TV Autos Tonight

Buckle up for some nonsports autographs I've added to my collection over the past few months.

Took me a while, but I watched through all the old episodes on YouTube of Cheat Seats, a funny show that ran on ESPN Classic with the Sklar Brothers making sorta Mystery Science Theater 3000 style riffs over footage of old non-mainstream sporting events from ESPN's archives. For example, there's an episode with a ridiculous Steve Garvey Celebrity Skiing special.

Anyways, I wanted to mark the occasion by picking up their matching Ginter autos from 2016. Randy set me back $21.64, and then a few days later, Jason cost $22.05 from another seller. Factoring in for inflation, I'd call that a wash.

-  -  - -o

Sarah Langs is a good follow on social media, full of fun and interesting baseball stats and tidbits. Her life and career as a reporter have faced the unexpected challenge of dealing with ALS, or ol' Lou Gehrig's Disease as we used to call it. Her courage is inspiring and she's an amazing person, doing lots of good in her limited time. I realized she had a Ginter auto from 2023 and soon scored myself one.

- - --o

I'm still trying to add to my collection of Steven Universe autographs.

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I've been a big Amy Sedaris fan since Strangers With Candy, a hilarious show on Comedy Central back around the turn of the millenium. A while back I got myself a Star Wars autograph featuring her character who appeared in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, though I was compelled to make a custom overlay for it.

Whipped this up recently using a comely photo from a red carpet type of event and built a simple design around it.

Gotta say I'm excited to again have a home printer that does a decent job printing photos, effectively rebooting my custom card making activities that were somewhat dormant in recent years. After burning bridges with Epson (hate!), Cannon (hate!), and HP (hate so much!), I'm down to the last major printer company left: Brother. So far so good.

-  - --o

Closing out the post, here's another new custom overlay for an old purchase.

I showed the bare version of this Bob Newhart slabbed cut auto a few posts back in the wake of his passing. I'm glad I could finally spruce it up a little.

Other customs I've printed up recently are on the way to John Miller and Best Bubble Bob, and I've got other stuff in the works, so I'll likely have more customs to show off on the blog soon. Thanks for stopping by.

This Bud's for me (Whoa Bundy!-- up to 3 Married With Children autos)

My project of compiling a set of Bundy family "1989 Pro Set" autographs took another step towards completion with the recent addition of David Faustino.

To refresh your memory, I ponied up for a Leaf autograph of Ed O'Neill last year after long pining away for an "Al Bundy football card autograph", and later made a matching custom overlay for a Christina Applegate auto card I picked up. And now I've gone and done the same for Mr. Faustino.

The border matching the green ink is a nice touch, eh? This wasn't my first photo choice, but the auto sticker placement smack dab in the middle of the card presented challenges, and ended up not working with the first few photos I tried. But then this one did the trick, even though I had to fudge it a little by popping the top of his head out of the design.

David Faustino has kept working over the years, but nothing close to as high-profile as his stint as Bud Bundy. Nice to see he and Christina both survived the "child actor curse" relatively unscathed.

For reference, here's the original card, still untouched beneath the custom overlay. It's not a bad picture, but definitely post-MWC. I was maybe a tiny bit bummed to cover up the memorabilia star, but won't be losing any sleep over it.

The card ran me about the ol' "price of a blaster" shipped and the seller even threw in the like-new one-touch. Also worth noting that the card is serial-numbered out of 200 on the back but the listing neglected to mention it. Works for me.

Now the elephant in the room is Katey Sagal as Peg. Here's what eBay currently has available, sorted by cheapest:

Yep, the cruel irony is that the least-expensive of her auto cards all horizontal, on-card autographs... which under normal circumstances I would much prefer over any stickergraph. But for this particular project, a horizontal card would just be too awkward to try morphing into a 1989 Pro Set card. She does have some stickergraphs on the market that would work, though, so I'll just have to have some patience for one to show up at a decent asking price. Hopefully that doesn't take too long and I'm able to wrap up this project soon.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

Can I get a "Whoa Bundy!" Pt 2 (Applegate auto)

Since it's Super Bowl Sunday, I won't even bother asking if you're ready for some football. I'll just assume your football readiness is riding high and get on with this post that sort-of-but-not-really features football cards. (And if you don't get a chance to read till Monday, well I suppose it works as a Valentine's Day post, too, since it has a lovely lady in it.)

Scoring myself an "Ed O'Neill as Al Bundy" football card auto had been a hobby goal of mine for a long time that I was able to check off last year with a Leaf/Pro Set card.

Since then, I wanted to grow my card collection of the Married... With Children cast, so I recently picked up a Christina Applegate autograph. Prices on her auto cards can be a steep, but I snagged one relatively discounted thanks to it being a dual-auto stickergraph coupled with a lesser celebrity. But it works great with my idea making a custom overlay for it.

I went through a few ideas for the overlay. I started out just searching for a hot photo of Christina. But man, there's no shortage of attractive photos of her out there! Tough to pick a favorite. I had a few contenders saved-- and tentatively was just going to use a nice, later picture in a simple overlay with only the pic and auto window, but then got the notion to do it as a "Kelly Bundy" custom in the '89 Pro Set style to match the "Al Bundy" card. So then I had to find an era-appropriate pic, landing on this one. I figured the locker room setting kinda helps it work as a "football card" (though it's really just a high school hallway, I think.) 

Like with all my "custom overlays", I don't alter the original card at all (otherwise I'd call it a "custom cut auto"), rather just print out "clothes" for it, lol. Here it is undressed. I vaguely know the name Antonio Sabato Jr, a male model turned tv personality/actor more known for his political comments these days, and have no qualms covering him up here and will just thank him for helping this card sell for a good chunk less than a Christina Applegate autograph typically goes for.

She's been a celebrity crush of mine since back in the day. Still lookin' great in middle-age, too. Breast cancer survivor; respect. In addition to Married, I've enjoyed seeing her in many other things too, such as the Anchorman movies. Turns out we've got similar taste in music: It's a stretch for a celebrity connection but Christina and I "saw a concert together" once, both attending a Jane's Addiction show in LA in '97 [She has a quick cameo in the tour film].

And she's married to a musician I'm a big fan of: Martyn LeNoble, probably best remembered as the bassist for Porno For Pyros when they had an alt-rock hit with the song "Pets" in 1993.

Since I've got half the Bundy clan, I figure I'll now keep an eye out for a good price on autos of Katey Sagal and David Faustino to round out the family. They both seem to have a few options on the market, so shouldn't be too tough. Expect to eventually see a sequel or two to this post!

Here's my dog Ruby to close us out today. She just wanted everyone to know how good at tug-of-war she is.

Thanks for stopping by.

Never Dunn Ghostbustin'

Still working on building my Ghostbusters card collection.

I completed the autos available in the 2016 Cryptozoic Ghostbusters set last year, and I've since been getting "extra credit" by adding autos of cast members who weren't included in that set, and sprucing them up with custom overlays.

The latest is Kevin Dunn. He played psychic Milton Angland, a guest on Peter Venkman's TV show at the beginning of Ghostbusters 2, predicting the world will end on New Year's Eve. It wasn't a big role, but hey, I think he got more screen time than some of the dudes who had autos in the official product (such as Larry King and Ben Stein), so this isn't that much of a stretch. Dunn has 100+ acting credits under his belt since his career began way back in 1986. He's had guest spots on classic shows such as Cheers and Seinfeld, as well as been a main cast member on Samantha Who? and Veep.

He also played Shia LaBeouf's dad in the first few Transformers films, and that's where this certified auto underneath comes from.

The base set in the Cryptozoic trading cards covered the events of the first Ghostbusters movie. "But what about Ghostbusters 2?," you may ask. Well, Topps put out a set for that back in 1989. I had been dragging my feet on rounding that one up, but...

For $5 shipped, I recently picked up a near-complete set on eBay. (Seller sent them via Media Rate, which I'm pretty sure isn't allowed for trading cards, but whatever.. they eventually arrived safe.)

I'd like to fill in the holes via trades and wrap this one up, so if anyone has any available...
1989 Topps Ghostbusters 2
Needs: 6, 28, 33, 34, 48, 52, 54, 68, 70, 72, 75, 76, 81, Sticker #1

The '89 set also got paid tribute to with a reprint card in the 75th Anniversary product Topps put out back in 2013. I picked up this foil parallel of the card shortly after seeing it in a post on SCC/POMP. (I also threw the base version into my COMC inventory, though I don't have that one in hand yet.. waiting till I hit 100 cards ready to ship to hit the bonus, only a third of the way there so far.) Keeping an eye out for the other parallels, though they seem to be pretty scarce.

Rumors are a Ghostbusters 3 film is finally in production, penciled in for release Summer 2020. I'm cautiously optimistic for it, but wouldn't be surprised if it falls through (or comes out but sucks hard). But fingers crossed!

UNTIL NEXT TIME...!

dream card achieved

I recently got my yearly bonus from work. We're doing fine financially at the moment, so I wanted to go nuts and use a good chunk of the windfall to treat myself to a very, very nice card. Something BIG. Something I never would have even dreamt of owning as a kid. I thought it over for a while and it didn't take me long to find just the special item to put in my crosshairs.

I ended up winning the auction for about triple the cost of my most expensive hobby purchase up to that point. I won't pussyfoot around it too much and admit it was just north of a grand. Some of you reading right now might think I'm insane. Fair enough. (I'm sure there will be a snarky comment or two in the comments.) Helping mitigate things were the fact I happened to get an eBay offer for 10% bonus eBay Bucks, and it seems most other folks didn't get the offer (but I hadn't gotten the previous similar offer I heard people talking about on Twitter a couple weeks prior), which means I was able to max that out to a $100 rebate to spend on eBay in the not too distant future. Plus just days before, I was approached by a buyer for my vast Rilo Kiley live/rare CDR/DVD collection (I had been meaning to find a home for them after backing it all up on external drives over the summer), so I had an extra $150 in my PayPal account, meaning when all's said and done, my 4-figure purchase will actually be more of an $800 hit.

Also worth noting is that the same exact 1/1 card sold for nearly $200 more just a few weeks earlier. I think perhaps someone was trying to flip it, having bought it from a less prominent seller, then reselling it through Probstien123, which is probably the biggest sportscard consignment account on eBay. They're known for generally having max expected final bids (some folks even whisper rumors of shill bidding), but at least in this instance, it doesn't seem to have been the case, and the seller who consigned it looks to have taken a hit. And from other somewhat similar completed auctions, I feel good about the deal I got. I think the fact I was apparently one of the few who had the active Bonus Bucks offer at the time the auction ended helped give me an edge in bidding. Really feels like the stars aligned a bit for me this time!

That was earlier last week. My big purchase was scheduled to arrive Friday, which added to the stress I mentioned in my last post, in addition to lots of work activity and the annual big work party Friday night. I had narrowly missed the mailman and would have to pick it up Saturday from the post office since a signature was required for delivery. So I put it out of mind and had a fun time at the party. I may have had too good for a time, though, and ended up getting violently ill that night after the Lyft home. That was rough! (I should have stuck to beer; it was the couple mixed drinks and especially a Maker's Mark "neat" at the end that really did me in.) Ended up sleeping on the bathroom floor much of the night.

Then Saturday was pretty brutal. It ended up snowing decently overnight, so even if I had been feeling ok, I probably wouldn't have ventured out to the monthly card show. As it was, I was in a world of hurt with an epic hangover. My window for picking up the package was until 2 pm, and with work, I probably wouldn't have another shot until the following weekend (an eternity), so a little after 1 o'clock, I bundled up and took my dog for an arctic trek through the neighborhood to the post office. Lots of wind and snow in our faces, and remember I'm still feeling half-dead at this point. I figured it'd make memorable part of the story of how I got the crown jewel of my collection, at least!

I successfully got the package and we returned home. Around 2:30, the sun came out and the snow started melting. It felt a little like, "oh great, now the weather improves." Or looking at it more optimistically, it was like the world signaling a victorious end to the journey. I held off opening the package until I wasn't feeling so crappy. Got plenty of sleep Saturday night and woke up feeling much better Sunday.

Finally, it was time!

That's an authentic Roberto Clemente autograph. I'm still blown away that it's mine! I almost feel like I can retire from card collecting now. With the exception of like maybe a mint '52 Mantle or one of those mega-scarce Honus Wagner cards, I can't really think of a more impactful card for me.. nothing I'd personally put above a Roberto Clemente autograph. Obviously it's not perfect.. but then again, a perfect Roberto Clemente autograph would be much more expensive (and probably have a greater likelihood of being fake). I'm happy making due with an "ugly" one.

Not to say there's zero chance this is fake, since I wasn't there when it was originally signed, but it has a lot going for it toward indicating it's legit, including how ugly it is.

I have no plans to crack it out of its case, but of course I was going to make a custom overlay to spruce it up!

I whipped this up this (Monday) morning in about 20 minutes before work. The custom isn't my best work, but the beauty of an overlay is I can make a new one anytime I want and just swap it out. I really wanted to bring it into work ASAP to display it where I can see it as often as possible. I work in a very secure room, with limited access and security cameras, so I'm confident it'll be safe there. And there's no direct sunlight, so keeping it in a shady spot (and maybe covering it up when I'm not around) should prevent fading. I know the signature already isn't very dark.. seems to be pencil, though, not faded pen. But I'm no expert. Maybe someday I'll move it to the family safe deposit box, but for the foreseeable future, it's gonna be the centerpiece of my work space. (well, besides like my computer n' stuff.)

Oh yeah, there's even a Willie Stargell cut auto on the back. I love Pops, so that's a pretty cool, but I've already got 3 or 4 auto cards of his, as they're much more plentiful than Clemente, so it's a nice bonus, but definitely not the headliner here.

You may have noticed under Clemente's signature is another, lighter marking. Digging into it, turns out that's about 51% of Don Hoak's autograph, a very "tough" signature in its own right. He was the Pirates' starting third baseman for their 1960 World Championship team. He also got a ring with the '55 Brooklyn Dodgers. Sadly, he died in 1969 at the age of 41.

The original document seems to be from 1962, some sort of marketing material to get Pirates fans excited to support their team. Perhaps it's from from a program or maybe an offseason event. Maybe it was from mid-season, alluding to a stretch run (They had a strong team that year, going 93–68, but that was only good for 4th place in the NL.) Further dating it to 1962 is that Don Hoak was traded from Pittsburgh to the Phillies in November of '62. If any Pirates fan could possibly track down a copy of this "Let's Boost our [...] Team Home!" document, I'd love to check it out in its uncut glory.

Wrapping things up.. what else can I say? Never thought I'd one day own a Roberto Clemente autograph. Such an iconic figure, on and off the field. A great player and an even better human being. True hero. Legend! Hopefully this tiny remnant from his time on earth helps me in my life to be the best person I can.

Ok, I'm laying it on pretty thick here and this has been a long rambling post, but you know what I mean. Bottom line is I'm incredibly blown away to have this in my collection.

Thanks for reading!

''Any time you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don't, then you are 
wasting your time on Earth.''

Bustin' makes me feel good

..bustin' boxes of Ghostbusters cards, that is.

I love Ghostbusters. The 1984 original was my favorite movie for years as a kid, and I was a loyal watcher of the Real Ghostbusters cartoon and owned much of the toy line.. I even had the big headquarters playset which was my prized possession for a time in elementary school.

So I was interested when Ghostbusters got a modern card release in 2016 from Cryptozoic. I was hoping to score a discounted box that year when Black Friday rolled around.. but the supply seemed to have run dry. I also kept an eye out in 2017, but again couldn't find boxes for a good price.

But then finally this past Black Friday, boxes finally popped up for a solid sale price. I added a box to my Christmas list and hoped for the best.

Turns out my mother-in-law kindly ordered a box for me. A few days later, she got a notification that it had been delivered, and was concerned to find there was no package waiting. Assuming it was stolen off her doorstep, she begrudgingly ordered another box (I gotta assume the Black Friday deal was over by then), this second one sent to her work address for safety. And then a couple days later, the original order finally showed up. Rather than go through the trouble of returning one, she went ahead and gave me both boxes for Christmas. Sucks she had to go through that.. extra money and extra stress.. but hey, I was very happy to end up with double the boxes! Her and my wife were like, "Sorry you got the same thing twice." But of course this just means I have twice the chance of pulling something special, so no apologies necessary!

I already completed the 19-card autograph set early last year via the secondary market-- one of my big collecting accomplishments of 2018-- so I'm not really chasing autos now (though I know there are some auto variations [inscriptions] still for me to hope for). My interest in ripping packs is to try building the base set and the inserts, plus take a shot at pulling something cool like a sketch card or an animation cel, or maybe a manufactured slime relic card. Hits aren't guaranteed per-box, though the 3 main hits (autos, sketches, cels) each have odds of 1:36 (there are 24 packs in a box). I'm not great at math, but I think that means each box probably has a couple hits. All I have from this product going into the break are the autos plus a couple animation cel cards.

Should be fun! It's bustin' time...

*busting ensues*

Ok, both boxes each provided me with a complete base set (54 cards) and complete (non-hit) insert sets. That means I have an extra set to trade, if anyone's interested.

The base set is nice enough. It just basically runs through the first movie chronologically over the course of 54 cards. To nitpick, there are some moments that probably didn't deserve a card ("Back to the Lab") and others that I feel should have been included but weren't (howabout "I Feel So Funky" from when Venkman gets slimed? That would have been a cool card.)

My favorite of the insert sets is the Quotes. Some cool images here. A couple of these pictures have been in my screensaver slideshow folder for years now, so it's nice to own the actual cards finally.

The Character Bios insert set is the only one that's not technically complete. Seven cards were included, but there are 2 additional cards which were promo-only, not available in boxes. The Gozer promo card is hard to find, though the other promo, Mr. Stay Puft, can be scored online easily enough. I suppose I'll try to add them at some point to satisfy the completist in me.

Here's a cool puzzle that one of the insert sets creates. You've got to give Cryptozoic a lot of credit for giving consideration to collectors when putting this set together. You may have noticed that all the insert sets are 9 cards deep. And the base set is 54 cards (9 x 6). So it's perfect for paging. Wish Topps and Panini would be that considerate. It's not that hard to do!

There are "Silver Foil" parallels for all base cards and non-hit insert cards. I pulled 6 from each box. These are fine, but don't do much for me. If anyone is crazy enough to be working on a foil parallel set for this product, I could probably be talked out of these.

Time for the hits from Box 1!...

Wow.. 4 hits, wasn't expecting that.

John Rothman is probably one of the most common autos, so not a great pull there, but still nice to get an autograph. He had a small part in the first Ghostbusters film in the library scene, and has had minor roles in some other memorable stuff like the great Tom Hanks movie Big, the holiday classic Jingle All the Way, and one of my all-time favorite tv shows, Arrested Development.

Very happy to pull an animation cel, especially of a main character. Seems to be Peter in an unpleasant situation. Not sure what's going on there, but I'll try to keep an eye out for this scene as I watch thru The Real Ghostbusters on Netflix.

The sketchcard.. well, I was glad to pull one. But this kinda confused me. Obviously some demon-like thing, but doesn't look familiar or seem to fit in the Ghostbusters universe. Looks more like something out of a horror movie. Creeps me out a little, honestly, and I'd be willing to trade it to someone who might enjoy it more than I. It's by artist Sean Moore.

The manipatch is kinda cool. I think those are a tough pull, so it's a decent hit, though not terribly exciting.

Now onto Box 2's hits...

Not bad! Ivan Reitman, director of both Ghostbusters films, is a solid autograph to pull. He's been producer and/or director on a lot of other notable films, including Meatballs (1979), Stripes (1981), Twins (1988), Kindergarten Cop (1990), Space Jam (1996), Howard Stern's film Private Parts (1997), Road Trip (2000), Old School (2003), EuroTrip (2004) and Trailer Park Boys: The Movie (2006).

The animation cel is a good one, too.. a nice shot of Egon in contemplation.

Egon hot box! as he's the star of the sketchcard too. Now this is more like the sketch I hoped to pull from these boxes! It was eerily familiar to me. A year ago, I made a very similar sketch card...

That's mine on the bottom. I suspect that artist Joe Hogan and I were looking at the same source image. So that's kind of amazing to get a sketch card so similar to one I made. What are the chances?! The official one is clearly superior artistically, but hey, mine has glitter and glows in the dark!

So while Box 1 had the bonus patch hit, Box 2 had a better auto and better (in my opinion) sketch. Looks like Cryptozoic was doing the "under-promise, over-deliver" thing with their odds, as I pulled an auto, sketch, and cel from each box. Do all boxes typically have all 3 hits? Maybe I just got really lucky beating the odds.

Anyways, that was fun. Even better than I was expecting. Thanks again to my wonderful mother-in-law for the gift. I would still someday like to add the 2 promo Character cards and a slime relic card, but otherwise I feel my Ghostbusters collection can be called good as far as this product goes.

Again, I have an extra base set + inserts available for trade. The 2 autos I pulled are also up for grabs for the right offer, as well as the creepy sketch. Just get in touch if you'd like to work something out.

One more thing before we close up here. I recently added another "bonus" card to my already-completed Ghostbusters autograph set.

It's an auto of "New Janine" from The Real Ghostbusters. Kath Soucie wasn't included in the original set, so I made my own using a different certified auto. About halfway through the show's run, the producers decided to "soften" the character of Janine.

In the third season, some of the character designs were modified. Ray's character design was slimmed down to give the character a less overweight appearance and Slimer was given a tail instead of the formerly rounded bottom and which was reverted to a stub in season 6. The biggest change was to the character of Janine, whose hair was completely changed from being short and spiky to long and straight. Her overall design was softened, as was her personality. Her voice was also softened with Kath Soucie taking over the voice role from Laura Summer. ABC also went back, and redubbed Peter and Janine's dialogue in several episodes of the show with Dave Coulier and Kath Soucie respectively. Changes to Janine's character were eventually addressed (and resolved) in the season 6 episode (#118) entitled, "Janine, You've Changed". [wiki]

For comparison, here's the "Original Janine" auto. Notice the pointy glasses and spiky hair, contrasted with the round glasses and flowing hair of New Janine.

Kath Soucie is a prolific voice actress who has worked on Captain Planet, Space Jam, Tiny Toon Adventures, Dexter's Laboratory, and Rugrats, to name a few projects. She's also been various voices in a few Star Wars animated shows and video games. I picked up this 2017 Topps Star Wars Masterwork auto for $4.24 in my latest COMC order, and it provides a great source for a custom overlay.

Love growing my Ghostbusters autograph collection and will continue trying to hunt down more names to add.

Thanks for reading!

Skeletor auto

Alan Oppenheimer has had an impressive career, both as a successful on-screen actor and legendary voice actor. While he's done a ton of stuff, my favorite projects of his are 80s treasures from my childhood, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and The Neverending Story.

I watched The Neverending Story over New Year's weekend, a film I remember loving as a kid. I got to reading its Wikipedia entry and was compelled to check if Alan Oppenheimer had any certified autos out there. Turns out he does, and as my last purchase of 2018, I picked one up for a good deal.

The Six Million Dollar Man was a bit before my time and doesn't really mean much to me. So that means custom overlay time.

Alan voiced all these characters, with Skeletor from the original He-Man cartoon probably being the best known.

Gotta admit I wasn't a huge He-Man fan as a kid.. I only owned like 2 or 3 of the toys over the course of my childhood and I think those were gifts that I didn't specifically ask for. And I didn't watch the cartoon very often. But I remember my best friend in 1st grade, Josh, was a big He-Man fan, so I'd often play with the toys with him when we hung out at his place. There were some pretty cool figures (one I remember having was Rattlor, a snake-man who rattled and his neck popped up when you pushed a button on his back), and if I ever dive into actively collecting toys one of these days, I'll be sure to grab some MOTU (Masters of the Universe) stuff. I've been watching through the old episodes on Netflix (usually put on as background noise late at night after a couple drinks) and though it's pretty cheesy, I enjoy it a lot.

So anyways, it's a sweet addition to my little non-sport autograph collection, and I'm really happy with how the custom overlay turned out.

Bob Uecker autograph

Congrats to the Red Sox on bringing home the 2018 World Series championship trophy. I was rooting for them to beat LA, though out of the final four, I had been hoping for the Brewers to win it all.

Milwaukee's terrific 2018 season just drove home how much of a national treasure Bob Uecker is. I wanted to pick up a certified auto card of his, but dang gumit, there are none! It's a tragedy he doesn't have any pack-certified auto cards out there. Not sure if the card companies haven't bothered asking, or if he just turns down all inquiries. Seems like a great way to make a chunk of change signing your name over and over for a few hours, but if he's not interested, fair enough.

Apart from his playing-days cards, he's only got a handful of oddballs out there and a pair of reprints in 2001 Topps Archives. Not many cards and no certified autos.

So anyways, that means it's time for me to take matters into my own hands. I kept an eye on eBay and ended up winning a beautiful slabbed Beckett-certified signed index card. But since index cards are boring, it was up to me to spice it up with a custom overlay. My time to shine!

Since it was a 3x5" index card and came in a big slab, I had more room to work with compared to a standard baseball card. And so I wanted to take advantage of that and hit a few major aspects of his career. At the upper corners you've got a couple photos from his days as a cut-up backup catcher, borrowed from baseball cards. Anchoring the bottom is a recent shot of him as broadcaster for the Brewers, flanked by his best-known acting roles, Indians broadcaster Harry Doyle in Major League on the left and George Owens in Mr. Belvedere on the right. Gotta admit I watched a lot of that sitcom as a kid in the mid 80s before I cared about baseball, so I had to even squeeze Mr. Belvedere himself (Christopher Hewett) into the mix. If I really wanted to go nuts, I could have included photos from his time messing around with WWF wrestlers, or one of his many times chatting with Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show, or even his memorable beer ads.

Here's a clearer shot of it outside of the sleeve.

For scale, here's the undressed index card along with the rest of my collection of "Mr. Baseball" which is really just the two aforementioned '01 Archives reprints plus the only vintage card I've got from him, plucked from my 1965 Topps complete set. One of these days, I'll focus on picking up more of his cards, most importantly his '64 Topps, which I need for my in-progress setbuild.

I'm very happy with how this turned out. He's one of baseball's all-time classic characters. Just a very funny and interesting guy. Here's an informative little article I found called 17 things you might not know about Bob Uecker.

Definitely gonna have to display this badboy for a while! Gives me a big smile everytime see it.

Thanks for swinging by.