Trey Beamon, 1996 Upper Deck Star Rookie

Name: Trey Beamon
Team: Pittsburgh Pirates
Position: Outfield
Value of card: One-third of a Chuck E. Cheese token
Key 1995 stat: Beat your high score on "Daytona USA"
It's The Caption, which might have (but didn't) run in the Pittsbugh Post-Gazette around 1996: "Pirates rookie Trey Beamon plays a racing game at a local video arcade Tuesday. It was a welcome change of pace for Beamon, who has been playing nothing but 'Punch-Out' at the plate so far this season."

Card submitted by Douglas Corti

Trey Beamon, 1996 Upper Deck Star Rookie

Rob Murphy, 1990 Upper Deck

Name: Rob Murphy
Team: Boston Red Sox
Positions: Pitcher, IT guy
Value of card: One Angelfire account
Key 1989 stat: Owned three brick cellphones
Sporcle's got nothing on this quiz: Why couldn't Rob Murphy come in to pitch in the eighth inning?

A) He was busy doing research for a paper on LexisNexis
B) He had dropped his laptop on his foot, resulting in an amputation
C) His teammates had stuffed him into a locker after giving him a nuclear wedgie
D) His computer had overheated, putting him on the DL with third-degree groin burns
E) He got his floppy disk stuck in his zipper

Rob Murphy, 1990 Upper Deck

Ben McDonald, 1992 Upper Deck

Name: Ben McDonald
Team: Baltimore Orioles
Position: Pitcher
Value of card: One ink stain
Key 1991 stat: 559 slices of pizza eaten
Conversation between Ben McDonald and interviewer, April 12, 1992:
Interviewer: "What do you think about the O's chances this year, Ben?"
Ben McDonald: "What's with that microphone? It looks like a piece of foam rubber with phone cord sticking out of it! That's crazy!"
I: "Um, yeah, I'm just borrowing — "
BM: "Ha! Here kid, take this ball. I gotta see this thing. So, can you make phone calls on here? Where's the dial pad?"
I: "No, it's not a phone, it's just a crappy microphone."
BM: "Come on, be honest. Can you talk to the president through this thing?"
I: "Uhhhhh..."
BM: "Hello? Mr. President? Can you hear me? This is Ben McDonald, I wrote to you when I was 12 years old about how much I liked pizza? I still do!"
I: "Um, Ben, the president changes every four or eight years."
BM: "OK, Mr. President, gotta go. I have to sign an autograph for the crazy guy in the bottom left corner of this baseball card."
Crazy guy: "Yeaaaahhhhh! Get over here, Bill O'Donnell!"

Ben McDonald, 1992 Upper Deck

Tripp Cromer, 1994 Topps Future Star

Name: Tripp Cromer, allegedly
Team: St. Louis Cardinals
Position: Middle infielder
Value of card: One brick cell phone
Key 1993 stat: One run
St. Louis Cardinals scouting report on "future star" Tripp Cromer: "Has some sort of weird reptile scales running down his back. We're checking into it. ... He's squinty. ... Claims he once ate a 32-pack of individually wrapped American cheese in one sitting. ... Swings the bat better than some people. Like the drummer from Def Leppard. Barely. ... Has an unsettling fascination with the boy band Menudo. ... Could be a future star. But only if he dies and comes back as a zombie with super strength and speed. ... Calls his mother by her given name, and that's just strange. ... We're still not sure what his name is, but apparently he has a genuine dislike for someone named Cromer. ... Keeps calling our manager, Joe Torre, 'grandpa.' Torre seems to get a kick out of it."

Tripp Cromer, 1994 Topps Future Star

Thurman Thomas, 1992 Skybox (NFL Kickoff Week No. 6)

Name: Thurman Thomas

Team: Buffalo Bills
Position: Running Back
Value of card: One oil fire
Key 1991 stat: No jewelry
Tagline for the world's worst movie, "The Thurmanator": In the Year of Darkness, 2029, the rulers of Buffalo devised the ultimate plan. They would reshape the future by changing the past. The plan required something that would never fumble, stumble or miss a chip block. Something that could score from anywhere on the field. Something that, for once, would bring a Super Bowl title to Buffalo. Of course, that isn't really possible, so instead they created The Thurmanator, bringer of AFC championships and loser of helmets at crucial moments.

Thurman Thomas, 1992 Skybox (NFL Kickoff Week No. 6)

Tim Wallach, 1992 Topps Stadium Club

Name: Tim Wallach

Team: Montreal Expos

Position: Third base

Value of card: One deep thought

Key 1991 stat: Six space-age gadgets

Inspector Gadget: Tim Wallach loves technology. Let's count all the then-modern marvels that Mr. Wallach has on display in this 1992 card. There's the baseball cell phone he's talking on, a lightweight miracle from a time when phones were so heavy, players had assistants hold them while they carried on conversations. His uniform is made out of a space-age material resistant to both wrinkles and dirt, so no matter how many grounders Wallach dives for, he'll always come up cleaner than Craig Counsell's steroid test results. His nifty armband doubles as a Nintendo controller. His hat is actually a Flowbee. He's wearing a mask that makes him look like movie stars from the future — in this case, Luke Wilson.

What about those bats in the background? Those aren't actually there — they're holograms produced by a chip Wallach had implanted in his brain.

Tim Wallach, 1992 Topps Stadium Club