MiLB Madness: Max Fried, batboys, elite threads & much more

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. 

REMEMBERING HERITAGE ...
The Cards: Max Fried 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017 Topps Heritage Minor League cards
The Buzz On This: Before he was among the stacked rotation of the Atlanta Braves and got himself a World Series ring, Fried was a member of the Fort Wayne TinCaps and the Mississippi Braves and he appeared on cards in the in-pack MiLB sets released under the Topps Heritage line. That meant retro designs here -- 1964, 1965, 1967 and the burlap-inspired 1968 look -- but with clean, modern printing and other touches that put it in the here and now while looking a lot like back then. Fried missed a year (I presume due to his injury/trade) and has some other inserts and parallels in these sets before his Heritage RC in 2018 and all that's come since. I keep talking about doing a run of some players' Heritage cards in slabs and I grabbed all of these since they're all affordable (despite being likely far rarer than anything Heritage MLB) and just might do it for both MiLB and MLB releases. Also: The Heritage MiLB brand apparently died in 2023 ... so pour one out for that one while we're at it.

Keep reading for more examples of some weird or fun baseball cards you can find in MiLB.

ALL ABOUT THAT ENERGY
The Card: Bat Boys 1996 Best Hagerstown Suns
The Buzz On This: Who knows where Brad Hamilton, Doug Reed, Joey DeGrange and Nathan Mowery might be today -- almost 30 years later -- but one thing here is sure. They've got one epic baseball card -- and it was an easy pocket-change addition to my MiLB stash. Why? It's just odd and that works in this realm.

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... FASHION!
The Cards: Dave Collins & Ed Janus/Bob Drew 1983 Fritsch Madison Muskies
The Buzz On This: This pair of cards showcasing a team's General Manager, President and Director of Broadcasting screams "era" with those silk A's jackets that still somehow seem out of place when down on the farm -- and when the team didn't use the A's name, just its colors. (Maybe they were perks for the front office crew?) Why did I spot these? Well, I've opened -- and broken -- a number of these older sets (mostly when they got cheap in the past) as there's one big name here who made his cardboard debut all those years ago ... Jose Canseco. His absolute first baseball card is in this one, which came in advance of his 1986 Rookie Cards and all other MiLB releases. It's a classic in my book.

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TWO TRAINERS AND A MEDICAL LIAISON
The Cards: Mackenzie Zabbo 2011 Multi-Ad Sports Greenville Drive, Aaron Faucett 2006 Multi-Ad Sports Dayton Dragons & Lindsey Pyc 2011 Grandstand Rancho Cucamonga Quakes
The Buzz On This: Oddball MiLB team set inclusions are at the heart of this series -- if you don't believe me check the archives -- but I've grabbed so many random cards of trainers and others with unusual titles for cardboard that, well, I've run out of witty things to say about them. So, with that said ... here they are and their bios tell their stories. This might be my first "medical liaison" card, though.

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PUMP IT UP!
The Card: Sergio Rojas 2016 Grandstand Inland Empire 66ers
The Buzz On This: The strength coach pumping iron on his cardboard isn't a totally rare thing -- I own a small few -- and this one comes with some extra trivia according to the card back. This coach apparently was on an MTV show that I have never heard of. (I was busy in those years.) It's Friday otherwise I'd try to find the clip ...

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NOT THEIR BEST MASCOT ...
The Card: Wink 2014 Dayton Dragons Team Issue
The Buzz On This: This team actually has some of the best caps, uniforms and even traditional mascots (yes, more than one) in all of MiLB -- check past editions of this series and you'll see some of them -- but this one is pretty flat ... despite being apparently quite inflatable. The card back's facts are pretty sweet, though, for a mascot card ... you can find many of them in MiLB team sets.

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