MiLB Madness: A set with bark at the ballpark ... a spider, too

Minor league team sets are a fun anomaly in the cardboard world with some of the weirder cards ever made to be found there -- most without a single autograph or piece of memorabilia to be found. Many of those cards not even all that well known, either, but unique cards can capture attention and tell stories.

Don't believe that? Just ask Keith Comstock. 

Many times, team sets can be made in super-rare quantities -- sometimes just a few hundred sets to be sold at team gift shops or even given away at games. You won't find their key cards slabbed by the thousands and you won't find people sprinting to the card aisle to grab and flip 'em on release day, either. But you might find them to be a fun alternative to collect until those days of hunting for packs and actually finding them are a little more routine. They aren't all easy finds, those MiLB sets, but they might not break the bank to find.

Now, with that said, check this one out ... our first MiLB Madness piece.

The Set: 2017 Choice Albuquerque Isotopes (34 cards)
The Team: Founded in 2003; presently Triple-A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies
The Notables: Former big-leaguer Glenallen Hill, Raimel Tapia ... but this one isn't about the players.
Did you know? The team's name is a nod to a 2001 episode of The Simpsons where the Springfield Isotopes almost moved to Albuquerque.

The Buzz About This One: So team photo day might be a chore for some squads, but the Albuquerque Isotopes tried something a little different this year for this set with nearly every player in this one posing with a pup -- and manager Glenallen Hill posing for his card with a rather large spider.

Why? It's not noted on any of the cards that I saw, but some Twitter discussions noted that it's a pink tarantula and all of this began with some kind of joke in spring training. (Update: Here's the back story.) Meanwhile, the pups were apparently from an animal shelter with some of the dogs stealing all of the attention on their cards. Some photos are simple grip and grins, some are football-style kneeling shots, some are young pups, some are with older furbbaies ... and some of them have furry All-Stars who appear on a few cards and are interacting with players like cardboard legends. Well, sort of.

Believe it or not, there are a lot of baseball cards from the minors where dogs take center stage -- bat-retrieving dogs have had big jobs for some teams and they have their baseball cards to show for it -- but I'm not sure I've seen a full team set done this way. (I have seen teams go to the mall -- you can read all about that one here.)

Check out all of the cards from this set in the gallery below -- click for a closer look.

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