This is an irreverent but affectionate trip back to the 1950s - before the graphics got better and the game got worse - when baseball cards ruled the American schoolyard. It presents more than 200 cards with biographies, accompanied by observations on trading, boarding, collecting, flipping and other aberrations of the baseball-card life. Among the anecdotes are Phil Linz's harmonica-playing, which once so infuriated general manager Ralph Houk that he fined Linz heavily and threatened to tear him limb from limb; Sam Jones, who never owned a hat that really fitted; Rip Sewall, who threw a pitch called the blooper ball; Rollie Sheldon, who threw pitches which were impossible to name; and Dick Turk Farrell, who even in his final years caused his catchers to put sponge in their mitts to withstand the sting of his fastball. Also included is a list of major league nicknames.