30 Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 13

Day 13: One of your favorite cards from the 1990s

1993 Upper Deck #755

An impossible task to look through my 1990s cards. So again I decided to narrow down to a favorite set and pick from there. 1993 Upper Deck is a set I didn't used to like, but in recent years I've come to appreciate. So here's a player I collect signing autographs for kids.

30-Day Baseball Card Challenge Day 3

Day 3 - A card from the first set you tried to complete.

I am not a set collector. The only set I've actually tried to complete is 1987 Topps. I attempted to complete the set not so much because I like it (although I do like it) but because you used to see a lot of it in repacks and one day I realized I was near completing the set. With the help of several trades and out right gifts arranged through the blog, I was able to complete it a few years ago.

This is one of my favorite cards, because it is the last known baseball card of Yogi Berra during his career.

1988 Topps Big

I pulled a sealed pack of 1988 Topps Big from a recent repack. Topps Big had a 3-year run from 1988-1990. I don't ever remember seeing them for sale. Did you collect these when they were new? Ten years or so ago I bought a box of the 1990 product, so I have quite a lot of those. I only had 4 of the 1988 set, all of which (three are Phillies, the other an Astro) acquired via trade.

The card clearly takes its design idea from 1956 Topps. All three years of the set have the same basic design, a head shot and a smaller action shot. The only real difference from year to year were the cartoons on the back. 1988 had three, 1989 had two and 1990 had only one.

Being called Topps Big you may suspect that they are bigger than 'normal' sized cards. They are about 1/4" longer on each edge. That means they won't fit in a penny sleeve and are usually too wide for a 9-pocket page.

The cards in this pack have not fared well even the pack was unopened. The cards are glossy on the front, but now the gloss is a bit tacky. And the cards have yellowed. The pack was unopened but not exactly air tight. I used some Photoshop magic to clean up the images. Here's what this card looked like right from the scanner.

I'm assuming they were really white when new. Here are the other 5 cards from the pack.

 Except for the size, and the yellowing, they are pretty nice cards. They are colorful, feature a classic design and goofy cartoons. What more do you want, anyway?

Book Club: Ty Cobb - A Terrible Beauty

OK, football season is finally over. The last football has been turned over, the last pass not caught and the last stupid penalty has been made (I'm talking of course about Super Bowl 50).

Now let's get back to baseball.

I like to read the ocassional baseball book, especially during the off-season. I just finished this (actually during the 1st quarter of the Super Bowl).

 So what do you know about Ty Cobb? I knew that he is one of the greatest baseball players of all time. That he was universally reviled for his style of play (spikes high to cause maximum damage), that he got into a lot of fights on and off the field. He is also believed to have been an unmitigated racist. Charles Leerhsen goes to considerable lengths to disprove much of this 'common knowledge' about Cobb.

I love reading about baseball in the early 20th century. It's so much like the game I love today but there are so many surprise things that are different. Not so much about the rules but the atmosphere and the time in which it was played.  You get a lot of that in this book.

That Cobb is one of the greatest players of all time, and that he had a hair-trigger temper and got into a lot of fights, is not disputed by Leerhsen. That he was hated, that he went out of his way to spike and injure players and that he was a racist, Leerhsen disputes. He uses testimony from players who played with him, people who knew him off the field, and contemporaneous news reports.

He gained a lot of this bad reputation while he played but never did much to dispel it. The newspapers often wrote embellished stories (maybe even untrue stories) to sell papers. When he played, Cobb was the most popular player in the game, at least in terms of stadium draw. Leerhsen estimates that in his early years he added 200,000 attendees a year across the American League.

Cobb didn't do much to save his reputation after he retired until late in life. He got a book deal to write his autobiography ("Ty Cobb: My Life in Baseball") which was ghost written by Al Stump and published after his death in 1961. Leerhsen and others have pointed out the many errors and lies in this book but it did everlasting damage. The Ty Cobb movie which came out in 1994 was largely based on this book and other writings by Stump about Cobb. At least not many people saw it.

In a lot of ways Cobb was one of the first modern players. He believed players deserved more (like no reserve clause, Cobb was about 70 years too early on that, and coverage for medical expenses when players were hurt). He studied opposing pitchers, keeping detailed notes. He had an odd batting style but he found what worked for him. In the so-called dead ball era he made the best out of bunts, slap hits and base running, but he could hit a home run when he wanted. One catcher is quoted as saying, if Cobb took off to steal second, he'd throw the ball to third. Cobb understood the psychology of getting into the other players' heads. He'd dance around on 1st base daring the pitcher to pick him off. When the pitcher tried, Cobb would often steal second and then third on the same play. Cobb holds the record for stealing home base at 54 times.

Regardless of your preconceived notions of Ty Cobb, I recommend this book.

Random Cards From My Collection #75

Card #39942
2003 Just Prospects #2 Josh Anderson

Comments on the card/player: These used to be pretty common in repacks and that's where I got this card in 2013. Anderson was the Astros 4th round draft pick in 2003 and eventually had a 3-year career with the Astros, Braves, Tigers and Royals.
How/When acquired: Paid $0.04/card for a 100-card Fairmont repack in 2013.

Card #31660
1991 Donruss #536 Jose Canseco

Comments on the card/player: Canseco had his second highest home run total of his career in 1991, with 44.
How/When acquired: Don't know.

Card #4963
2005 Classic Clippings MLB Game Worn Jersey Collection #31 Omar Vizquel

Comments on the card/player: Vizquel played for 24 years and won 11 Golden Gloves.
How/When acquired: From back in the days when nearly every blaster box came with a relic. Paid $0.32/card for blaster box of Classic Clippings on 5/1/05.

Card #5121
2004 Topps #344 Albert Pujols/Todd Helton/ Juan Pierre

 Comments on the card/player: I always liked the design of these leaders cards from 2004 Topps, especially the backs.
How/When acquired: Paid $0.26/card for a blaster of Topps in 2004.

Card #32008
2012 Topps Heritage #269 Justin Morneau

Comments on the card/player: From 2006 through 2009, Morneau averaged 117.5 rbis per season. He hasn't had more than 84 in a season since.
How/When acquired: Paid $0.30/card for a blasters of Topps Heritage in March 2012.

Card #10323
2008 Topps Opening Day #9 Ken Griffey Jr.

Comments on the card/player: These cards were red, scarlet, vermillion, crimson, ruby, cherry, cerise, cardinal, carmine, wine, etc.
How/When acquired: Paid $0.16/card for a blaster in March 2008.

Card #4252
1998 Upper Deck #246 Kevin Brown

 Comments on the card/player: Commemorating the first no hitter of 1997. Brown was 16-8 for the Marlins in 1997, helping to lead them to the 1997 World Series win.
How/When acquired: Don't know.

Card # 9254
1989 Topps Traded #54 Ken Howell

 Comments on the card/player: In early December 1988, the Dodgers traded Howell to the Orioles for Eddie Murray. A few days later, the O's traded Howell to the Phillies for Phil Bradley. The Phillies then signed Howell to a 4-year, $4.7 million dollar contract. He was 20 and 19 in his first 2 years with the Phillies but injuries ended his career after the 1990 season.
How/When acquired: Don't know.

Card #13884
2009 Topps 206 #284 Alexei Ramirez

 Comments on the card/player: The front of these cards were OK, but the set is ruined for me by the identical fake stain on the back of each card.
How/When acquired: Paid $0.44/card for a hobby box in December 2009.

Card #5613
2001 SP Legendary Cuts Game Jersey Tommy Holmes

 Comments on the card/player: I love this card. Holmes mostly played for the Boston Braves in the 1940's. I love that this is a swatch from a woolen uniform.
How/When acquired: Paid $4.66 in May 2005 from eBay.

Baseball Card Evolution in the 1990s - Donruss

Yesterday we saw how the Bowman design evolved through out the 1990's eventually reaching a design they would stick with, largely unchanged until 2011.

Today we'll look at Donruss. Donruss started on a trajectory similar to Bowman but petered out before the decade was over.

1990 Donruss #61 Bo Jackson

Donruss started in 1981 already one step up the evolutionary ladder from Topps by using white card stock.  But by 1990, Donruss was stuck in a rut, albeit a colorful one.  The design had hardly changed since 1985 when they first started using the colored, crazy borders. They'd also had the exact same back design, except for color. But the back design change in 1985 was only a little different from 1982. For some reason, Donruss dropped the team logo from the front which had been a feature since 1985.

1991 Donruss #78 Jim Abbott

No big design changes for 1991. The team logo is back on the front and the crazy borders are blue instead of red. The big change in 1991 Donruss wasn't in how it looked but in how it was sold. Donruss sold the 1991 cards in 2 separate series. The set had 770 cards, their biggest set yet with one half as Series 1 the other half as Series 2. Within a few years Fleer, Score, Topps and Upper Deck will follow Donruss' lead, although Bowman never did. For this first year of a 2 series set, they made the second series cards green. I think this is the only major set in which the Series 1 and Series 2 cards could so easily be differentiated.

1992 Donruss #39 Kirk Gibson

Just as 1992 Bowman did, Donruss made a big step forward in 1992. A normal white border on the front and a complete redesign for the back. A large color photo is placed prominently in the center. The other elements of the back are the same in past years, recent stats, career highlights, personal information, but arranged differently and more interestingly. They also made another organizational change. The Diamond Kings cards became an insert set, instead of being part of the base set.

1993 Donruss #86 Brett Butler

1993 represented a bit of a consolidation. No big changes. Similar to 1993 Bowman, the front is cleaner with the card logo, team logo (back again) and player name taking little space away from the photo. The back has a larger, more conventional photo, leaving no space for career highlights.

1994 Donruss #15 Robin Yount

As with 1993, Bowman and Donruss are on a similar progression. Both went to full bleed printing on the front with gold foil. But Donruss will take it one step further by going full bleed on the back as well. They also go to minimum stats, just the previous year, and a some personal information. Donruss isn't exactly a pioneer in full bleed printed backs (Stadium Club did this from the beginning). But it's a first for a so called non-premium set. Full bleed printed fronts will be the norm for Donruss while Bowman pulled back from that in 1995. This is also the first year that Donruss started adding color highlights (for example the block containing the player name), matched to the team colors.

1995 Donruss #118 Vince Coleman

1995 Donruss represents to me the height of Donruss design in the 1990s. Keeping the full bleed printing front and back like the 1994 set, but adding a small inset photo on the front and a larger range of stats on the back. I always liked the way Donruss did the stats this year and I think it's one of the best ever. The inset photo isn't original, Topps was doing it in the 1950s. But here, I like how the player is almost jumping out of the home plate shaped border.

1996 Donruss #20 Will Clark

1996 was a misstep in my opinion. They kept the full bleed printing on the front but that foil block on the front really distracts from the photo. It's fixed in position on every card and often it's just in the way. They also pulled back from the full bleed printing on the back. OK they went to more career stats, for the first time ever, but the team logo placement makes them hard to read. For players with less career, they also added back career highlights.

1997 Donruss #204 Steve Avery

Another negative change. The fading color blocks in the lower left corners don't do anything for me. Neither do the blocks of silver foil containing the team logo. The backs are largely unchanged from 1996. Donruss actually made a slight change in the front for Series 2, replacing the blocks with a silver sunburst. I generally think that foil should be limited to text or logos.

1997 Donruss Series 2 #330 Julio Franco

Maybe I like the sunburst a bit better. This was also the smallest Donruss set in years with only 450 cards. Donruss was in trouble.

1998 Donruss #23 Roger Clemens

Another poor design choice on the front. Those stripes on the bottom are horrible. The red and blue are bearable, but other team color combinations look worse. And again little change on the back.  I said above that Donruss was in trouble and indeed they were. Donruss went bankrupt this year. They will return in 2001 with one awful set after another in the 2000s.

To wrap up, Donruss changed positively from 1990 to 1995. They they regressed a little, stayed the same for several years and died.