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. 

GOING OFF THE RADAR ...
The Cards: Michael Harris 2021 Choice Rome Braves (five copies)
The Buzz On This One: This guy is likely to be on my collecting radar quite a bit this year after a near-cardless 2022 that saw him take home the National League Rookie of The Year honors with the Atlanta Braves. Before that, "Money Mike" had some prospect cards in packs and minor league cards count there, too, but his Rookie Cards were held to appear in the full 2023 lineup. With basic stuff like 2023 Topps figuring to the plentiful and prices all over the place right now, I opted to pick up a lot of these -- as team sets -- as he's in there and so are others (you'll see them in later months here) instead ... and I did it without breaking the bank. He has other MiLB cards -- but not a ton -- but this one looked good to me for the price. I'll probably grade some of these, too, as you can probably guess based on the cases they're in right here.

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

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The Blowout Cards Forums are where thousands of collectors converge daily to discuss, well, a little bit of everything. Here are a few threads about collecting and more that you should check out right now.

What's Buzzing: Collect what you like, Bo Bichette, Dwayne Haskins, new pulls, Prizm WWE 1/1s and more.

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Like many collectors, Buzz is a fan of grading and knows that there are many reasons that collectors choose to slab cards. Sometimes it's to enhance the appeal and protect them when selling. Other times it's to protect an investment for the long-term or to protect for sentimental reasons. Or, it might be just for fun or curiosity about a potential grade.

Here's this month's grading diary here on The Buzz ...

The Card: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. 2019 Topps Living Set #179 RC
The Reason Graded: While I own a few Topps Living Set cards the arrival of this second-generation MLB star in this weekly release sparked my first purchase from this popular brand that's clearly popular with flippers. I ponied up for 10 copies of the card --solely with potential grading in mind -- but didn't receive a single perfectly centered card in my batch, which was a bummer. After some grumbling, I picked out this one from the batch and sent it in.
The Grade: BGS 9.5

Reality Check: It graded as well as I thought it could -- maybe better -- so I wasn't unhappy with the grade and it appears that I'm perhaps on the luckier side with just two 10s out there better than it via BGS ... for now. This is a card that will likely be graded more and more often so those won't last but but it appears that this one is arriving between 8.5 and 9.5 more often than not. I have a second one I'll submit to PSA at some point with my sights set on a 10 there. We'll see sometime later this year.

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The Rally Squirrel returns as a Philadelphia Phillies squad member on this photo variation card found in packs of 2015 Topps Update, which arrived last week.

While this year's appearance comes as one of the 25 photo variations in the product, it's clearly not as hot as the original Rally Squirrel who led the St. Louis Cardinals to a World Series title in 2011 (after an appearance in Philly) and before a Topps card in 2012. This year's card properly identifies the rowdy rodent -- its name is on the front, not a player -- and it's sold for as much as $40 in eBay auctions.

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