One Of Those "I Finally Got Around To It" Posts

This is one of those stories that just sits on the back burner indefinitely until one day you decide to cobble it together and make a post about the cards.

In the 1990s there were plenty of sports card related magazines, each with their own charm, but if you wanted pricing you had two options Beckett and Tuff Stuff. I read both but as far as pricing goes Beckett was the leader then and the only print option now, but Tuff Stuff had better stories. The two magazines battled it out for over a decade but around 2009 Tuff Stuff became an online only webzine and Beckett won out on the magazine front. For a couple more years Krause Publications kept the site active but in 2011 the project was halted and Tuff Stuff died unceremoniously.  

In 2006 Tuff Stuff worked in conjunction with Upper Deck and released a special card set with 4 cards included in each issue over the 12 months for a total of 48 cards total. There were 24 baseball players and 24 football players with a mix of rookies and stars. Some were hits and some were duds.

The checklist:

1.      Reggie Bush

2.      Matt Leinart

3.      Vince Young

4.      Jay Cutler

5.      Derek Jeter

6.      Ken Griffey Jr

7.      Albert Pujols

8.      Ichiro

9.      Pedro Martinez

10.  Derek Lee

11.  Mark Teixeira

12.  Kenji Johjima

13.  Tom Brady

14.  Ben Roethlisberger

15.  Payton Manning

16.  Brett Favre

17.  Santonio Holmes

18.  Mario Williams

19.  DeAnagelo Williams

20.  Laurence Maroney

21.  Francisco Liriano

22.  Justin Verlander

23.  Ryan Howard

24.  David Wright

25.  Jared Weaver

26.  Stephen Drew

27.  David Ortiz

28.  Chase Utley

29.  Kellen Clemens

30.  Joseph Addai

31.  Vernon Davis

32.  Chad Jackson

33.  Greg Jennings

34.  AJ Hawk

35.  Maurice Jones-Drew

36.  Devin Hester

37.  Chien-Ming Wang

38.  Jose Reyes

39.  Roger Clemens

40.  Ryan Zimmerman

41.  LaDainian Tomlinson

42.  Tony Romo

43.  Drew Brees

44.  Larry Johnson

45.  Justin Morneau (Error w/ Chein-Ming Wang back)

46.  Brandon Webb (Error w/ Jose Reyes back)

47.  Hanley Ramirez (Error w/ Roger Clemens back)

48.  Johan Santana (Error w/ Ryan Zimmerman back)

I made sure to pick up each issue so I could complete the 48-card set, that was the last time I really paid any attention to the sports card magazines because by this time online options were readily available. If I am not mistaken I only picked up one more print magazine since 2006 and that was a special edition Beckett where they covered sketch cards.

I can finally delete the folder that contains all of these cards, it has been sitting on my computer for well over a year.