Classic card of the week

Paul Coleman, 1990 Topps

Sweet! A Bo Jackson rookie card! Wait…what’s that you say? That’s NOT Bo Jackson! What the crap are you talking about?! Well, upon further inspection, you may be correct. For example, Bo Jackson would never pose in front of his high school for a baseball card photo; he would be too busy doing Bo Jackson-type things on various fields of play, like making diving outfield catches while wearing a football helmet because he forgot to take his helmet off after a game in which he scored eight touchdowns. Take a picture of THAT, bitch! Secondly, Bo Jackson wouldn’t be using an aluminum bat, because if he ever did, we would already have our first recorded 1,000-foot home run. This dude is Paul Coleman, who, as the card specifies, is “built along the lines of Royals’ Bo Jackson.” Hey, no shit. But that’s not all. Paul is SO Bo Jackson, it’s not even funny. He’s noted for his “prodigious 500-foot home runs,” “holds the Texas state pitching record of 21 strikeouts in one game,” and “rushed for 1,000 yards in a season twice.” Of course, many around baseball hold onto the conspiracy theory that Paul Coleman WAS Bo Jackson, as neither were ever seen in the same room at the same time. To throw off the haters, Coleman listed Ozzie Smith among his favorite ballplayers because, as Coleman said at the time, “the similarities are endless.” He then went on to say, “and Bo knows similarities. Wait, did I just say that?”

Did you know?
The famous Nike poster of a bare-chested Bo Jackson wearing shoulder pads and holding a baseball bat was manufactured twice – 20,000 posters were Bo Jackson and 500 were actually Paul Coleman. You know if you have the Paul Coleman one because he has three nipples. (Bo Jackson has four.)