Minor league baseball cards from the past can include some weird stuff ... sometimes stuff you wouldn't imagine to be found on a baseball card. Here are some some new fun cards and oddities in this latest edition of MiLB Madness. 

IT'S NOT A '52, BUT ...
The Item: Ryan Mantle 2008 Grandstand Salem-Keizer Volcanoes Update
The Buzz On This: The last line of this card's "Ballpark Banter" gives away the show here -- he's the third cousin of Mickey Mantle -- and there have been a few Mantles to appear on cards beyond The Mick over the years. This one played two seasons of minor-league ball for three teams in that stretch and then 10 final games during his third season -- that one in the Frontier League. The final MiLB stats? Three homers and 38 RBI in 81 games while batting .269. Per Baseball Reference, he's among six relatives of the Hall of Famer to play pro baseball.

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

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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. 

PULLED FROM THE FIELD ...
The Item: Home Run Derby X used baseball from Dunkin' Park, home of the Hartford Yard Goats (Aug. 11, 2023)
The Buzz On This: This could have made its way into my monthly Collecting Game-used series here on The Buzz, but instead, I'll break up my pair and use one of them right here this time. Why? This exhibition event took place at a MiLB venue with four former MLB players leading the way smacking baseballs around the park -- Jonny Gomes, Jake Arrieta, Dexter Fowler and Nick Swisher. I read that the baseballs were not made to be sold, so the only way one could get their hands on them was to be there ... and with one of the four names being a player I collect, I did some power-shopping and landed a pair of them from a seller in Connecticut. Why? Just to have something from the event that's tied to my player. Who smacked this ball out of the park? No idea. There's no paperwork, there's no MLB Authentication sticker ... it just is what it is. I'm surprised that this event has never had any kind of card presence and really the only thing I have seen beyond used baseballs are posters ... but even those don't seem plentiful. This was from the second year of the traveling series -- the 2022 events were international and last year they showed up in different MiLB parks -- and this event was the first on American soil in 2023. The final score between the top two teams was 49-48 ... so a lot of baseballs went flying that day.

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

Continue reading →