
So as I had revealed in the
WCW topic...
BrandonDaCollector wrote:
Do you remember when
Bill Goldberg met
Mark McGwire
Oh man I sure do, this was such a special time for Me on so many levels

This
WCW crossover with MLB happen on
8/31/98 which was on a
Monday and
Bill Goldberg was
WCW World Champion at the time. This is how I found out about it cause Me & My family was watching
WCW Monday Nitro and I just flipped out about it, I mean I just totally marked out and yelled
"The Man" meets "The Man" (never mind about that
Becky Lynch Man crap we have now). I was so excited

[/b]98[/b] was a great year in
WCW. The Warrior also made an appearance that night too! It was in
Miami Florida and
Goldberg visited there and met
The Homerun King! He and the
St. Louis Cardinals was against
The Florida Marlins. They won the game but
Mark didn't bang any outta the park this time.
In some other topics as well that I had revealed and talked about how I loved
Mark McGwire and how it he changed the way I looked at
Baseball and many things of life as a whole. It was a time like no other that I really miss but I feel so fortunate to have experienced it because there will never ever be a time like it ever again
As a proud member of
St.Louis My entire life, I felt very fortunate to have this happen that he became a
St. Louis Cardinal that came from the
Oakland Athletics. I know many people were excited during the
Home Run Race and I definitely know what others thought/felt then in
98 - 2001 that was from My city as just about ever store I went to especially
Schnucks on
Loughborough, they's have all kinds of displays, caenda and home run balls made of paper at the customer service desk. I mean there were women there that My Grandma knew that wasn't
baseball fans but they'd watch the games just for
Mark McGwire. it was such a tremendous experience and I never experienced anything like it before it or since. The only thing that came close when I first saw
Hulk Hogan & The Ultimate Warrior long before this. I know
98, McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemons & Raphael Palmeiro and all that great stuff is long in the past that hardly anybody ever thinks about anymore over a stupid steroid scandal that should have never have happen in the first darn place. The
61/62 record has been reset and I know that
Aaron Judge is a huge man that came out with a ton of homers during his second year and how convenient years later he went for the record and broke it in the nick of time last year of
2022 
I remember how people went nuts over
Mark McGwire breaking the record in
98 I mean it was the biggest historical moment in sports ever and it was talked about for a very long even passing into the next season in
99 yet
Judge's reset was a huge headline in it's own right but it had such a low impact I mean with today's generation's frame of thinking of hurry up for tomorrow and who cares about the past makes this like it's nothing cause nobody is talking about it now and this was only several months ago, again, people were still talking about
Mark & Sammy long, long after the one of a kind
1998 Season, it just shows you how today's society excitement psyche is which has really been lowered on a pathetic level I'm afraid

Like so much it's all part of a great reset like with all of these reboots in movies. He's a plant to erase history and to make new standards and that's all he's ever gonna be and I don't know when people are going to realize what is going on in these androgynous days of this pathetic modern age
"Big Mac" Mark McGwire will always be My
Baseball Hero no matter what anybody says

So with that being said. I have been thinking of this for a long while and since it's
Baseball [b]Season already (I don't watch baseball anymore, it's just not the same anymore since the
mid 2000s) I decided to present one of My most cherished & prized
action figures in My whole collection regardless of era & genre. I was already collecting
McFarlane Toys long before with his excellent
Movie Maniacs series and
Spawn as seen in My previous showcase. When I found out he was going to make his own series of
Baseball figures and
Mark McGwire was going to be the first one I was so euphoric about this and man-o-man he didn't disappoint Me at all whatsoever. I only got one figure from
McFarlane's Big League Challenge and that figure was none other than
Mark McGwire 
He's arguably the most realistic figure ever made that is based on a real person...bar none IMO. Take a gander at what a true figurine masterpiece looks like

I love
Mark's arms, he was one of the biggest, most muscular of all
MLB players and
McFarlane captured the pure full body of this legend. His forearms are done so well, I thought it was so extraordinary how great this was the first time I saw it, really it still amazes cause I like I said, he's one of My most cherished figures of all

His
Baseball Bat is tremendous with the
Rawling's logo. Also
TAKE NOTE the background. If your wondering what that is. That is My
Upper Deck 1999 MVP Card Collection that featured many
chase cards of
Mark McGwire that I collected the entire set of in
1999 which is one of the greatest
baseball trading card sets I've ever seen and I will be showcasing a My huge
Baseball Collection in My
Odds & Ends in time and that
Card Collection will be a huge presentation within it

They made his
shin guard look so superb.

Here's a terrific look at his face. He looks so life-like and authentic. I love his expression as he's hitting a homer over 500 feet

Notice he isn't wearing
St. Louis Cardinals attire. That's because
McFarlane hadn't landed the rights to the 30
MLB teams yet but he soon would for his ultra real
Sports Picks series.

Here is a look of his tremendous ultra-realistic figure's physique from above. Gosh I love how this looks. I'm truly in awe about even now despite I've had him for about two decades already

While
McFarlane had probs with
MLB licencing at the time he didn't with companies that makes the gear like
Rawlings. Franklin & Benik which was such a great feat within itself. The
knob is removable and that's how you slide it in & out of his big gloved hands

His
display stand looks superb with the lines & diamond. He is pegged there via two metal pegs in his cleats. This works wonders as he stays on there pretty tight however these stands are prone to be warped damaged by the Sun
Mark looks fantastic from the back as well with his
Number 25 and I absolutely dig how My
Upper Deck Card Collection provides such a fantastic background and I am quite grateful to have this

On the
Base there is the
Todd McFarlane International/TMI and the
Major League Baseball Players Association/MLBPA 2002 Copyright which they and this extraordinary
Mark McGwire figure just had their 20th anniversary last year

Here's
Mark with My selected
McFarlane figures with My
Spawn figures from My previous showcase...gosh I loved those old days of
McFarlane when he was so creative and it was so fun getting his toys

So as a very special bonus here is a continuation but this time in
action figure form as you saw above how this presentation started. Here is My
McFarlane Big League Challenge Mark McGwire with My previously seen
Vintage ToyBiz WCW Bill Goldberg figure that I had My Mom pick Me up at
Sears when she worked there cause they had just got in a new stock and I wanted him really bad before they went out of stock so she did it

This was in
1999 as it says on his
Copyright. As you can see My great
Upper Deck Baseball Cards however look to the right, there's a
1999 Topps WCW/nWo Trading Card Package there with
Goldberg himself on there so yes, I got some
WCW Trading Cards but I never completed it with My complete
MLB ones, check out how cool this is of these great times of the very
late 90s


That'w right, I'm going with with a bonus entry which this is a special one that will coincide with My
McFarlane Big League Challenge Mark McGwire as well will set up a major showcase that will follow after sometime in the future. Now I have expressed how I regret not collecting the original
Starting Lineups under the
Kenner banner many times throughout the board and just very recently. It was about
2001/2002/2003 when I found out that
Hasbro had actually continued the line after they cancelled
Kenner in
1997 and claimed it all as their own like that have everything else they took over years prior that they had made a great looking
Mark McGwire figure that was actually a
St. Louis Cardinals version and not a
Oakland Athletic so I was pretty stoked. While I knew it wasn't going to be as thrilling at the
McFarlane version seen and to be honest what can be more realistic than that so I ordered him on eBay and to be honest, I actually wanted his
Trading Card more than the figure but people was selling them loose even higher than the figure itself at the time so it was a no brainer just get the figure brand new in the package at a lower cost and you get both of two worlds so here is the
set with My great
Upper Deck MVP & Mark McGwire Baseball Cards


Now compared to the
McFarlane version this
Hasbro had the
MLB Team license so he is clearly dressed in
St. Louis Cardinals gear however unlike
McFarlane's, there isn't any more licensed gear here. His
helmet is nice looking and his
shin guard is removable but I don't recommend doing so. His face is pretty good with a cool goatee and green-blue eyes and his skin tone wash is a very nice touch since he is a real & natural redhead


Now his
baseball bat is removable too and you can adjust it a ways how you like,

Here is the
2001 MLBPA Copyright, look at that

Now here is truly the real reason why I got him and that's because of his
Baseball Card and here it is with the figure...

When I first saw this
card I was like I gotta have it, I love how that looks, I love how he's standing there looking at the homer he just blasted with his big body and he's away too which I have always loved see the in the
Red Birds in their gray jerseys while visiting other teams. I really dig the silver background too, very attractive. I have a ton of
McGwire cards but this is My favorite and most cherished of all

The back of it is superb with all of his stats from his
rookie year to 2000 plus a lot more, in fact this
card is just as genuine as any
baseball card I have, being the corporate locusts that
Hasbro is known to be, they could have also gone into this hobby as well because this was sure done good enough I mean hey, I wanted this more than the figure in the first darn place

I must be one of the last people who actually likes stats in this world cause I see very few people ever talking about them and if anybody likes'em on this board I have talked countless times about stats about wrestlers and whatnot and nobody says nothing about it

I mean wrestling feds don't even say where anybody is from nor how much they weigh, its just another conditioning tactic for this generation & others so the future will forget the past but I'm not falling for that crap as I have always loved stats & bios of all kinds ever since I was a youngster and that's how it will always be

Here is a close up of his bio and see how big he was, he was the size of most or even bigger than a lot of wrestlers back then...

Here is his numbers from his
14 year career. Steroids or not, I don't care. I went through all the steroid stuff with
Vinnie Mac in the
early 90s and it wasn't a huge deal with Me about that then and the same goes here or with any
baseball player. I want to see awesome players than can do awesome things and entertain Me and that's enough said about that

Now
2001 isn't here because the season didn't occur yet when they made this set in around
2000 but sadly
Mark retired in
2001 and the game was still fun to watch because like I said before, I watched the other teams's games and knew most of the players and I would continue to be one of the biggest
baseball fans you could ever talk too until things changed after the
Cardinals 2011 World Series Win, most of everybody I knew was retiring and it just wasn't the same anymore with just another new generation that just didn't make the cut like the previous with the personalities, abilities & more IMO not to mention now how it's severely been degraded by kneeling & doing more unneeded w0k3 crap that just ruins it like so many other things and what is truly being done about it

So again here is
McGwire's stats.

Here is the
2001 MLBPA & Hasbro Copyrights and like stats, I have always loved the
copyright info on action figures and everything else, again I never read anybody anywhere ever say that they do...I find these so crucial for historical purposes and to see when & what was made by whom...it can be so crucial, I found it so interesting when I was a youngster too

So here's a special look at
Starting Lineup thru the decades of the
80s, 90s & 2000s, this is truly remarkable

Now here is a special
Kenner Starting Lineup Group you can see in My
Vintage Action Figure Topic. I go all in-depth there and everything much like I did within this very showcase

We have the
Baseball Greats 2-Pack of
"Charlie Hussle" Pete Rose & Johnny Bench, Joe Magrane, Mark Langston & Albert Belle along with
Kenner's Shaq Attack's Shaquille O'Neal and there is many great stories I told how I obtained them within that great topic of Mine

Here's a size comparison of
Starting Lineup's Mark McGwire next to
Hasbro's Star Wars Ellorrs Madak that came out in
2001, strange in My
Vintage My
Vintage Kenner Stars encountered
Vintage Starting lineup... what are the odds

Ultimate
Mark McGwire comparison: So here is a comparison that any
Mark McGwire fan would love to see as this is his
McFarlane Big League Challenge and his
Hasbro Starting Lineup... 
As you can see there is really no comparison there. Despite the
Hasbro one came out first, I assure you that is not the issue. As I said,
McFarlane's version is far superior and is still one of the most authentic & realistic figures ever created IMO but even though this is so, I cannot deny that this
Hasbro Starting Lineup version is quite nice as well
IMPORTANT NOTE: Notice the background is different this time around as this is of My
Upper Deck Victory Card Set that also had a tremendous section of
Mark McGwire Baseball Trading Cards that soon I will showcase in
My Odds & Ends Topic when I present a massive, multi-part
Baseball Showcase

So there you have it and I hope you liked this special
McFarlane & Hasbro Mark McGwire presentation. Now you can see My
Vintage Starting Lineup at this very link here --->
http://www.dctoyrevolution.org/post47287.html#p47287 as I go all in-depth in great detail with bonus stuff & great stories that you don't want to miss

Also you see My great
Mark McGwire Headliner & 2006 Cardinals Book that I go from
All Most Everything which was a great
sports store that is no more that I featured above and within My important
My Odds & Ends Topic, don't rush thru any of it as you don't want to miss anything cause I really dislike it when people speed thru things and miss so much
Since My last one was by
Hasbro, My next showcases will be big series' by them, until then I'll see you around
