MiLB Madness: MLB All-Stars, talking heads, mascots & more

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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. 

HIS FIRST FIRST
The Card: Justin Turner 2006 Grandstand Billings Mustangs
The Buzz On This: This MLB veteran, All-Star and World Series winner has played for four teams in 15 years but it all started off with a different franchise as he was a seventh-round pick of the Cincinnati Reds in 2006 -- and other than the basic bio stuff that's about all this first card even says. I had this one bouncing around in my small stash of MiLB sets for some time as the Mustangs were about the only team I knew about as a kid in the real world -- in the reel world the Durham Bulls, of course, were big in the early 1990s after Bull Durham. I recently flipped back through some of my old sets and was surprised that I knew this name and it was him. Turner never actually played for the Reds in an MLB game and he's well-known for that big crazy beard but that's not here. His first Bowman Chrome card came two years later -- his only Reds card (I think) -- and his RCs are in 2010 releases when he was a Met. This one is an easy first ... and I'm not even sure he has much more MiLB cardboard. Turner is perhaps not as high-profile on cards as he was as a Dodger, but this card being a first makes it a lot more interesting to me than even his RCs. It's also so clean I might even slab it at some point, too.

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

THREE OF A KIND ...
The Cards: Eric Chavez 1997 Grandstand Visalia Oaks, 1998 Burger King Huntsville Stars, 1997 Best California League Top Prospects
The Buzz On This: The A's have always been -- well, at least back in the day -- my team to watch (up to maybe the last decade or so) so reliable, star big-leaguers of the past always stand out to me when I see them pop up in MiLB sets. Typically, I'll grab a bunch of MiLB stuff at once for this series and sprinkle them in these monthly roundups as whims hit me, but these actually came from a few different batches and I only just realized I had a trio of his cards waiting on deck. He was a first-round pick in 1996 and had his first cards in 1997 Bowman so that one and its Chrome counterpart always won, but that era was one rich with minor league stuff in packs and then team sets and he had plenty of cards in general (60-plus) by the time he made his MLB debut in 1998. Fast forward to today and there are thousands of Chavez cards made for a career that included 260 homers in 17 MLB seasons and six straight Gold Gloves with the A's. And this is a reminder that time flies ... he hasn't played in MLB since 2014.

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LEAVE ME OUTTA THIS!
The Card: Buzz 2013 Grandstand Burlington Bees
The Buzz On This: I can appreciate what this mascot brings to the table, though I can't imagine wearing a fur suit in Iowa in the middle of summer right beside the Mississippi River. The Bees were an MLB affiliate up to 2020 but are a franchise that's now part of collegiate summer league play. I liked the look of this horizontal design on this card -- simple yet still a decent amount of stuff going on -- while the back offers up the basics. Get Stung By The Fun!

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NAMED FOR A NASCAR ICON ... BUT LOOKS LIKE A COUNTRY CLUB
The Card: Intimidators Stadium 2019 Choice Kannapolis Intimidators
The Buzz On This: A stadium card is a pretty common thing in MiLB sets and you can see them in some MLB releases, too, but there aren't many from the past that are named after the nickname of a NASCAR great, "The Intimidator" Dale Earnhardt. Actually, this is the only one as far as I know. Sadly, it no longer exists and the team, with a new name, now plays at a place called Atrium Health Ballpark ... but the cardboard is forever.

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THE VOICE & THE BIG SHOW
The Cards: Larry Ward 2017 Grandstand Chattanooga Lookouts, 2010/2011 Grandstand Jacksonville Suns The Big Show (Robbie Rose, Toni Foxx, Boomer)
The Buzz On This: Finding a team announcer isn't all that uncommon on MiLB cardboard at all but finding one standing beside what looks like a wood-carved life-size mascot? That's a pocket-change pick-up for sure ... and based on the back of the card Ward is a legend there, anyway, as well as a Hall of Famer. The other two caught my eye with their WWE Gimmick Infringement -- this is The Big Show and I don't care what those ESPN guys say, either -- but also what caught my eye was how the song remains the same on both years for this pair with the photos not only the same identical pieces. I also thought it was odd how the team's name wasn't on either card even though this was in their team set.

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IS THAT A FAMOUS FOOT?
The Cards: Scott Wilson 1990 Star San Jose Giants, Cesar Roman 2010 Grandstand Jupiter Hammerheads, Gord Watt 1998 Grandstand Lethbridge Black Diamonds
The Buzz On This: Trainer cards are pretty much a MiLB thing only -- and that's probably a good thing with there being all kinds of awkward stretching and foot cameo cards out there that, well, they're just weird. Way too many. (I'm 100-percent sure I did not buy those two as singles ... instead they stuck out as odd cards in a cheaper team set lot I picked up in the past.) The Wilson card is a stupidly awkward pose card that I kind of like, actually, as it's just absurd on its face. Secondary thought here ... I do wonder whether some of the trainers caught up in books about MLB's PED issues in the past -- I've read a lot of them but not recently -- have cards ... but while I do have time to find oddities I don't have time to do all that research.

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