MiLB Madness: Spot the MLB stars, MiLB on wheels, a Wings mystery, dance teams & plenty more from down on the farm

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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. 

SPOT THE MLB STARS ...
The Card: Portland Sea Dogs 2005 Grandstand team card
The Buzz On This: Player collectors might be the only ones to care here besides an occasional MiLB Maniac like me, but team cards like this can often be home to some big-league cameos. This one is a gem with a number of future big-leaguers in play -- Hanley Ramirez, Dustin Pedroia, Jon Lester and Jon Papelbon are probably the biggest names but they aren't the only ones. In fact, there are that many more big-leaguers here all on one super-cheap card. To me this is some oddball fun ... and while team cards aren't some exclusive-to-MiLB thing, they are more common in team sets than MLB sets.

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

NOT QUITE HERITAGE ...
The Card: Eddie Menchaca & others -- 2016 Bakersfield Blaze field leaders card
The Buzz On This: This ode to 1973 Topps is a busy one with the manager and a nicely crafted icon for that position (like the 1973 design did for players) sharing a lot of the cardboard real estate ... along with the hitting coach, pitching coach, trainer, performance coach and a video coordinator. That's 23 years of MiLB experience alone based on the card back and Max Venable was a big-leaguer for a dozen years atop that. I think it was the manager icon alone that got me to fork over the pocket change for this card, but I could see some fun surprises in other years if every set did something like this year after year.

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MiLB ON WHEELS ...
The Cards: 2009 Boise Hawks sponsor card, Muddy The Mudcat 2015 Choice Carolina Mudcats, Billy Bird 1989 Louisville Redbirds & Aaron Guiel 1996 Multi-Ad Lake Elsinore Storm
The Buzz On This: I swear you could build a collection of just MiLB mascots and their rides as there are sooo many cards that fit that bill so easily out there in the cardboard world. These take the mascots and go a step further. One's got the corporate sponsor plugola part that's common in MiLB covered with the Cubs affiliate being a big Dodge fan for this one, while Guiel is part of some game-time ride-along program and the Bird is covering the blooper reel niche and maybe some kind of torn ligaments. And Muddy be mudding.

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SPINNING MY BRAIN
The Card: Drew Weber 2015 Grandstand Lowell Spinners 
The Buzz On This: I swore this card would have a fun anecdote perfect for this series but I didn't try out the ol' Google machine beforehand ... I just grabbed this cheap team owner card as, well, it's a team owner card but Weber also has an uncanny resemblance to actor Steven Weber who you may know from Wings, NCIS: New Orleans, The Shining (TV version), Chicago Med, Ballers, Get Shorty (TV version) or a number of other credits. But, surprisingly, I couldn't find anything to confirm my hunch. They've got to be related, though. Right? OK, if not, just put this one in the stack of team owners on cards ... there are some fun ones out there like this name you should know.

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BRINGING HOME THE BACON
The Card: The Pork Racers 2015 Choice Lehigh Valley Ironpigs
The Buzz On This: It seems every franchise has a pack of racing mascots of some sort -- even big-league clubs have them -- but this one captures the whole clan on one card and it's spectacularly meaty with Bacon clearly out front big-time during this race photo that was cut out and applied to cardboard.

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EVEN MORE DANCE TEAM CARDBOARD ...
The Cards: Harrisburg's First And Best All-Male Dance Team 2019 Grandstand Harrisburg Senators & The Beach Bums 2010 Brooklyn Cyclones
The Buzz On This: I actually recapped some of the Beach Bums' history in a previous edition in this series -- poke around to find it -- and didn't realize I had grabbed a different year's card, too. Also in the "MiLB Has Dance Teams?" stack comes this other pocket change classic from Pennsylvania that tells you all about the squad on its back ... click for a closer look if you must. It's something.

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