Apparently, my love for Mr. Atherton’s cards is never-ending.  I have to admit, the eye-black is a nice touch.

There are so many things I love about this card.  I love that it’s taken during batting practice.  I love the expression on Mr. Veryzer’s face.  I love that it looks like he belongs in the cast of “Wet Hot American Summer.”

Mr. Veryzer had a twelve year career with the Tigers, Indians, Mets, and Cubs.

Did anyone else read “Highlights” magazine when they were a little kid? One of monthly features was a “hidden pictures” page, or a “spot the differences” page, where they would show you two pictures that were almost exactly the same…but with several slight differences. These usually included someone’s eyes looking in the opposite direction, or having a button missing from their shirt.

Anyway, all these years later, fate intervened and put these two cards one on top of the other in the Nerd Archive.

Has there ever been a “throw back” uniform that has been as swept under the rug as this Cleveland Indians uniform? I have NEVER seen these red uniforms, and Halloween-looking-caps before this set of 1977 Topps cards. Not in baseball books, not in pictures, and not in old highlight reels. A brief internet search revealed that the Indians wore some version of these uniforms from 1975-77. Sometimes they wore the red shirt with white pants. Sometimes a white shirt with red pants. Sometimes a blue shirt with white pants. And sometimes a blue shirt with red pants. Yikes.

Here we have another high-achieving nerd. Mr. Thornton had seven seasons in which his OPS+ was 123 or greater, made two all-star games, won the Roberto Clemente Award in 1979, and won a silver slugger award in 1984. And he wore those amazing glasses.

Mr. Kittle now gives motivational speeches, and sells some pretty sweet benches from his website.

For those of you who didn’t read the text, we learned that in his first season, “Alex became such a hero in Cleveland that the mayor issued a proclamation at City Hall citing ‘his outstanding base stealing accomplishments and the recent excitement he has brought to the city.’”

Unfortunately, his bright star quickly burned out in Cleveland. After stealing 40 bases in 63 games in 1990, he stole only 27 (while being caught 17 times) in 122 games in 1991. He was traded from the Indians to the Pirates after 41 games in 1992.