So, Do You Like ... Stuff?

Kevin Porter, 1991 Pro Line Portraits Series What’s that you say, Kevin Porter? Would I like to see what’s behind that football? Ummm, no thanks. I’m cool. Really though. Actually, as a matter of fact, I brought my own football, so…yeah, don’t worry about it. Come again, Mr. Porter? Would I like to guess what’s behind that football? Uhhh, okay. Is it…another football? Kind of ? Okaaay. Is it…a Herman Melville novel? Yeah, he wrote the book about the whale. I’m getting closer ? Okay. Wait – I don’t really want to get any closer, now that I think about it. I give up, Kevin Porter. What’s behind the football? What the - a Chia Pet? For me ? Why thank you, Kevin Porter! You didn’t have to go through all that trouble! And I didn’t even get you anything…I feel terrible. Wait, do you have any skin-tight spandex shorts, because I just saw a pair at Dick’s Sporting Goods…maybe I could buy them for you? Oh, you do have a pair of skin-tight spandex shorts? Several pairs? Oh my gosh - you’re weari...

It’s about time that I let you in on a little secret. Dwayne Schintzius is the inspiration behind this whole, darned operation. The very idea of “Classic Card of the Week” was modeled around the notion that someday – when I felt I was adequately ready to do so – breaking down these very cards. But unforeseen challenges lie ahead. For starters, our Dwayne Schintzius collection was always lying around the office somewhere, never more than a few footsteps away, nestled next to some coffee-stained newspapers and two-month old cream cheese. But, when I finally felt confident enough to take on the magnificence you see above (I have been training for months now, eating raw eggs and typing with my knuckles)…BAM!…they were gone. Suddenly and unjustly, like the NBA Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA, Dwayne Schintzius was nowhere to be found. What was a man to do? I searched high and low, with no results. Through utter carelessness, I had managed to lose the Holy Grail of ridiculous sports cards. I...

*Special Friday edition David Segui, 1994 Topps David Segui is gonna bunt the shit out of that ball, so you might want to take a step back. David Segui once bunted a ball into the dead center field “black” at Yankee Stadium. David Segui will yell at an oncoming fastball and tell it where to go, even when he is bunting. He will say, “Go halfway down the third base line you stupid ball – Glaus is playing too deep – or I will KILL YOU! I will rip the seams out of your precious little round body, and then EAT YOUR REMIANS! ARRRGHHHH!” David Segui blatantly ignores the conventional wisdom with regards to how to hold the bat when you are bunting. He really doesn’t care. David Segui’s rationale is, “So what if a 94 mph fastball hits me right in the knuckles as I’m squaring up? My hands are made of straight steel, homie. Raffy gave me about 17 HGH shots right in ol’ caboose during BP – this ball could hit me straight in the temple and I will walk to first base as if I were just hit with a rain...

The Christmas season is all about a little give-and-take. “An eye for an eye,” as George Costanza would say. That’s what holiday spirit is all about. In that respect, and in honor of the holiday season, we’re going to do a little not-so-secret Santa thing. The higher ups here in the blogosphere have given me a modest budget to buy gifts for some of our favorite athletes and coaches here at “So, do you like...stuff?” But, in return, they have to get me something that I want, which is the most important part of this little deal. So, after a few phone calls, emails, and blackmailed photos of a compromised Drew Rosenhaus, we managed to set this whole thing up. (By the way, it’s more interesting if you picture all of us wearing Santa hats, sitting around a tree and sipping on some Grey Goose punch, which is exactly how this all went down.) Chris Henry His list : One “get out of jail free” card. No, wait…make that two. Says I : I think I could manage a PBA card for ya’, Chris. But it doesn’...

Dan Saleaumua, 1991 Pro Line, Portraits series Whoa, whoa! Back off, Dan Saleaumua! I was just kidding! I take it back – that is NOT just an extra-long shirt with shorts on over it. The last thing I need right now is for you to be practicing your martial arts moves on my groin. I’m not even wearing a cup! I don’t even work here! So please, relax. Thank you. So anyways…alright, why are you still looking at me like that? Are you messing with me? Let me check the back of your card…oh! Okay, you ARE messing with me: “To prepare for a game, I watch everybody else psyche themselves up, and it usually makes me laugh. Some guys bang their heads and some just sit there with their eyes closed…Some guys do different things, but I just goof around most of the time.” Dan Saleaumua did not believe in artificial motivation, such as “trash-talk clipboard material,” steroids, or Red Bull. He instead prepared for games with a steady diet of whoopee cushions and “Three Stooges” reruns. It was this free-...

*Special Friday edition Don Mattingly, 1991 Collectors Series The similarities between Don Mattingly and Coca-Cola were endless, which serves to explain how a baseball card could, quite easily, confuse the two. For example, both were very red, with sideburns. Both went down extra smooth – Coca-Cola with its crisp, refreshing taste, and Mattingly with an effortless slide into home plate to win the game for the hometown ball club. Both produced much hyped, yet ill-fated experiments – Coca-Cola with “New Coke,” and Mattingly with “Kevin Mass.” Both had bad backs. The only real difference between Coca-Cola and Don Mattingly – if you can even call it a difference – was that Coca-Cola was a soda, and Don Mattingly was a person. But that’s about it. In fact, people confused the two all the time. Mattingly himself tells a great story about how he went to give teammate Roberto Kelly a high-five after a Kelly home run, and instead, Kelly turned Mattingly upside down and tried to drink him, and ...

I’ve been receiving a lot of flack around here lately for ignoring the New Jersey Nets. Apparently, there are at least several people in the area who are fans of the Nets, which, I have to admit – I did not know. People are funny like that sometimes, like when they root for the Nets. The major sentiment among Nets’ fans is – they’re the local team, an actual New Jersey team, and they deserve our support. Also, they happen to be one of the better teams in the NBA. Okay. Counterpoint: They’re the Nets. They’ve been a brutal franchise for a quarter century, and now that they’re good, they’re most likely abandoning the Garden State for Brooklyn. Whatever side you may fall on, it is true that I have not paid them their due attention over these past few years, and thus, I’ve failed as a journa-…person. To make up for it, I’ve contacted the Nets’ super-duper guard Jason Kidd for an exclusive interview. He was as surprised as I was to find out about these “Nets fans,” and thus, agreed to sit ...

Cade McNown, 1999 Collector’s Edge Back in 1999, Cade McNown was a future legend. Now you may be asking yourself, “How does one ascend to ‘future legend’ status?” Good question. First, you have to be at least 200 lbs. (Cade McNown? 211 lbs. Check.) Next, you have to play quarterback, but not well enough to be drafted ahead of Akili Smith, who actually was also a “future legend” in the category of “failed draft picks.” (Smith, drafted 3rd overall, McNown, 12th. Check.) Finally, you must be deemed a “future legend” by the only authority capable of doling out such praise – a football card – and said football card must have utter disregard for the normal criteria that a stereotypical “legend” encompasses (i.e.: good stats, not named “Cade”), nor give two craps about naming someone a legend who has yet to take a snap within the field that they will establish their supposed legendary status within. (Check, check, and triple check!) Through this, it becomes clear that, yes, Cade McNown, in 19...

Anyone that lives near this area of New Jersey is well aware that one local station a year continues the custom of 24-hour-a-day Christmas songs. This season the culprit is 106.7 FM, which began this tradition before Thanksgiving this year, meaning that it’s (looking at my watch) December 8th, and my holiday spirit has already been obliterated. Awesome. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is the Rod Stewart/Dolly Parton rendition of “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” which my wife so cleverly dubbed as the “date-rape Christmas song:” “ Hey, what’s in this drink?” It’s SoCo mixed with GHB, Dolly - Rod is using the cold weather as an excuse to, at the very least, see your boobies. Merry Christmas! But that’s not even the worst of it. I suppose that, when you’re trying to fill hours upon hours of airtime with Christmas songs, you’re bound to come across some bad ones. And one song in particular takes the cake. So, at the risk of sounding like an insensitive jerk that doesn’t un...

Barry Sanders, 1998 Playoff Co. series Barry, no! You’re running the wrong way! The “endzone x-press” is that-a-way! It’s easy to forget – because he was so freakin’ awesome – that Barry Sanders was, in fact, a Detroit Lion, and Detroit Lions tend to do stupid things, like disobey a smorgasbord of arrows leading them in the direction of the correct endzone. Only a Detroit Lion would be going the wrong way on a football card with the inscription “momentum” in the top right hand corner. Then again, this could have been one of those scenarios where the Lions’ offensive line immediately collapsed the exact second the ball was snapped, forcing Sanders to run backwards 20 yards, just so he could get some room to go forward again, which was when he was at his best. Or, it could have been a play call by the mastermind himself, the immortal Wayne Fontz, who most likely used the rationale, “Well, nobody seems to defending the endzone behind us…that would seem to be the easier option here.” Amazi...

Those of you who follow this site regularly are aware that I have never pressured you into reading anything other than my own material. Call it good business. I have food to put on the table, and leading you in the direction of others who have the capability of exposing my own inadequacies doesn’t make much sense now, does it? Well, whatever. I’ve got a book for ‘ya. This is a New York-centric blog, which is why I’m taking the time to put you on to a New York-centric book. That, and because this book is – in literary jargon - freakin’ awesome. "The Best New York Sports Arguments: The 100 Most Controversial, Debatable Questions for Die-Hard Fans” hits bookshelves today, Dec. 5. My advice? Get it . The title speaks for itself. Author Peter Handrinos goes in-depth on all things involving New York sports, and leaves no stone unturned. I’ve read “sports argument” books before – most recently Chris “Mad Dog” Russo’s enjoyable “The Greatest Sports Arguments of All Time” – but there are ...