Old School Mystery Cache

Nowadays professional athletes are so pampered and spoiled, to the point that they even complain about the spread of food after practice! Older times were not like this—back then you were happy to have food at all, and there were no free agents, no groupies, none of the drugs and bling of professional sports. Rather than grumble about the situation though, I decided I should take some time to make a puzzle to honor the "old school" warriors who fought for the sake of the fight: real men, real heroes!

The first task I had was to start gathering photos of some of these heroes. However, after a while I realized that that I had a big problem: there were so many to choose from! Virtually hundreds of people came to mind, and after a while I had a long list of candidates! Shortly after that, though, I realized that I could narrow down the field by limiting the candidates to ones I could find sports cards for. So I went into my basement and started searching for my old cards, which I found in some boxes underneath some other boxes of old paperbacks.

Of all my hundreds of cards, though, I was shocked to realize that the vast majority of them had suffered horrific mildew damage, and many of the ones that had survived had lost their names from fading and wear! Undaunted, I pressed on and found cards for ten men who truly qualified as Old School heroes. Take the time to identify these ten men, unlock their secret number, and soon you'll be standing at ground zero! Have at it, and good luck!