Ultimate Super Jumbo Things Learned

Don't miss today's player: Steve Parker, Mental Aspect

These Ultimate Super Jumbo Packs I picked up on my vacation back home to Iowa are just fun to open. There's a nice mix of cards and some cards that I would never really get to see. And I've been learning stuff.

I've learned about some more obscure players that had long minor league careers or brief major league careers. I've learned more about sets that came out.

In this third Ultimate Super Jumbo Pack opened, I learned that Nolan Ryan loves animals.

That's right, according to one of Ryan's entries in his 1991 Pacific cards entry, his love for animals is evident in visiting his family farm. And, had Ryan not been a fireballing pitcher, he may have gone on to be a fireballing veterinarian. I am assuming the fireballing part only because the text on the back is surrounded by a huge fireball.

These Ultimate packs guarantee at least one Hall of Famer in each pack. This pack contained five baseball Hall of Famers and one football Hall of Famer.

The football Hall of Famer came in the form of Roger Staubach, on a non-Hall of Famer Rex Hudler baseball card. Thanks to the people at PinnAcle, we now know that Hudler played football in high school. He was so good that he was offered scholarships to 25 colleges. The card back also likened Hudler's style of play to a football, body-sacrificing approach. "So it comes as little surprise that his favorite athlete was Roger Staubach," the card reads.

The people at PinnAcle apparently liked to dish the knowledge. On another PinnAcle offering, included in this Ultimate Super Jumbo Pack, was a Robin Yount card dishing the knowledge that Yount loved motor sports. That's presumably him on the front riding a dirt bike.

Yount loved all motor sports, the card reads, race cars, go-carts, motorcycles and motocross. "It's fast, it's competitive and challenging," the card reads. "And, like baseball, to be successful, one needs great reflexes, superior coordination and a certain amount of daring."

The other three Hall of Fame cards from the pack are a little more standard, though still informative.

There was Rickey Henderson's 1988 Donruss card. Henderson only had 41 stolen bases in 1987. He'd pulled a hamstring that year, the card-back reads. It was the first year since 1979 that Henderson failed to lead the league in steals.

Then there was Wade Boggs' 1992 PinnAcle entry. According to the people at PinnAcle, Boggs made hitting look easy, "but there's more to it than eating chicken every night."

Then there was another Hall of Fame Andre Dawson card, this one his 1995 Stadium Club card. According to the card back, Dawson "earned 59% of his AB's from the clean-up spot, in which he hit 75% of his HR's." Got that?

There was also a note about Dawson's constant conditioning. He played 1994 only three pounds over his 1984 weight.

The second Ultimate Super Jumbo Pack I was able to get done in one post. But this one, there were too many cards to go through at once. There were those six Hall of Fame cards. This pack also had eight CMC set member cards, those will get their own post. There were also five just interesting cards. I'll give them a quick post, as well.

And we'll see what other things we can learn from Ultimate Super Jumbo Packs.