MiLB Madness: Loaded team, eccentric arm, batboys & more

Minor league baseball cards from the past can include some weird stuff ... stuff you wouldn't imagine to be found on a baseball card. Here are some some new oddities in this latest edition of MiLB Madness. 

LOADED WITH TALENT ...
The Card: Peoria's Past, Chicago's Future -- 1989 Kodak Peoria Chiefs
The Buzz On This: I found this for less than 50 cents and, well, it felt like a steal with it being a fun card with some serious star power on there. Who? Hall of Famer Greg Maddux for starters along with memorable Cubbies of the era ... Mark Grace, Jerome Walton, Dwight Smith, Joe Girardi and even a few others who made it to The Show. (Click the image at right to view all of the names.)

All-star caliber team/group shots are not often the norm in MiLB sets -- you typically get everybody on a team shot or not at all -- and that makes this one feel more like a classic card. (Or even a Classic card where creative combo cards were quite normal at this time in their sets.)

Keep reading for more examples of some weird or fun baseball cards you can find in MiLB.

IT'S ME, AURELIO!
The Card: Leonard Garcia 1981 TCMA Salt Lake City Gulls
The Buzz On This: A team trainer card is perhaps the most-common of sorta oddball finds in older MiLB card sets, but when I happened upon this one it was an easy pick-up. Why? Leonard Garcia is also the batboy who mistakenly appeared on a 1969 Topps Aurelio Rodriguez card -- it's a memorable mistake from the past, though it wasn't corrected. Garcia was also a clubhouse attendant for a couple years and somewhere in there he posed for photos along with Rodriguez before a game when photographer George Brace -- a name that you could Google for some stories as his life's work is comprehensive -- came around and, well, he eventually ended up in the set. After his time with the Angels, Garcia worked as a team trainer in the minors and eventually ended up working for the big team again years later. The life in the game only resulted in about a half-dozen cards of his own, though, and this one is toward the end of that when it comes to cardboard.

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THE HIT DOG RAKES
The Card: Chris Neier 1998 Grandstand Chico Heat
The Buzz On This: This card's story is one that, well, I didn't expect to unearth as this card is from a team set of an independent Western League organization. Neier was a 23rd-round pick of the Colorado Rockies back in 1992 and made it up to Double-A ball in five seasons before joining this team this season -- he went 8-2 with a 2.94 ERA -- before hanging 'em up the year after this. But this card? It's not about any of that ... this card has all kinds of quirky attached as the pitcher is wearing eye black as well as an eye black mustache and some chin fuzz while his wrist tape calls him "Hit Dog" and proclaims "I Rake" ... with no explanations. Meanwhile, in 17 career plate appearances he hit .125 with two hits, one RBI, one walk and, surprisingly, only three strikeouts. He was a star at California State University-Chico and after baseball turned to sports administration. Was it a bet lost? Was it a joke? Somebody, somewhere knows ... but all I know is that the cardboard lives forever.

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TACOTIME & THE BATBOYS ...
The Card: Reuben Rodriguez & The Batboys (Lance Bagshaw, Ryan Bagshaw & Andy Iacona) 1987 Salt Lake Trappers (team issue)
The Buzz On This: I grabbed this card as, well, almost any time you can find the batboys taking over a card it's odd. Someday, I will find a batboy card of a player who ended up on baseball cards of their own years later -- I swear -- but this one's Trivia also goes beyond the Tac0Time and Coca-Cola ads. The card's back notes the team's 29-game win streak and that's a mark that, I believe, still stands for all of MiLB. More trivia? An owner of the team back then? Bill Murray. Yes, That Bill Murray. (Watch that clip for even more name-drops from when the record fell.) I can't do it all justice but this story does. And to think ... I just thought it was interesting to have a TacoTime & The Batboys card ... that sounds like a 1980s band. Huey Lewis wound be proud ... oh, wait, he was there, too. 

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HEY, Y'ALLS ...
The Card: Front Office -- 2022 Florence Y'alls (team issue)
The Buzz On This: The card backs here don't say much -- and this isn't the first or last card I grabbed from this set -- but this independent team has one of the most-unique names in all of baseball -- y'all better know what it means -- and the color scheme on those unis is pretty tight, too. (I said that last time.) The fronts are a 1959 Topps homage for sure and I thought a group shot with the staffers had as much oddball appeal as other cards this time.

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