Earl Weaver, 1993 Ted Williams #85

It's about time I got around to posting a manager card. Why not start with the best? I have a ton of cards from this set, which was a pretty cool concept. Basically, Ted Williams endorsed a brand of baseball cards that featured great players and managers of years gone by. It had a little bit of everything, with subsets for Negro League players, minor league photos of the stars, and even a few women from the old All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Each pack also came with two pogs featuring old team logos. I still have the pogs in a binder at home with the rest of my collection. Yes, I collected pogs. Suddenly I feel much less guilty about my baseball card mania.

The card itself is a thing of beauty. The background photo is a familiar action shot of the Earl of Baltimore standing up (on his tiptoes, most likely) to his old nemeses, the umpires of the American League. This may have been one of his A. L.-record 98 ejections, which delighted Baltimore fans for nearly two decades. I'm even more amused by the foreground photo, which seems to show Earl in a pensive moment. I imagine him listening patiently to the ump's shoddy explanation as to why his last call went against the O's. He massages his throat just to keep his hand busy...probably just to keep himself from putting said hand on said umpire. Earl is poised and ready to strike.

Give 'im hell, Earl.