While most baseball cards feature photos of players in uniforms or action shots from games, there have been some unusual baseball cards produced over the years that stand out from the norm. Whether depicting strange photos, unusual bonuses included with the card, or bizarre ideas that never truly materialized, these weird baseball cards make for interesting artifacts from the history of the hobby.
Among the strangest photos featured on baseball cards is one of Hall of Famer Yogi Berra in a wedding dress from his 1951 Bowman card. The odd photo was taken as a joke while Berra was serving in the Navy during World War 2. While bizarre, the card remains one of the most sought after and valuable from the entire 1951 Bowman set due to the memorable image. Other strange photos include a 1969 card of Juan Marichal seemingly wearing curlers in his hair and a 1962 Topps card of Willie Mays with an afro picked out much larger than usual.
Some cards tried to stand out by literally standing up – 1979 Donruss produced a short run of cards for several players that were printed in a vertical format intended to be displayed upright rather than horizontally. The unusual formatting never caught on and they are now sought after anomalies. Oddball bonus items have also been included on a few strange baseball cards. The 1933 Goudey Robins Cigarettes Cardenal hand-cut card included an actual Robins Cigarette glued to the back. 1966 Topps sold a Pete Rose rookie card that came sealed inside a plastic box of Topps Chewing Gum.
Occasionally, cards were even produced depicting ideas that never came to fruition. In 1990, Topps created a set of virtual reality baseball cards named “Proposed 1991 Topps Virtual Reality Baseball”. The cards depicted what baseball players would look like wearing virtual reality headsets and described impossible simulated stats and experiences. The technology required to actualize what was depicted never materialized. The cards highlighting a concept before its time are quite bizarre in retrospect.
Speaking of concepts before their time, some pre-photography cards stood out by utilizing unique illustration techniques. In the late 1880s, Goodwin Champions featured original watercolor paintings on cards at a time when photography had not yet been widely adopted for mass-produced packages. Around the same time period, a small series of Indian Portrait baseball cards featured photographs of Native Americans that had nothing to do with baseball, mixing unrelated subject matters.
Promotional test prints and unreleased cards that have leaked out also fall into the weird category. A test run of 1963 Topps cards was produced early in the design process featuring bizarre floating head photos before the final aesthetic was approved. In the 1970s, plans were seemingly in the works for a set called “Starheads” made by Topps or Fleer that would have placed personalities’ faces on the bodies of ballplayers, but only a few prototype proofs are known to exist.
International editions of sets sometimes resulted in strangeness lost in translation. 1992 Leaf featured Phillies player Darren Daulton with the odd caption “Darren ‘Dutch’ Daulton” even though he has no Dutch heritage. Similarly, the French text on the back of 1990 Topps Traded cards was a bizarre machine translation producing nonsensical bios. Counterfeit or conceptual fake cards have also emerged over the years, adding to the weird and unauthorized outside of the official cardboard spectrum.
While wacky, experimental, or just plain bizarre, these weird baseball cards provide a look at the sporting hobby’s willingness to take chances and think outside the box over its decades of existence. They serve as reminders that the rigidly formulaic style many associate with modern cards was something that evolved over time. Even failed ideas or strange remnants can become quirky artifacts treasured by collectors interested in the unconventional ends of the baseball card collecting spectrum. As with any collecting domain, it is the oddities that often stand out the most.
