My Favorite Frankenset Card by Page; Page 1 (Cards 1-9)

I'd like to introduce you to my Frankenset (in progress). I won't bore you here with the details of how I pick the cards for the set (if you do want to be bored by that, go here!). Instead, I want to give you a taste of some of my favorite cards, one page at a time. So why not begin with page one?

Page one features some gems:

• Jose Canseco in a Devil Rays uniform courtesy of a set apparently called Fleer Impact. This was before the "Devil" was taken out of Tampa. 

2000 Fleer Impact #2, Jose Canseco

• Ellis Burks with a glove on his head, because why wouldn't you wear your glove on your head? Especially when you spent the previous year hitting .344 with 40 homeruns. Then you can do pretty much anything you want. Well maybe not anything you want. But when you ALSO knock in 128 runs and steal 32 bases, then I think doing anything you want is back on the table as an option.

1997 Score, Colorado Rockies Team Edition #4 of 15, Ellis Burks

But the pick of the litter for page one is a card with a haunting, ghostly image of a Hall of Famer.

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A man you almost certainly don't associate with the team for which he is pictured.


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A left-hander with well over 300 wins.


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A Minnesota Twin (although only briefly).


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And here he is!

1988 Fleer

Card #7

I just stare at this card and think, did that really happen? Was Steve Carlton really a Minnesota Twin? Yes, yes he was. And he pitched terribly for them, unfortunately. He hung it up after an April 23, 1988 outing where he gave up eight earned runs over five innings of work. I was only a toddler at the time, so I would be curious to know how baseball fans from the time remember Steve Carlton. As the ace of the Phillies for a decade and a half, or as the journeyman who spent the final three years of his career trying in vain to recapture his old glory? This card says so much, and thus, it is my favorite card from page one.