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How would you feel if Topps came to you and told you they were going to feature you on your very own baseball card. Pretty awesome, right? Giddy, even? Like Gus Bell in 1960?
Yeah, me, too.
And we’re not alone. Count former Major Leaguer Ross Baumgarten among the “happy to be here” crowd, where “here” is nationally distributed cardboard.
Oh, it wasn’t always this way for the Chicago White Sox‘s 20th-round selection in the 1977 amateur draft.
In fact, when Baumgarten made his cardboard debut the next summer while pitching for the Appleton Foxes, his 1978 TCMA card looked like this:
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Not smiley, really. More of a wince … maybe one of h