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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.

Continue reading →

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. 

NOT EVEN THE COOLEST SAINTS CARD ... BUT CLOSE?
The Card: Space Ham 2021 Choice St. Paul Saints
The Buzz On This One: When comedy icon Bill Murray is among the team owners and has at least one baseball card out there, it's hard to have any one card for this long-running team grab any kind of added attention or carry cool-card status beyond that ... but this one probably does command some attention despite it not, I repeat not, being the only minor league card out there showcasing a pig. So, what's the deal here and is that a Space Jam jersey worn by Space Ham? Why, indeed it is ... and it's teased here and explained more in-depth on the card. (Click for a closer look.) Oh, and don't forget that Murray was in that movie alongside that failed member of the Birmingham Barons.

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

Continue reading →