MiLB Madness: A Roady, a team owner, a camera-loving mascot, Missile & more baseball cards to make you go nuts

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. 

A LIFE IN THE GAME & A LOT GOING ON HERE ...
The Card: Ron "Roady" Plein 2011 Perfect Game USA Cedar Rapids Kernels #31
The Buzz On This One: There are a lot of guys like Ron Plein out there in the baseball world -- on MLB payroll and not on MLB payroll -- who have a lifetime spent in the game but never, ever appear on baseball cards ... except maybe in MiLB releases. This card? It's not his first as he was 67 years old here and in his 37th year in baseball. (Learn more about him here.) Check out that card back -- peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! Random fact about this team? One of its players the previous season was Mike Trout ... this guy probably made him sandwiches and fixed his gear quite a bit after all those stolen bases that season.

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

GOOD STUFF CHEAP
The Card: Mark Butler 2015 Grandstand Harrisburg Senators
The Buzz On This One: This team owner's cardboard background isn't an accident -- he also was the owner of Ollie's Bargain Outlet, a regional retail chain known for burning off back-stock merchandise on the cheap. He got involved with the Senators in 2007 and took over as majority owner this season, so ... Rookie Card? (It might be his only card, actually.) I grabbed this one because of its odd backdrop -- MiLB cards are good for some corporate plugs at times and in some cases it's to pay for the cards being made -- but it turns out the card back had the full back story all along. I noticed the photo credit to a publication there and did a quick search ... another story from the Journal noted that Butler died unexpectedly at age 61 in December 2019. You can learn a little more about him here. Having grabbed some good stuff cheap at Ollies -- even baseball cards long, long ago -- I think this surprise made this a pretty cool baseball card. 

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IN YOUR FACE!
The Card: Orbit 2011 Grandstand Akron Aeros
The Buzz On This One: Have you ever seen a photo crop like this before? OK, maybe for one set from the past, but, man. This is just an odd card. Was it a cropping error? You'd perhaps think so with the front but then the same thing happened on the back ... so probably not. So many questions. Was Orbit traded and they didn't have a new pic? Did they not want to airbrush his cap? Is Orbit too high-energy to sit for a portrait? (After all, he's "an energetic, fuzzy red space cat" per the card.) Check out more magnificent nuggets on that back ... whew.

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DID THE TEAM FIGHT THE INJURY BUG?
The Card: Metro Medical Services 2013 Grandstand Rockford Aviators
The Buzz On This One: I'm not sure I even have anything to say about this one ... it's just weird. I get it -- "official emergency medical services provider" but ... weird. It's interesting this one is a ballpark shot, too, but without a mascot or some kind of team presence. (This independent team folded two seasons later, by the way.) Another thought ... how many other ambulance baseball cards could there be in the world?

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MISSILE ... SON OF ROCKET
The Card: Marty "Missile" Wheeler 2008 Grandstand Myrtle Beach Pelicans
The Buzz On This One: At first I noticed the name ... then I noticed "bullpen catcher." Sold. Then I noticed the back that notes he's got some baseball nickname lineage. Where else will you find a bullpen catcher baseball card? Believe it or not, there's also a Rocket and Missile combo card out there ... it will be mine. Rocket has a lot of cards as he's been in the game since 1977 as a player, coach and manager even just last year. As far as I can tell, this is Missile's first card.

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GO NUTS!
The Card: Nuts Mascots -- 2019 Grandstand Modesto Nuts
The Buzz On This One: The story of this ballpark party mix is told on the back of this card -- their names are apparently Al the Almond, Wally the Walnut and Shelley the Pistachio, who is the youngest. I got nut-thin' after reading that.

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