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

IT'S ANNIE SAVOY!
The Cards: Susan Sarandon 2024 Leaf Pop Century Now Showing Red, White & Blue Mojo Pre-Production Proofs (each a 1/1 card)
The Buzz On This: This long-running non-sports catch-all card franchise often shows celebs in headshots or on fashionable red-carpet moments, but when I spotted a few of these blank-backed cards sporting a photo from Bull Durham -- still likely the movie of all movies when it comes to Minor League Baseball -- I picked off each of these and another color (to be seen elsewhere later) among a bunch of these proofs with various colors and textures from this set. Why? They're affordable and fun -- something rare (each color/texture is the lone copy in proof form) -- and still can be collected without breaking the bank. I landed these for less than $10 a card shipped, though I wouldn't have bothered if these didn't have the Annie Savoy visual. (This is from the memorable batting cage scene and the set is made to lightly emulate a movie ticket.) I did a lot of cheap proofs here, so I'll show off others and my other shade of this one elsewhere at some point. These aren't my typical oddball cards here, but I figured since we're in-season I'd mix in some other stuff from the MiLB realm.

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

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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. 

REMEMBERING HERITAGE ...
The Cards: Max Fried 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017 Topps Heritage Minor League cards
The Buzz On This: Before he was among the stacked rotation of the Atlanta Braves and got himself a World Series ring, Fried was a member of the Fort Wayne TinCaps and the Mississippi Braves and he appeared on cards in the in-pack MiLB sets released under the Topps Heritage line. That meant retro designs here -- 1964, 1965, 1967 and the burlap-inspired 1968 look -- but with clean, modern printing and other touches that put it in the here and now while looking a lot like back then. Fried missed a year (I presume due to his injury/trade) and has some other inserts and parallels in these sets before his Heritage RC in 2018 and all that's come since. I keep talking about doing a run of some players' Heritage cards in slabs and I grabbed all of these since they're all affordable (despite being likely far rarer than anything Heritage MLB) and just might do it for both MiLB and MLB releases. Also: The Heritage MiLB brand apparently died in 2023 ... so pour one out for that one while we're at it.

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

Continue reading →