The Max

Remember when baseball card collecting was fun? You know, back when there was only Topps, Donruss and Fleer? Those were the days.

Nowadays, it’s impossible to keep up with all the different lines of cards each company outputs. I stopped paying attention when I saw a pack of Upper Deck Premium Gold Ultra Niner going for $15 (and there was only three cards in there). What a ripoff.

Anyway, enough about our issues with the baseball card industry.Check out these hilarious cards from the glory days of collecting:

#15. Mike Armstrong: After failing to make it as a big league pitcher, Armstrong tried his hand in acting. His biggest role saw him star as Milton in Office Space. “Have you seen my stapler?”

#14. Rodney Craig: To the best of our knowledge, this guy never made it big in the bigs. Now we’re not accusing anybody of anything, but perhaps some more strict drug testing would’ve helped ol’ Rod.

#13. Juan Berenguer: Looks like Juan finally found the guy who stole his burrito and now he’s gonna slam the ball between his eyes.

#12. Jay Johnstone: The top-notch editorial staff here at The Max really struggled with putting Johnstone on this list. From where we sit, he simply tries too hard to be funny. When that happens, you’re a lot less amusing (our content notwithstanding).

#11. Wally Moon: Couldn’t he just take a quick swipe around his eyebrow region while doing his morning shave?

#10. Mariano Rivera: The world’s greatest closer looks dressed to impress and ready to do some serious clubbing (We’ll probably get a call from YESNetwork.com’s web guy giving us a hard time for this one).

#9. Rudy Law: For the life of us, we can’t figure out why Rudy Law is so mad. It’s probably those hideous uniforms.

#8. Jose Canseco: You gotta love the mustache that Jose has been growing since the seventh grade.

#7. John Candelaria: See Jose Canseco.

#6. Jim Leyland: To the best of our knowledge, this is the only documented photo of Jim Leyland smiling. It’s probably because he’s is wearing a small building on the top of his head disguised as a hat.

#5. Rickey Henderson: Just what every young kid needs: a photo of Rickey taking a lead in his underwear. Who thought this was a good idea?

#4. John Pacella: Everybody knows the Mets went through some tough times in the early 1980s, but did Pacella really need to throw his hat down in disgust? Have some class!

#3. Sammy Sosa: Sammy’s looking mighty happy for a guy who just stuck his finger in a light socket.

#2. Billy Ripken: We’re a family web site, so we won’t tell you what it says on the bottom of his bat. But those who are already in the know understand this card’s greatness.

#1. Oscar Gamble: This card is great on so many levels. Obviously, his hair takes the cake. But how about that ridiculous Photoshop (or whatever they used back then) job on his hat and that horrible play on words in the headline?

Tags: baseball cards, Billy Ripken, funny, funny baseball cards, Jay Johnstone, Jim Leyland, John Candelaria, John Pacella, Jose Canseco, Juan Berenguer, Mariano Rivera, Mike Armstrong, Oscar Gamble, Rickey Henderson, Rodney Craig, Rudy Law, Sammy Sosa, The List, The Office, Wally Moon