1993 O-Pee-Chee Phillies

You know how some events in your life always remain in your memory, in almost perfect detail, like the birth of your first child, or when you finally passed your driver's exam?  For some goofy reason, I can remember the first time I saw cards from the 1993 O-Pee-Chee set. I don't remember the date but I remember where. I was with my family at the Oxford Valley Mall in the Philadelphia suburbs. Out in front of the Woolworth's store they had a table of items for sale. Among them were packs of 1993 O-Pee-Chee. I'd seen O-Pee-Chee cards before this at flea markets and card shows but I don't think I'd seen an actual pack for sale. So naturally I had to buy a few packs and open them immediately. To my surprise, they had an original design! They didn't look like 1993 Topps cards in any way. I know, weird story.

Anyway, 1993 was the first year that O-Pee-Chee published their own designed baseball cards. They also had a second set that year, O-Pee-Chee Premier.

Recently I've been looking through my list of needed 1993 Phillies cards. I managed to find the 14-card Phillies set on eBay.  1993 was, of course, that the improbable Phillies made it to the World Series, only to be defeated by the Blue Jays in 6. Here are some of the cards from the O-Pee-Chee set.

Rookie Amaro only played 25 games for the 1993 Phillies and did not appear in any of the playoff games. He was traded to the Indians before the 1994 season. Today, of course, Amaro is the Phillies General Manager and is taking a lot of heat for the performance of the 2014 Phillies, a team he largely built.

Daulton was the Phillies leader in 1993. He had 2 home runs and 7 rbis in the playoffs.

Duncan had 10 hits (a .345 average) in the World Series.

Dykstra, as the lead off man, had a fabulous year in 1993, leading the league in hits, runs scored, at bats, and walks. In the World Series, he probably would have been the MVP if the Phillies had won.

Green had a 16-4 record for the 1993 Phillies but he got shelled in his only World Series start, 2.1 innings pitched, 7 earned runs.

Hollins was an All-Star in 1993 but didn't have much impact in the playoffs.

Kruk batted .316 in 1993 and was also an All-Star. He did pretty well in the playoffs as well, hitting .348 in the World Series.

Wild Thing had 43 saves in 1993 with an ERA of 3.34. What he's mostly remembered for is giving up the walk-off home run to Joe Carter which won the Series for the Blue Jays.

Schilling lost the first game of the World Series after giving up 6 earned runs in an 8-5 defeat. He came back to win the 5th game with a complete game, 5-hit shutout.