Ryan Braun

Topps Heritage New Age “Enhancement” Performers

12 MLB Players Accept Their Punishment!

So I am awaiting the next shock-wave sent by Major League Baseball for the suspension of it’s players for the use of performance enhancing drugs. Just like everyone else, I began to go through some of the closet space and filled rooms I have with sports cards along with the many boxes of Beckett graded cards that I own, and I am trying to remember how many Alex Rodriguez 1994 SP graded cards I own. I know that they will be bonfire for my next cook-out! As I am going through these graded cards, I also find many Mark McGwire 1985 Topps rookie cards which also are graded and a few Fleer Tiffany Barry Bonds rookie cards as well. That is when it hit me, like a ton of bricks!!! What a farce my collection is.

Why Ryan Braun, Why???

True enough, we all know that this cheating which has been excessive and highly publicized since the 1990’s has hurt the game back then and continues to do so, in addition to the marred stats of MLB, but have we really sat down and noticed how this also has destroyed our dear sports card collections. I am telling you right now, my collection and I have been in denial mode, naive I know. We just refuse to believe that all those years chasing perfect cards to send to Beckett grading, and all those countless shows the walking, wheeling and dealing for this card and that one, it just cannot be. Our collections cannot be so deflating to us now! I want to personally thank A-Rod, Barry, Mark, and now Braun.

So I am scouring my collection trying to find something I love in my graded card sets, that can take some of the sting off those I mentioned above, and I have them. Just like you do in your collection. My 1969 Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, Mickey Mantle. But did we ever collect these cards and think that this day would come? How about the countless people that are holding 20, 30, even 100 graded 1994 SP Alex Rodriguez cards? A card that I might add was fetching $10,000 for a gem mint copy. I can remember even more. I guess those people hung their hats on the belief that the home-run record was as easy as a bag of shells, like Jackie Gleason used to say. I can’t even imagine the pain.

While going through my collection, I stumbled across a couple of boxes of inserts. The Topps Heritage New Age Performers. Remember those beauty’s? Anyway, I took the liberty of scanning mine, and giving them the proper heading (see picture above). If only Topps knew back then what they now know. This set for sure would have been called “Topps Heritage New Age Enhancement Performers”. Anyway, there has to be a silver lining in these collections that we all have. I believe in my collection, and I know you believe in yours, the sacrifices made to have them. So stories will be told, and maybe just maybe their value will be in some other form of conversation in your home, even if you use yours as coasters, like I will use mine. Below is a list of the latest 12 suspended today without appeal. Keep collecting those rookie baseball cards, just dump them as soon as the players begin to look like the Hulk and can hit 90 home-runs a year!!!

Here are the players confirmed by FoxSports.com which are said to have agreed to the suspensions without the right to an appeal so sad, they are:

• Nelson Cruz, Rangers outfielder.

• Everth Cabrera, Padres shortstop.

• Jhonny Peralta, Tigers shortstop.

• Antonio Bastardo, Phillies reliever.

• Jordany Valdespin, Mets outfielder.

• Francisco Cervelli, Yankees catcher.

• Jesus Montero, Mariners catcher.

• Cesar Puello, Mets outfield prospect.

• Sergio Escalona, Houston Astros pitching prospect.

• Fernando Martinez, Yankees outfield prospect.

• Fautino De Los Santos, free-agent pitcher.

• Jordan Norberto, free-agent pitcher

Specialty Cards

1995 Florida Sports Plus The Delay Of The MLB Season

jmaris21 Alex Rodriguez, All-Star Game, Dan Marino, Florida Marlins, Ryan Braun, World Series

It was April 1995 when I was already slated to go to the NY Mets vs. The Florida Marlins opening home season. See the picture to get a glimpse of the opening day ticket that never was. The MLB empire had endured one of the biggest black eye it has ever gotten. But thanks to the enhanced performance scandals that keep on surfacing, with the latest from Miami in which the names of Ryan Braun, Alex Rodriguez and many more are listed in some form or fashion.

No World Series in 1994

MLB was just fresh off of the first World Series cancellation in over 100 years. The world, sports fans, and baseball players aficionados world-wide were stunned. I don’t think that anything prior to that time was painful to watch in sports. But we have become a nation that endures, and although any tragedy in a sport will never compare to a tragedy in life, being a society that pretty much revolves around sports, it was a shock nonetheless. It’s after shock was felt for a very long time.

As a baseball fan, I was looking towards the start of the 1995 season, but I must admit I can remember an empty feeling, but it was not necessarily pointed towards the players, not like the substance abuse is.

1994 MLB All- Star Game

All we had that year from baseball was a partial season, and an All-Star game, one of which I have little memory from. In fact if it wasn’t for the All-Star numbered bat from that year with the autograph of Alex Rodriguez, which I acquired at an event just before the game, and my 1994 World Series MLB ball, which were sold because they were never used, that whole 1994-1995 sports year would be a blur to me.

Dan Marino – Miami Dolphins

That was also the year that I met Dan Marino, see the picture with the autograph. Thank goodness that for every set back we endure, there is always a seasonal sport to lift us up. Football was the sport that year that made us forget the 1994 MLB debacle and endure the reception, cold reception, that we gave baseball in 95.