Today I baked alive at Brimfield Flea Market in Brimfield, Massachusetts. If you've never been there, it's 17 open fields strung along Route 20, which for three weeks of each year are crammed full of leathery-skinned antiques dealers, junk collectors, hoboes, drug addicts, and certified weirdos. And a good time is had by all.

This year I went twice (July and September), each time filling up on weird stuff. July's big score was an uncut sheet of Wacky Packages from 1979. This time around I brought home a safe deposit box from an old bank, which coincidentally is the perfect size for holding baseball cards.

I also scored on miscut cards. On top of the major haul from Scott in New Jersey (more on Scott's Haul in a later post), these cards are helping make miscuts my next big 'thing.' And just my luck, all three of the miscuts I found today feature Hall of Famers.





Truthfully, the Reggie miscut is kind of lame, as it's almost impossible to determine the identity of the player on the other card. It's obvious that Jeff Newman is the other player on the Jenkins card simply because the back is cut so that his name is on there. The other player on the Carlton card (really the best card I found today) is Sudden Sam McDowell (#720). It's interesting to note that McDowell is not in the Hall of Fame, though he was 11 strikeouts away in 1967 from leading the AL in K's for six consecutive seasons (1965-1970), and he was traded practically straight-up for Gaylord Perry in 1971.