2010 Tournament of Gimmicks Round 1 – Berger Region

Here they are, the long awaited Round 1 matchups from the Berger Regional.

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Game #1

2)  2010 Topps Milton Bradley (Scoreboard Abe)

What’s the difference between Abraham Lincoln and the Cubs?  Lincoln’s won something since 1908.  And it’s ironic that the Cubs best chance of winning something in 2010 involves Milton Bradley, isn’t it?  As to the card itself, my brain shuts down before it can adequately describe the stupidity of this gimmick.

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15) 1969 Topps #653 Aurelio Rodriguez

Hey, it’s Angel’s bat boy Leonard Garcia!  How’d he get here?  Rodriguez was convinced by his teammates to let Garcia pose in his place, and the Topps photographer didn’t know the difference.  Now you do.

Game #2

3) 2001 Donruss Elite Extra Edition $5.99 Redemption Cards

Why not seed the last 50 cards of a set as exchange cards and seed them 1:14 packs, then charge folks $5.99 to redeem them, post a checklist for the cards and then change the checklist a month later, and number them all out of 1000 but then send out random numbers and destroy those unclaimed, making it seem like there’s 1000 copies of this Almonte card when there’s really only 401 of them?  2001 Donruss EEE, that’s why.

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14) 2006 Topps #RC1 Alay Soler

Baseball is full of next big things, and at one time Alay Soler was right up there.  But he made his debut too late to be printed as part of Topps Series 2 release.  Not wanting to miss out on the hype, Topps released #RC1 and told no one a thing about it until a month later, letting speculation run wild, and driving up prices as well.  Soler then cratered, and so did prices of ’06 Topps Series 2.

Game #3

Actual text: From Minnesota's homer hankies to the New York Yankees, it's all the same... You got game. And two World Series rings to boot.

6) 1998-2000 Skybox “Gangsta” text

Wats gucci?  Skybox, brah.  Listen dawg, it’s hard to be mardy when you think of the genioso who thought this one up.  Some middle aged white guy baller, no doubt.  Already.  Fractal Matrix better be ready to catch a fade, yo, cause Skybox is about to check up on that, and I ain’t sellin’ wolf tickets.  Ya dig?  Word.

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11) 1997-98 Leaf Fractal Matrix

Has there ever been a release that was so confusing that no one cared about it?  Yes, and it was Leaf Fractal Matrix.  That, apparently, is a Gary Sheffield gold parallel.  It’s also got some axis parallel associated with it, but no one at Leaf thought to put that on the card itself.  Smart thinking, huh?  I’ve read about this set for the last hour and I still don’t get the whole X, Y, Z parallel but only in bronze unless it starts with a “P” and then you have to multiply the remainder by two.  Or something like that.  Even more surprising, it lasted two years.  As if regular parallels aren’t bad enough.

Game #4

7) 1989 Upper Deck Dale Murphy Rev Neg

In 1989, Upper Deck answered the burning question, “What does Dale Murphy see when he looks in a mirror?” by releasing this error.  I’ve read reports that this one was intentional to drive interest in the set, but can’t find any of that now.  And this is one of the “printed money” cards that McWilliam and friends would reportedly reprint and sell out the back door for extra cash or giveaway to settle debts.

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10) 2007 Topps Updates & Highlights #100 Jacoby Ellsbury

It’s another Topps super secret shortprint, this time of a guy who already had a rookie card in their 2005 Update set.  And poor Abraham Nunez, who’s sure to fade into obscurity because of it.

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Polls are open until Thursday at midnight EST.  Go vote!

Oh, and don’t forget the Burdick regional, the Olbermann regional, and the Beckett regional either.