It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's...

An actual non trade post on my site! What, you thought it was going to be Topps-O-Cuffs (or Topps-O-Cuffs for the Evil Empire inclined)?

Well, I am psyched about that, as I loved the infamous Turk Off, and have heard incredible tales of the Gint-A-Cuffs that happened before my card blogging time. I'm curious to see how it'll all go with a different cast of characters doing the ripping, though I definitely hope that JD is victorious.

The real purpose of this post, however, is getting some of my McGriffs up. I posted my resolutions a few weeks ago and have not done a great job with them, as I'm still not posting a lot and when I do post it's all trades. As excuses, I've got grad school starting up again, work, and trying to find a mentor teacher for my school program. Thing is, excuses suck, so...haha I need to stop being lazy, and get on with the McGriffs! Today you get two, one for each week of McGriff posting that I missed.

First up is 1992 Upper Deck Ted Williams Best Hitters in the Game #T8. Sort of a weird, mid start shot of Fred's run, which is unflattering. He looks somewhat pessimistic about the ball, as if he's thinking it might get caught unless the wind carries it out. I'm sure it went for a homer Fred, don't worry!
Other things that catch the eye? The print at the bottom seems way fancier than the card at the top. In other words, the print and black border seems like it's from a $75-100 product while the picture looks like base set quality to me. Maybe it's the crop that puts Fred's head at the very top of the card, or maybe the condition has me biased. Or maybe it's the crop that puts THE VERY TIP OF WHATEVER IS TO FRED'S RIGHT (our left, the catcher?) ON THE CARD! Do you see that little blob, to the left of Fred's elbow? If not, try here:
Those look like Dodgers unis, so I'm sure I could find when the Dodgers played the Padres in 1991 and then maybe find who the dude is from that. But why would you crop the card with the glove/helmet/whatever it is still in the photo? If you look at the original photo, there is room to fit Fred's bat while still cutting the glove. So I don't get it, but whatever.

The back looks...actually quite nice:
I like the little portrait, the background is beautiful, and I love the Ted Williams quote, especially since the first sentence is just, "Power!" Damn right, Ted Williams said Fred McGriff could rake, what about it?

I do have 2 issues with the back though. For one, and this is on the front too, some older Crime Dog cards call him Fred Mc Griff. I assume this is for every Mc-something in the league, but it looks weird with the spacing. I'm glad that changed in later Fred cards. Two, what the heck is the page turning for? It's Ted Williams' Top Hitters, not Ted Williams' Page Turners or Turn Back the Ted Williams or something. The background looks nice...keep it consistent for the whole card. But I digress.

Card 2, now with less nitpicking, is Fred's 1992 Upper Deck Homerun Heroes #HR10. On the front we see a correctly spaced McGriff, though his head is still hitting the top border. I really like the Upper Deck logo on this one with the swooshy baseball, and I like that Fred is completing what I like to imagine is a homerun trot. Though Fred doesn't seem to like it, as his face on this card makes it look like he's a million miles away from the field. Wonder what he's thinking about?

On the back, we've got the the return of that weirdly spaced "Mc Griff," as well as an appearance by the infamous Upper Deck massive box of text!
Some of my favorite fragments:
"Since his Rookie Year in '87, 'Crime Dog' Mc Griff has hit for power."
- Nice observation Upper Deck

"In '91 he tied Andre Dawson for fourth in the National League in homeruns, led the NL in intentional walks..."
- He tied a Hall of Famer in homeruns? Hmmm...maybe Fred oughta be a Hall of Famer. Mostly I just like this fragment because I never realized Fred was a major IBB guy. Plus it's funny to think of a world where 26 IBB's leads the league, especially after the Bonds/McGwire heyday.

"(McGriff hit) the first homer ever at Skydome (June 5, '89)."
- Didn't know the Blue Jays moved in mid year, and didn't know that McGriff hit the first homerun there. So that's a neat fact. And these were some neat cards. So I hope you liked them!