Broc wrote to me asking about 1984 Rock’s Dugout Eric Davis cards he saw on eBay (since sold). I had never heard of this set before, so I set out to find out. It turned out to be pretty easy, even though no one else had heard of it and there was zero information on it on the web.

First of all, Broc’s inquiry:

“I noticed there is a 1984 Rocks Dugout Eric Davis card on eBay. I’ve taken interest in it because my brother in law is a big Reds fan. I noticed the card has a plain cardboard back. Which is odd because that set of cards all have “stat backs.” I’ve tried digging into as to why that card has a blank back and I can’t find anything! Everything I find on that set or card doesn’t have a blank back. I’m thinking maybe it was like a panel or something that needed hand cut.”

I reached out to Rock’s Dugout, which still lives as a card shop in Kansas! They’re also very active on Facebook.

They told me that there were 3,000 made of the stat-back version. “1,500 went to the team,” they told me. “And my shop got 1,500.”

As for the blank-back: “There were 100 sets made that were blank back. These were uncut sheets.”

It’s as simple as that! The Davis handcut blank-back sold for $26. Seems awfully cheap for a scarce pre-rookie of a superstar wearing Reds gear.

A John Franco stat-back is currently available for $15 on eBay.

Fun fact: John Franco made 1,119 appearances in MLB, and not a single one of those was a start. Even Mariano Rivera made 10 starts!

I was not familiar with this one, so I googled it:

Oof.

What other cards are unintentionally hilarious like this? Let me know in comments or by replying to this email. Or if you’re reading on the web, email me.