Matusz (RIP) had his number when they faced each other.

Of course, there's my #1 player collection guy, Luis Tiant from the old school Sox.  Nobody was cooler than him.

3. New York Yankees

Tiant had a few Yankees cards too!

A few of my PC guys donned the pinstripes.  Ya gotta love the jacket and chaw in this '74 Sparky Lyle.

This '83 Lou Piniella is not that remarkable except for the levitating bat.  I think he might have as many manager cards as he does as a player.

I will say I always kinda liked Derek Jeter.  He had a distinctive mannerism at the plate that was kinda strange, but cool at the same time.  Sort of non-chalant, all business, but calm and focused.  This 2005 Topps reminds me of an action shot from 1973 Topps cards.  I have several singles on my want lists that would kill sets, and they're all him.  And those are elusive!

Yankees cards and pink seem to be a thing too.  It works.....

And who can forget this one?  I don't have a sense of how good a player Gamble was, but his cards are iconic anyway.  Be it for the 70's style or the airbrushing.

2. Pittsburgh Penguins

Once again, as a Caps fan, their arch rival just generates disgust.  But back when the Capitals weren't very good, Super Mario was a dominant player.  Unfortunately, most of his cards are in the late 80's/early 90's.  But I found a few that were cool.

This McDonalds Prism has the more modern Penguins uniform.  It's not bad, actually.

These blue unis are kinda nice looking too.  I'm guessing they're the third alt's or something.  Marc-Andre Fleury was another Pengie I didn't mind too much.  Especially when he moved on to Vegas (and now beyond apparently).  I had mixed emotions when the Caps beat him for the Cup - if the G-Knights would have been against anyone else, I'd have probably rooted for them.  But it was a little extra satisfying that it was the Peng's old goalie that we beat.

I have a casual collection of star goalies among my hockey gatherings.  The masks and equipment are even cooler than baseball catchers, especially the graphics on the masks.  Flower had bright yellow pads for a while that were terrible looking, but the black, white and pale gold would be nice for a team I actually like.

1. Dallas Cowboys 

Washington is the nation's capital, but America's team is in Texas?  Pfffft.  Anyway, if you know me at all, the choice for #1 was a no-brainer.  It's a close call between Pitt hockey and The 'Boys on who I hate the most, but Dallas ultimately wins.  Jerrah pays extra for the weekly hype boost no matter how they're playing, and they're always praised as championship contenders at the start of every season.

Troy Aikman is a decent announcer, even though being with Joe Buck kinda holds him back.  He does praise Washington when they deserve it, so he's OK in my book.  Didn't like him much when he played, of course.

Having a career in the 90's puts him on all the wacky inserts...

And he's old-school enough to look good on the retro-style stuff.

The other former lead Cowboy now announcer that I never really hated too much is Tony Romo.  These Strata cards aren't bad, and the throwback uni matches well.

Romo has always been a golly-shucks regular guy who is probably fun to be teammates with.  He doesn't get too serious, even in games (except when they blow the playoffs again - but then I'm happy, so it works out). 

Tony fits in with the frat boys, but is still down to earth enough to be likable.  He knows the game well, and communicates it to the general public without being pretentious.  Another guy who, on any other team, I'd have rooted for.

 
That's my rundown.  I could have split it up into two posts, but at this point, it's taken me so long to put it together, I figure I'd just throw it all up at once. 

Keep the Bat-Around's coming.  I'll try to think of one too! 

Tale Of The Tape: TCDB

Well, if not for the Ephrata show, I'd have slacked off here for another whole month.  Too much going on with the new house, the old house, trades and everything else.  Anyway, enough complaining...

 

 

Made a rare purchase on the Database a couple weeks ago with Frank, aka RockyCola.  He sent a whole list of matches to my wants and corresponding prices.  With the new toys I've been buying (zero turn mower), and all the expenses getting the old place ready to sell, I wasn't prepared to splurge at the moment, so I went through and picked out some that I liked the prices of and probably couldn't trade for otherwise. 

The package arrived from Canada, and didn't take a really long time as is the expectation these days. 

Opened it up to reveal a flat inner sheet...

...wrapped around four inner packs.  Each was bagged and wrapped in index cards.  I separated the four packs and saved the painter's tape, as I usually do.  I was in the kitchen so I stuck it up on the range hood.

Already, I could see there was going to be a lot of tape to be re-used later.  Nice packaging though...

Unbagged each packet and pulled the tape apart.  I didn't really save much of it from this part since it stuck to the wrapper.

Inside each pack was another tape wrapped bunch of sleeved cards. 

So this pack is completely freed.  Repeat three more times. 

After all that, I had this many pieces of tape to collect.  Started a second row!

But wait!  There's more!

There was a second small envelope for the oversize cards!

With another inner pack...

Which was a cleverly configured combo of four index card wrappers.

Made it all the way across twice in the end!

Which almost doubled my tape supply on the side of the computer desk!  (All that on the right is from these packages.)

I'm sure you're wondering what was inside cardwise!  The Bernie Heritage SP and Phil UD Golf insert were part of it.  Along with some regular 2023 Heritage SPs, some miscellaneous player hits, including something like this:

This is the TCDB image for a regular prism refractor from 2022 Topps Chrome Anniversary, but mine was a fancier parallel that doesn't have any image.  I got a black and white diamonds parallel of the Keith Hernandez too.

An insert for my Sergei Fedorov collection...

A very rare Priest Holmes 1999 parallel - Pacific Opening Day.  The top image is the regular base and the stamp is what makes the OD different.  They are all numbered out of 45.

And finally, I knocked out some more vintage O-Pee-Chees of my player collections.  Innocent looking regular fronts, but the cool alternative backs of the Canadian flavor. 

This was our notes after we both got our mailings:

Sent: Mon, Apr 6, 2026 7:06 PM

Got 'em both yesterday, thanks! Heck of a tape job. I will post about that on my blog :)

-LoQtus

Sent: Mon, Apr 6, 2026 6:29 PM
Awesome! Im glad they made it. Yeah I go through a lot of painters tape lol

Thanks again

-RockyCola

Ya gotta love enthusiastic packing!

Ephrata Is Not Fancy

Made it up to the Ephrata show again this year.  Since the Dulles Expo Center has been sold, the 3-per-year Chantilly show isn't happening until the fall when their new mall building renovation is complete.  So this may be the biggest show I get to for a while.  Ephrata is halfway between Lancaster and Reading and is still an hour and a half from the new Hivemind HQ, even though I'm farther north.

The show is largely vintage cards, which is more of a rarity these days.  I concentrated on my two 60's set builds, but still got a few other player collection things and some stuff for Angela too.

They always have one signer - this year was Penn State star Lavar Arrington.  I might have had him autograph something Redskins, but passed.  I still haven't really seen where they do the signing in the building.  It's not near the show floor.

On to the loot.  Found a couple more Jordan Addisons for my PC.  The Vikings picked up his fifth year option. 

Mahomes was one of the last two inserts I need for 2019 Score completion.  (The other is the Josh Allen Signal Callers.)  Brady is a promo for the 2005 Throwback set.  Been looking for that for a while.  Figured I better grab it even though it was five bucks.  His stuff will probably only get worse that way. 

Some interesting additions to my baseball PCs.  The Sutter was the first parallel for his 2021 Chrome Platinum Anniversaries.  The other three were the only things I got from my usual insert guy, who lives near the show but I've seen him just about everywhere else but there.  He only had the current year Heritage, flagship, and Bowman.

Was hoping to find a few obscure Phillies issues of Puddin' Head Jones, but only found this playing card.  Bake is from the 1978 SSPC set, which I still need a lot of my other PC guys from.

The fancy parallel Brett Favre from the top is here with the rest of his that I got for quarters or dollars for Angela.  We just got a 230 count trade of all Bretts this past week, (thanks Jake Gepner from TCDB) so his numbers are soaring.  Had to put him in his own 3" binder already.

The Manning brothers made a brief appearance in those same boxes.  I'm still educating Angela on the distinctions between refractors and x-fractors etc.  She does like shiny.

On to my vintage builds.  Struck three of the checklist variations for 1961 Topps.  The first two have differences on the back, and the third is Aparicio's name as highlighted in red.

I had just traded for a 4th series checklist as well, but unfortunately, neither one of them will likely be the final resident of my set.  

The one I got at the show turned out to have creases on the top corners.... 

And the one I traded for had been marked and erased.  The previous owner had alerted me to this ahead of time.  If anyone wants one for their collection, let me know.

Moving to 1963, these are all high number short prints.  Felt good to find most of these for half or less of the typical $15 price tag without being in lousy condition.

The rookies are the variations with either '62 or '63 up top.  I have the other flavors already.  Maris looks so sad, I'm not sure why.  Herzog and McDaniel were a couple of the low series I hadn't found good copies of until now.

And finally, I got a bargain on Roberto, and the only catch is the small crease through the top of his hat, and a pencil mark in the upper part of the inset circle that rubbed off pretty decently.  I'll take it for two digits instead of three. 

And that wraps up my show haul.  Not sure when the next show will be, but it will probably be one of those where half the tables have Pokémon, which is fine.  See you then!