Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Fairfield Repack - 3

This is the third and last (and probably least interesting) report on box of repackaged cards from The Fairfield Company. To recap. In this package I got one pack each of 2007 Bowman, 2007 Artifacts, 2005 Donruss Leather & Lumber, and 2005 Skybox Autographs. I was fairly satisfied with these packs. The box also had a pack of 1990 Donruss as a "Bonus" and 100 loose cards.

1990 Donruss


I'm not a big fan of 1990 Donruss so I wasn't exactly thrilled with the "bonus", but the pack did have this card:

Giamatti was the National League President from 1986 to 1989. In 1989 he was made the Baseball Commissioner. He only served 154 days as commissioner before dying of a massive heart attack. He was 51. Giamatti is probably best known for banning Pete Rose from baseball after it was found that Rose was betting on baseball games. As far as I know he is the only baseball commissioner to appear on a baseball card (he is also on a 1990 Topps card). Giamatti was a life-long baseball and Red Sox fan. Both the Donruss and Topps card quoted the same passage from his essay "Green Fields of the Mind".


"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in spring, when everything else begins again, and blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then, just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops."


Of the 100 loose cards, I kept 35. Most were junk (as far as I'm concerned, or cards I already had that I didn't need 2 of). There were two cards however, that I didn't have and knew nothing about.

1993 Pinnacle Home Run Club

This was a boxed set produced by Score. The sets were numbered to 200,000. The card is pretty attractive with a metallic finish called "Dufex". I'd be happier if the card was someone else other than Dean Palmer.

1997 Select Company Red

1997 Select looks to have been a complicated set by 1997 standards. The first 150 cards were designated "Red" and had a red foil insignia. The high series cards were called "Blue" with a blue foil insignia. There were a number of parallel sets (like Gold, Artist's Proof and the like). Select Company was one of the parallel sets that were issued, 1 per pack, in the high series packs. The cards have a silver foil background. The 'rays' coming out of the red foil circle are textured.

Select had started life as a Score product but by 1997, Score was owned by Pinnacle. After the 1998 season, Pinnacle went out of business. I'd never seen a 1997 Select card before.

2 comments:

Chris Harris said...

That Select card isn't a base card. It's a one-per-pack Select Company parallel.

(Yes, I have ripped way too much '97 Select Hi-Numbers)

Anonymous said...

Giamatti may be the only one to have appeared in a "regular" set, but I'm sure some older ones have been in oddball sets. I'm almost positive I have a Judge Landis card somewhere.

However, the day Bud Selig appears in a set is the day I swear off baseball cards for good.