Tony Gwynn, 1989 Donruss Diamond Kings (Apologies for Another Diamond Kings Week No. 1)

Name: Tony Gwynn
Team: San Diego Padres
Position: Outfield
Value of card: One terrible Christmas present
Key 1988 stat: Sixth full week of Donruss Diamond Kings brought to you by The Bust
Welcome to Apologies for Another Diamond Kings Week: Let us start by saying we're sorry. We know we've nearly drowned our nine readers with Diamond Kings over the years, yet we're bringing you more, just in time for the holidays. So, following in the cleat marks and paint splotches of Atrocious Diamond Kings Week, God-Awful Diamond Kings Week, Dreadful Diamond Kings Week, Ho-Ho-Horrendous Diamond Kings Week and Disturbing Diamond Kings Week, we offer you, with our heads hung low, Apologies for Another Diamond Kings Week.
Not quite induction worthy: Tony Gwynn was a Hall of Famer. This card was not. While the Hall stands for all that is right with the game, this card stands for all that's wrong with sports card illustrations. From Gwynn's crooked hat to Gwynn's crooked mustache to Gwynn's crooked neck to Gwynn's crooked eyes — well, we're sensing a trend here. But we understand, when there's an exploding star right behind you, things can get a bit out of whack.

Tony Gwynn, 1989 Donruss Diamond Kings (Apologies for Another Diamond Kings Week No. 1)

Gary Payton, 1994-95 Fleer Pro-Visions (Basketball Barf Art Week No 3)

Name: Gary Payton
Team: Seattle SuperSonics
Position: Point Guard
Value of card: A twamp sack of bammer
Key 1993-94 stat: Zero gloves worn during games
Rumor fits like a glove: In the mid-1990s, underground Bay Area hip-hop artists rapped a lot about cars, weed, crime and Gary Payton. E-40, B-Legit, Too Short and others flowed on songs that name-dropped Payton, an Oakland native. In many of these songs, the rappers claimed to have been smoking pot with Payton. Was this true? Doesn't matter. What matters is that the artist responsible for this card was obviously a big mid-1990s underground Bay Area rap fan. How do we know that? Let's start with "smoking bomb" being a slang term for inhaling marijuana and this card featured a "smoking bomb" basketball. Then there's the environment surrounding Payton. It looks like something you'd see in a crappy blacklight poster at a head shop. Payton, himself, is sporting an out-of-it, mouth-hanging-open look he never displayed on the court; it's a look that can only be the result of heavy pot use. And, of course, there's all the green. We get it, Fleer artist, you like puffin' on the sticky-icky while holla'ing at the homeboy Gary Payton. No doubt.

Gary Payton, 1994-95 Fleer Pro-Visions (Basketball Barf Art Week No 3)

Anfernee Hardaway, 1994-95 Fleer Pro-Visions (Basketball Barf Art Week No. 1)

Name: Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway
Team: Orlando Magic
Position: Guard
Value of card: A penny
Key 1993-94 stat: 14 different-colored tuxes worn
Welcome to Basketball Barf Art Week: With a Miami-Indy Game 7 tonight and the NBA Finals starting Thursday, it's a time for celebration. What better way to celebrate than with seven of the most mind-numbing basketball illustrations ever produced in sports card form? Well, er, yeah, there are plenty of better ways to celebrate than with these abominations, but, hell, we have nothing better to do, so enjoy the week.
10 magic tricks performed by Penny Hardaway:
10) Pull a rabbit out of his jockstrap.
9) Levitate the logo for the Internet's most embarrassing sports card blog.
8) Rent a tux; throw up on it; get it dry-cleaned; take it back.
7) Get commercials starring Lil' Penny made despite their obvious imbecility.
6) Cut Shaq Daddy in half (making him still about 6 feet tall).
5) Combine a card focused on magic with a solar system background — for no apparent reason.
4) Force-feed puns to an audience ad nauseum.
3) Turn a basketball into a penny with the help of trashy art.
2) Make his career disappear.
1) Grow a mustache as a haircut.

Anfernee Hardaway, 1994-95 Fleer Pro-Visions (Basketball Barf Art Week No. 1)

Patrick Ewing, 1993-94 NBA Hoops (Another (face-palm) Basketball Week No. 3)

Name: Patrickman, aka Patrick Ewing
Team: New York Knicks
Positions: Center, flying through future space
Value of card: Space junk
Key 1993-94 stat: Hem of shorts higher than crotch of shorts
Another literal translation: Because there's no way to tell exactly what is supposed to be happening in this illustration of "Patrickman," here's our best guess. Patrickman lived on a red sun that had clouds made of popcorn and was inhabited by those things from "The Matrix." The only way to defeat these sentient machines was to make a 1-foot jump shot in outer space. Should he do this, he would have his pick of green planets on which he could live out his days in peace. However, the machines tried everything they could to prevent his escape, including ripping his shorts up so high that they could give him a colonoscopy. Did Patrickman make this close-range shot? Let's just say that those tentacles made it up to his neck.

Patrick Ewing, 1993-94 NBA Hoops (Another (face-palm) Basketball Week No. 3)

Randall Cunningham, 1991 Fleer Pro-Visions (Football Friday No. 110)

Name: Randall Cunningham
Team: Philadelphia Eagles
Position: Quarterback
Value of card: You know how much oxygen is in space? That much money.
Key 1991 stat: They were all out of this world
Breaking down this Randall Cunningham card by the numbers:

3: Nondescript planets that look about as dead as the Eagles' current season
3 (again): Footballs, two of which don't appear to be obeying any laws of physics
2: Towels hanging from Cunningham's belt, tastefully covering his bulge
6: Faraway galaxies seen. Whoops, make that five. One of them is just some Parmesean cheese we spilled on the card.
1: Huge cobweb that Cunningham is trapped in. Hopefully his helmet and pads will protect him from the giant space spider that made that thing.

Randall Cunningham, 1991 Fleer Pro-Visions (Football Friday No. 110)

Michael Jordan, 1991-92 Fleer Pro-Visions (Air Jordan Week No. 7)

Name: Michael Jordan
Team: Chicago Bulls
Position: Shooting guard
Value of card: $19.99 gift certificate to name a star after that special someone
Key 1990-91 stat: Zero legs
We sat down with Michael Jordan and asked him questions about space; here are his answers:

Michael, good to have you here. First question: What is the Milky Way made of?

Ask your sister.

OK, No. 2: What's your favorite planet?

It's certainly not Uranus. Wash down there.

Well, that's uncalled for. We'll move on. Can you explain the big-bang theory?

Yes.

Well? Can you elaborate?

The big bang? Ask your sister. And I thought about your second question. The answer: Heranus.

Listen, Mike, you're being pretty rude. We're big fans. You sure you want to act like this?

Yes. But let me explain interstellar space. Interstellar space is the physical space within a galaxy not occupied by stars or their planetary systems. The interstellar medium resides — by definition — in interstellar space.

Wow, Mike. That's really insightful. Anything else you'd like to add?

There's no air in space.

Huh-huh. But we've seen you in space, Air. Huh-huh.

No, there's no air in space. But Air's in your sister.

That's it. Interview over.

Michael Jordan, 1991-92 Fleer Pro-Visions (Air Jordan Week No. 7)

Eric Davis, 1991 Fleer Pro-Visions

Name: Eric Davis

Team: Cincinnati Reds

Positions: Outfield, outer space

Value of card: 3 space bucks

Key 1990 stat: .295 pha (planet hitting average)

10 titles for this intergalactic abomination of a card:

10) "Cincinnati: The Final Frontier"

9) "The Big Dipper of Chew"

8) "Eric the Red Giant"

7) "(Insert Uranus joke here)"

6) "Cocaine in a Night's Sky"

5) "Easy Out in Outer Space"

4) "Constellation: Wristband Major"

3) "Black A-Hole"

2) "A Galaxy of Bad Art"

1) "Bulge in Space"

Eric Davis, 1991 Fleer Pro-Visions

Charlotte Hornets, 1991-92 NBA Hoops (Basketball Week No. 7)

Team: Charlotte Hornets

Value of card: 13,000 spacebucks (or 1.625 cents)

Key 1991 stat: 20 players, coaches and mascots in orbit

A space case: The geniuses behind the NBA Hoops basketball card division of the National Basketball Association outdid themselves with the 1991-92 set. They had traditional cards featuring all the league's players. They had checklists and coach cards. But that wasn't enough. They decided to add a subset of franchise cards, each featuring a team doing something related to the organization's name. Some made sense, others, as can been seen in the card above, did not. Sure, hornets, the winged insects, fly. But hornets, science has proved, could not survive in space. And though Saturn and basketballs could both loosely be qualified as gaseous, Saturn is primarily hydrogen, while a blown-up basketball contains mostly nitrogen and oxygen. Also, a man dressed as a turquoise stinging insect with a headband could not stand on top of a planet. And unlike Saturn, the Hornets have no rings.

Charlotte Hornets, 1991-92 NBA Hoops (Basketball Week No. 7)

1992 Stars of the Baseball Universe

Names, from bottom left: Frank Thomas, Nolan Ryan, Bo Jackson, Ken Griffey Jr., Cal Ripken Jr.

Teams: Chicago White Sox (Thomas, Jackson), Texas Rangers (Ryan) Seattle Mariners (Griffey), Baltimore Orioles (Ripken)

Positions: First base (Thomas), Pitcher (Ryan), Outfield (Jackson, Griffey), Shortstop (Ripken)

Value of card: 3 ounces of moon rock

Key 1991 stat: Five stars, five descriptions

Five stars in orbit:

Thomasmetrica-35: Found approximately 14 million light years from Earth, Thomasmetrica-35 was a supergiant star, one of the biggest in the universe. It towered over other stars in the American League nebula, its gravitational power hitting its peak in the mid-1990s, before suddenly combusting into a red dwarf star, capable of few of its former feats.

Ryanitoba-5714: One of the oldest stars in the universe, Ryanitoba-5714 is crisscrossed by deep canyons, wrinkle-like, throughout its face. These crevices are actively viewed with the human eye in Texas, but in most other regions its popularity has waned with age.

Bo-hemia-34: This main sequence star is well-known for its fast rotation and the force of its sun bursts. This combination of speed and power has translated into a twofold existence: in the spring and summer, Bo-hemia-34 shrinks and becomes circular, with two endless red ridges; in the fall, it grows and elongates at its poles, sprouts one large white ridge at its center and turns brown. Books have been written about Bo-hemia-34's shape-shifting, only seen in one other major star, Deionistis-7.

Ofgriffey-2: Once a junior star to its closest relative, Ofgriffey-1, Ofgriffey-2 has grown massive, with immense popularity in the field and the ability to send its bursts into orbit. Despite its size, astronomers still refer to it by a nickname, "The Kid."

Ripkenocus-2632: This white dwarf has been counter-rotating at a record pace for 2,632 light years, the longest known counter rotation in the universe. This constant backward rotation has damaged the planets that rely on Ripkenocus-2632, as well as its exoskeleton, but it continues to spin and spin, as if only for assurance the record will never be broken.

1992 Stars of the Baseball Universe