Random baseball cards

I had to get a baseball card post in here somewhere. Starting next year, I'll post 10 random cards each Saturday, and maybe at other times depending on time. I'm trying to reach 1000 posts by the time I reach the 4th anniversary of the blog and I've got to get cracking.

Card #15700
2007 Topps Turkey Red #58 Carl Crawford

Turkey Red cards usually feature a draw-in background but in 2007, Topps slipped in a few photos with the actual backgrounds.

Card #29219
1989 Score #611 Ted Simmons

1989 was Score's sophomore effort. They kept the same formula from 1988, a large color photo on the front with a color head shot and stats on the back.

Card #3114
1992 Topps Traded #130 Dave Winfield

1992 was the year that Topps finally caught up with everyone else making baseball cards and started using white card stock. I've always liked this 1992 design (the regular issue and traded set had the same design). Although this is a common effect, I like how the player photo extends beyond the border on the front and the back is very clean and simple.

Card #23007
2005 Donruss #297 Kevin Millwood

Donruss seemed to run out of creative energy by 2005. They had a number of different issues but they all pretty much looked the same, like this boring specimen.

Card #3664
1994 Bowman’s Best #53 Jeff Bagwell

Topps brought back the Bowman's Best name as an insert this year and the cards looked pretty much like the 1994 issue.

Card #18371
2010 Topps Allen & Ginter Mini Black #91 Carlos Zambrano

Card #16435
2007 Fleer #13 Carl Crawford

How about that? Picking cards a random (the geek that I am is using a Excel spreadsheet to generate random numbers) and I end up with two Carl Crawford cards from 2007. This was the last year for Fleer as Upper Deck had bought them out. What a sad ending for an innovative brand.

Card #19944
1989 Bowman #401 Ricky Jordan

Topps brought back the Bowman brand in 1989 after discontinuing it in the early 1950s. They tried several different things with this set. The cards are taller than what had become the normal size for cards by 1989. Collector's didn't like that much. Instead of the traditional player stats on the back, they put the player stats against other teams in the previous year. The 1990 set would revert to normal size but the stats experiment would continue.

Card #9119
1993 Topps #161 Chad McConnell

Hey, remember this guy? I wouldn't either except he was the Phillies #1 draft pick in 1992 and I have 6, 1993 cards featuring him. Topps continued with the white card stock but went to a much more complicated card back in 1993 (compare to the 1992 card above). Although I like the simple back of 1992, I have always liked the 1993 design as well.

Card #1265
1998 Ultra #394 Darryl Strawberry

Year in and year out, after the first few years, Ultra always looked the same to me. So I never bought much of it. This particular card, however, is pretty nice. Looks like Darryl is signalling he is open for a long pass.