Ever wonder who took some of those weirder baseball card photos from the 1980s and 1990s? Neither have I, but Joe Sports Fan’s Josh Bacott does a fine caricature of someone who might have. Add the creepy Earl Sanderson to the pantheon of legendary Bacott characters. He’s just like that chick from “United States Of Tara”, only I wouldn’t be ashamed to be caught in bed with him. Wow…that sounded a lot funnier in my head.

You can watch Part 2 at Joe Sports Fan.

A Baltimore-based order of nuns is cashing in on a pretty sweet present that was willed to them more than 11 years ago. The School Sisters of Notre Dame are auctioning off one of 60 known Honus Wagner baseball cards from the American Tobacco Company series of 1909-1911. The card is in terrible condition but is still likely to earn the nuns about $200,000, which they will split up among their 35 ministries worldwide. Or they can take their chances and trade me the card for what I’m holding up in this box right now. I’ll give you a hint – it’s porn.

The auction of this card has collectors and experts scratching their heads, because until now nobody has known that this specific card existed, since it had been owned by the same guy for more than 60 years. The card has been cut on the borders and has a heavy crease in one corner, and this is the very same language that caused me to not touch my first female boob until I was 17. Male boobs, however…

Where in the heavens did this card come from, NBC Sports?

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With the first pick of the 2010 Major League Baseball Draft, the Washington Nationals selected San Diego State phenom Stephen Strasburg. The future franchise ace reportedly will make his MLB debut during the June 8-10 series against the Pirates, but until then he will have not thrown one pitch in a professional appearance. Despite his glaring inexperience, Strasburg is drawing a great deal of attention from people with more money than God, as his one-of-a-kind Bowman Chrome Superfractor rookie card is currently priced at more than $16,000 on eBay with just over 2 days remaining on the listing.

As the proud owner of a Pat Listach Donruss Rated Rookie, I offer this a hearty chortle, as I’m still holding out for my payday. However, this lone rookie card has drawn a great deal of attention in a dying industry from serious collectors, as owning the card will allow the lucky auction winner to initiate conversations at black tie social galas with lines like, “Hey baby, ever seen an $18,000 baseball card?” and “Anybody want to give me $10,000 for this baseball card I just bought?”

Give this story a mint rating, NESN.com:

According to Yahoo Sports, a poster on Freedom Cardboard says he’s the one selling the card, and Blowout Cards is running a contest to guess the final price of the card marked “1/1.”

Strasburg still has not even thrown a pitch for the Washington Nationals, but he is one of the most highly touted prospects in baseball history.

If I had $17,000 burning a hole in my pocket, I’d probably make some student loan payments, order a few KFC Double Decker sandwiches, and go on one hell of a coke-fueled stripper bender. Seeing as I don’t have that kind of money, though, I can only offer my wishes of luck to the people hellbent on winning a small rectangle with a picture on it.

Strasburg’s Bowman card is hardly the most expensive card in the sports merchandise world, but it marks the first time in many years that a newly produced sports collector’s card has created a stir. In fact, if any of you are interested, I’m starting a new line of sports blogger cards. For just $20,000, you can own the incredibly rare “Burnsy Kissing a Girl” card. I’ll ship it as soon as I show it to my mom so she’ll stop telling me, “It’s OK, we love you no matter what.”

Topps released a new line of baseball cards earlier this week that include new technology compatible with a PC. When I think of baseball cards I always think of zzzzzzzzzzz…

Beginning Monday, collectors who hold a special Topps 3D Live baseball card in front of a webcam will see a three-dimensional avatar of the player on the computer screen. Rotate the card, and the figure rotates in full perspective. It’s called “augmented reality,” a combination of a real image with a virtual one.[...]

Topps needs to augment reality because baseball cards are struggling in the Internet age. Today’s collectors, most of whom are still boys, can just as easily and less expensively find the sports facts they want online.

Seriously, Topps might as well be selling tiny newspapers at this point. If their days were any more numbered, the German army would be marching them into the showers. But I think we can all agree that baseball cards were just a gateway to stealing adult magazines. And hey, that stuff’s online now, too. I love the internet as much as I hate baseball cards. Which is a lot.

|NY Times, via Deuce of Davenport|

Penn State University has introduced trading cards that celebrate not their student-athletes or sports heroes, but members of the faculty.

The 10-card set showcases top faculty members. Glaciologist Richard Alley is a featured academic star, as is entomologist [insect scientist] James Tumlinson.

Aw man!  Not another Tumlinson!  I’ve already got three of this scrub!  Now the Alley rookie card, that’s a good find.  You just never know which of the young profs will flame out, and which ones will get tenure.

“We have many great faculty, and they are surely worthy of the accolades our society often lavishes on athletes, coaches, and celebrities in the entertainment world,” school president Graham Spanier wrote.

Counterpoint: No.  No, they are not.

A postage worker in Maine stole a valuable baseball card from the mail then blamed it on OCD. Ufford said he has a similar problem with touching women’s breasts in public, as I do with filming it. We’re co-enablers, it seems.

Richard Trofatter Jr. pleaded guilty… to a Class A misdemeanor count of theft of lost or mislaid property. His attorney, James Noucas, told the court his client was recently treated for “obsessive compulsive behavior surrounding baseball cards” and, according to a police report, Trofatter described himself as “borderline addicted” to collecting the cards.

A police affidavit filed with the court by Detective John Peracchi says he was contacted by a representative of the Postal Service on May 7 reporting the “mail theft” of a 1915 Cracker Jack baseball card depicting New York Giants pitcher and Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson.

The card had been graded and given a serial number before it was put in the mail by an eBay seller in Wisconsin who insured it for $655, according to court records.

This makes me incredibly uneasy about the future of my burgeoning stripper-organs-by-mail business. Not only is there the inherent difficulty of keeping already bruised body parts fresh during shipping, you have to worry about some postage official possibly swiping them. And all they want them for is target practice for their concealed weapons. Goddamn it, mail carriers, quit horning in on my victims!

[Walk Off Walk]