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Sunday, July 16, 2017

Popping cards into the old computer

No card show for me this weekend (and sadly I may be missing the next few monthly shows), but at the last show I went to, I picked up a few of those Upper Deck "Powerdeck" CD-Rom "cards" with playable content on them. I'm honestly not super into these things, but hey, at less than a quarter per, I happily threw them onto my stack.

These days, less and less modern devices can actually play these odd-shaped discs, but luckily I've still got a nearly-obsolete old laptop I hoard keep around. So I popped them in and grabbed the contents (a highlight video of each player a bit under a minute long) and am sharing them here for ya'll.


Frank Thomas





Sammy Sosa





Mike Piazza





Pedro Martinez





Greg Maddux





Chipper Jones





Alex Rodriguez (1)





Alex Rodriguez (2 [1998])







There you have it. Gotta love the generic late-90s music. I think there are 3 or 4 songs between these 8 cards. I'm not a big fan of the "dance music" tunes, but that faux Pearl Jam-sounding rocker is kinda cool, I guess.

The lo-fi video highlight packages are ho-hum in these days of YouTube and places like ESPN and FoxSports attacking you with auto-play videos with every link on their site, but back in the late 90s, it was probably kinda cool for collectors to pop these in and watch their favorite players in action whenever they wanted.

Would be a lot cooler if they had something like a short exclusive interview or something. Maybe ask the player about his favorite Upper Deck card or about his childhood card-collecting habits. Yeah, that would have been better than clips of a few diamond gems and home runs.

(This is somewhat of a follow-up to a post a couple years ago when I similarly showed the videos for a Ripken and Clemens.)

The Sosa and Chipper discs are available for trade, if anyone's interested. The other dudes are guys I collect.


Ok, I don't own this last one, but while researching these a bit, I stumbled upon a graded Powerdeck "card" on COMC that I thought was funny:


Grading a CD just seems hilarious to me. Does the grader pop it in to make sure there are no skips or glitches in playback? Also, I would argue the plastic sleeve (with copyright info, etc.) is "part" of the card. So this graded disc missing the sleeve is incomplete to me. (Seller is asking $49? Ha!)

Thanks for stopping by.

12 comments:

  1. I'll claim the Sosa if no one else wants it. I won't be getting it graded though,that's for certain!

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  2. Those were fun to watch. Especially the Chipper Jones video with cameos by Piazza and Randy Johnson.

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  3. Been a while since I've seen the Sammy hop!

    I'm pretty sure I have a Ripken one somewhere but that graded one doesn't look familiar.

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  4. Thanks for doing this. I've been curious about what's on those discs for years and was too scared to try them in my laptop cd drive

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  5. I just wrote up a post for a Griffey Donruss VXP CD card that I was going to post Tuesday, you beat me too it. I never liked the CD cards when they came out but I have started to reconsider.

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  6. As thick as some cards can be now, I'm surprised they don't try to make "cards" that are flash drives. I think it would actually be pretty cool as an insert. Make it a 1 or 2 GB of data with stats, interviews, and highlights of the player. You could also delete the data if you wanted so you could use it to keep card collecting data on there, or maybe even highlight you choose.

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  7. I have the Sosa CD, but I never thought to play it. Thanks!
    My wife came in shortly afterwards and asked if I was going "all techno" on her. I actually thought it was a good choice for the background music.

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  8. I went to the Chantilly show this weekend with several bloggers top wants (and will do the same at the National).
    Look for your '74 Aaron in the mail soon.

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  9. I've been slowly picking up graded singles for my collection over the past few years... but I don't think I'll be targeting one of these cd's anytime soon. I do enjoy them though. Very cool and unique oddballs. Always wondered what kind of videos were on these. Thanks for sharing.

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  10. so cool to see the videos. love the piazza and soundtrack! I pulled a Big Mac back in the day but could never get it to play. thanks for sharing these!!

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  11. Awesome. Why can't it be the 90s right now!?!

    I guess the future is ok too.

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  12. I, for one, am spoiled by 60 fps HD video.

    But what a walk down memory lane!

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