Cards You've Never Seen

While the title says 'Cards You've Never Seen' this is a deceiving title. Some of you may have seen these cards before, and remember them. Others will claim that these aren't even cards at all. You would be so right in that observation. With baseball season coming up, and 2014 Topps starting to pop up. Another one of my hobbies are starting to appear as well. A few have been out already, but much like Topps they are about to be in season full force. What am I talking about you ask? Pocket schedules, that is what.

Over the years there have been a few teams from both the MLB, and minors who have gone with baseball cards in the design. As you will see there are different ways teams went about using the baseball card theory. Keep in mind these are all from my personal schedules so there might be more out there than what I'm showing.

In 1994 the Eugene Emeralds set the bar pretty high. Not only did Eugene go with baseball cards they threw in some classic cards. Throwing in some other memorabilia the person in charge of this design did a very nice classic look. While normally it's not a good idea to start with your best I think that might be how this ends.

Seven years later the Chicago Cubs would put out a schedule using old Cubs baseball cards. Who knows if the Cubs knew about the Emeralds schedule when they came up with this idea. What I do know is they continued the tradition of keeping the bar high for any future attempts. One of the things I really appreciate about this schedules design. I can't confirm if the Emeralds used real cards, or just made their own up. As a baseball card collector who has not only seen some of the card designs. I actually had three of the cards in my collection at one point. Not sure if this adds into why this schedule appeals to me so much.

Another five years would pass before another baseball card schedule pops into my schedules. Unfortunately the Danville Braves didn't keep the high standards already set. In all fairness the team is a rookie level team. Looking at these cards my guess is they are fake cards just used as a design. I could see these being real, and wouldn't be surprised if they were.

Thank goodness that it would only take two years for the Detroit Tigers to get things back to normal. Going in a new direction than showing off cards. Detroit went in this new direction full force by using the 2008 Topps design on their 2008 schedule. Its an awesome design that I would have liked to see with the fake autograph to complete the look. Ordonez is the only cover I have, but most years team do multiple player covers so odds are there might be others out there.

Not finished with the Topps design, Detroit went with the concept in 2009 as well. Once again I like the idea of using a baseball card from the current year. In 2010 Detroit would shy away from the card design instead of going for the three-peat.

No team has attempted using baseball cards in any form since the Tiger 2009 schedule. Odds are one day the idea will once again appear. How its done should be interesting.