Original Pie

I was looking through my rolling 3 drawer storage container for some trading material to get caught up on those "my bad" trades. It's been a long time since I looked through that container and in the top section I found an opened box of this stuff:





It's the original, 2001 American Pie. I'm telling you right here, right now, it's better than the 2011 version. I found this description of the 2001 version on BaseballCardPedia.com

"2001 Topps American Pie 150-card set released June 15, 2001. The brainchild of Florida Hobby store owner and Topps consultant Alan Narz, American Pie was a hybrid baseball/non-sports set designed to captured the essence of America at the height of the Baby Boomers Era of the '60's and '70's.

The first 115 cards in the set features Major Leaguers who played in the era, #116-#140 features historic events and #141-#150 features American icons of the '60's and '70's.

Each 24-pack Hobby box should yield at least one autograph or relic card.

American Pie can be seen as the first product the successfully incorporated non-sports subjects into a mainstream baseball card set -- a trend that would continue throughout the decade."

You may remember this post where I showed the relic I got from this box. Here are just a few of the cards from the original pie.

Historic Events





Atomic Bomb Test Ban Treaty--Now that's some heavy subject matter for a "sports" card.




U.S. Troops in Vietnam--More heavy material. Let's lighten things up with this next one.





Woodstock--Can you imagine the debauchery that's hidden in that photo. The nudity, the drugs, the stench!


American Icons




James Dean--All this time my Mother-In-Law has been trying to get one of these out of Americana and I had one in my office. She's getting this one tomorrow.




Jimi Hendrix--I guess it's appropriate that he has the "Purple Haze" border.





Janis Joplin--Janis could be one of the naked people in that Woodstock card above.

Major Leaguers

This, my friend, is why the 2001 American Pie is better than the 2011 American Pie. That's right, baseball players.




Thurman Munson Profiles in Courage--Aside from a great photo, these cards can teach you things. Things like Thurman Munson becoming the first Yankees captain since Lou Gehrig. I had no idea. These Profiles in Courage inserts fell 1:8 packs.




Willie Horton--I don't know if you can tell, but Willie's helmet is seriously beat up. The first thing that catches my eye is Willie's awesome 'stache. The second thing that catches my eye are the orange pants on the gentlemen on the left. Nice.




Bill Buckner--Some people have Bette Davis eyes. Some people have Andy Etchebarren eyebrows.



Johnny Bench--You just can't go wrong with Johnny Bench in my book. I think Bench was filming a Krylon paint commercial in this shot. I wonder how many youngsters won't get that reference.

There you have it. A small piece of the original Pie. I hope you enjoyed it.