Weird Card File - 1988 Topps UK Minis

These cards were marketed by Topps in England to the host of baseball fans there starving for baseball cards.

Except for their size (about 3 by 2 inches) and that they are printed on white card stock, they share a lot of the features of other Topps issues of the late 1980s. The photos on the front are either action shots or candid shots of the player sitting or standing around. The team name is featured prominently on the top and the player name on the bottom. The card fronts are finished but have no gloss.

The backs are also fairly conventional with the past year's and life time stats, the player's personal statistics and some little tidbit about the player. Lloyd was nicknamed "Shaker" in high school. Wouldn't you like to know the full story behind that?


One thing not normally found on baseball cards is a little feature called "Talkin' Baseball". Here, Topps attempts to explain the terminology of the game. I picked this card to show because of the detailed definition of the word throw.

"A Throw is the act of propelling the ball with hand and arm to a given objective. A Throw is to be distinguished from and not to be confused with a pitch".

Baseball is big in some parts of the world, but I think Europe isn't one of them. In the late 1970s, I shared an office in work with an engineer from my company's plant in France. He arrived here during the 1977 World Series. He was staying at a local hotel until he found an apartment. At night he would go to the hotel bar and watch the World Series. One morning he drew a line score, the type that shows runs, hits, and errors. He showed it to me and asked "Who's winning?"

The next summer we got him to play softball with us. Although he was a pretty good athlete, he was hopeless at softball. We tried to get him to buy his own glove but he said he'd never be able to explain to his friends in France what it was for.

By contrast, he was an enormous basketball fall. He knew all the Philadelphia '76ers and was thrilled to be able to see Dr. J and other players live. He had season tickets to the '76ers within a week of getting here.

Weird Card file

Upper Deck Ultimate Victory (Japanese version)


Upper Deck Ultimate Victory was a baseball card set first published by Upper Deck in 1999. One of the insert sets was called STATure. The set featured players with outstanding statistical achievements. This card looks like that insert set but I don't know if the Japanese card is a standalone card or what.

I know that baseball is very popular in Japan but I know nothing about baseball card collecting in Japan. A quick search on eBay brings up 3 pages. Some of these are cards are American cards featuring Japanese players but a fair number of them were published in Japan. The only other Japanese card I have is a single card from the Japanese version of the 2002 Topps set.

I don't know anything about the player. His name is Shinji Sasaoka. He's clearly a pitcher and pitched for the Carp. The stat on the front of the card is and earned run average of 3.20. Is this an exceptional ERA in Japan?

Note that the front of the card is mostly in English while the back is mostly Japanese. My favorite thing on the card is the Carp logo on the
back. Click on the card to get an enlarged picture and a better view of the logo.

Weird Card File - Lenny Dykstra

Did you recognize this as Lenny Dykstra? For you non-Phillies fans out there, Dykstra was the spark plug of the 1993 World Series Phillies team.

To me he's recognizable from the dirty uniform, the unshaven look and especially the tobacco juice dribbling from the corner of his mouth. Dykstra's nickname, by the way, was "Nails", as in "tough as...". I like that his helmet features a piece of raw meat.

This card is from a set called "The Baseball Enquirer" and was published in 1992. I got two packs of these in a box of repackaged cards. I'd never hear of them before. The cards feature a caricature of a player on the front and a made-up interview on the back.

Notice that the card does not have the player's name or his team name or team logo. This enabled the card manufacturer to avoid paying licensing fees. A company making set of cards featuring caricatures of players a few years earlier was sued by Topps and Major League Baseball but the courts ruled in favor of the company saying that the cards were allowed as an expression of free speech.