The Ice Man (aka Moose).

Mike Mussina, formerly with the Orioles and the Yankees, was nicknamed "Moose". In a sport not overly known for clever nicknames, this one is pretty lame. But somebody at Topps must have been thinking overtime while preparing for 1994 Stadium Club.

The Orioles had Cal "Iron Man" Ripken, so how about Mike "Ice Man" Mussina? That's how I imagine this card came about.

Mike Mussina posed with a pile of ice blocks complete with ice picks on the left and heavy gloves and ice tongs on the right. He actually seems to be sitting on ice, perhaps with an Orioles towel between him and a frozen butt.

2008 Phillies - Where are they now? (Infielders)

2008, of course, was a big year for the Phillies. They made the playoffs for the 2nd consecutive year and, better yet, won the World Series. They would go on to a lose in the 2009 World Series and again reach the playoffs in 2010 and 2011. With the departures of Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley this year. There aren't many left from that 2008 team.

Carlos Ruiz - Catcher

2008 Topps Chrome #77

2015 Topps Heritage #57

Ruiz is only one of two players left from the 2008 team. He was in his second year as the Phillies regular catcher (catching 115 games) but didn't have much offensive impact during the regular season, hitting just .219 with one home run. But the playoffs were a different story. He hit .313 against the Dodgers in the NLCS and .375 against the Rays in the World Series with one home run. In 2015, Ruiz isn't even the regular catcher (appearing in only 79 games) and he's only hitting .219 again. His best season was 2012 when he hit .325 with 16 home runs and an All-Star berth.

Ryan Howard - 1st Base

2008 Topps T205 #10

2015 Stadium Club #199

The Big Piece is the only other 2008 Phillie still with the team. In 2008, Howard lead the league with 48 home runs and 146 rbi. He hit .300 in the NLCS and .286 in the World Series with 3 home runs. After being injured for large parts of the 2011 and 2013 seasons, Howard is not the offensive player he once was. In 2015 he's batting .228 with only 21 home runs. He also has an enormous contract ($25,000,000/year currently) and 2 years to go on his contract.

Chase Utley - Second Base

2008 Sweet Spot #24

2015 Topps #163

In 2008, Chase was in the prime of his career. He played in 159 games, hit .292 with 33 home runs and 104 rbi. He was also an All-Star. He had a great NLCS hitting .353 but tailed off considerably in the World Series. He has lost a lot of playing time since with various leg injuries. For the Phillies in 2015 he was batting only .217 with 5 home runs in 73 games before the Phillies traded him to the Dodgers for John Richy (minors) and Darnell Sweeney.

Jimmy Rollins - Short Stop

2008 UD Masterpieces #70

2015 Topps #659

J-Roll was coming off an MVP season in 2008. And although he had a good 2008 season, his best years were already behind him in his 9th season. He hit .277 with 11 home runs in 2008 and also won a Gold Glove. His defensive abilities were never in question. He hit .375 in the NLDS but was pretty quiet the rest of the 2008 playoffs. In 2014, his last season with the Phillies he hit .243 with 17 home runs. He ended the 2014 season as the Phillies all time hits leader (passing Mike Schmidt) with 2,306 hits. He was traded to the Dodgers in December 2014 or Zach Eflin (minors) and Tom Windle (minors), where he is the Dodgers everyday shortstop.

Pedro Feliz - Third Base

2008 Topps Allen & Ginter #293

2011 Topps Cognac Diamond Anniversary #212

Feliz was a free agent pickup by the Phillies for the 2008 season to replace Abraham Nunez at third. Hitting .249 with 14 home runs, he was a considerable upgrade from Nunez (.234, no home runs). He hit .333 in the 2008 World Series. The Phillies released him after the 2009 season. He signed with the Astros and was then traded to the Cardinals. He retired after the 2010 season. In 2011-2012 he was playing for the Camden Riversharks and a team in the Dominican Republic. The Wikipedia trail ends there.

2015 Topps Chrome

Although I really like the Topps flagship design this year I feel like I'm getting a bit weary of it. We've had Series 1, Opening Day, Series 2, and now Topps Chrome. And we still got Topps Update to go. So I only bought a single 3-pack of Topps Chrome. That gives me three 4-card packs and 3 Pink Refractors.

2015 Topps Chrome #68 Masahiro Tanaka

Same design, just shiner.  I have the regular Topps version of this card. The Chrome card features a slightly different photo. At first I thought it was just differently cropped but it's an entirely different photo. Plus the regular card has the "Future Stars" designation.

Oh, and before I forget to mention it, the cards aren't too warped this year.

2015 Topps Chrome #174 Sam Tuivailala

2015 Topps Chrome #179 Buster Posey

I only bought 15 cards but at least I got everything I need for my Reference Book, a base card of a decent player, a Rookie Cup card and a rookie card. I did not get any inserts or serial numbered parallel cards. The set has a bunch of parallels, as usual.

2015 Topps Chrome Pink Refractors #96 Archie Bradley

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I don't think we need pink-bordered baseball cards.  Here's another one.

2015 Topps Chrome Pink Refractors #191 Justin Verlander

These two are for the Reference Book. The third pink card was unfortunately not a Rookie Cup. Too much to ask for I guess.

2015 Topps Chrome Prism Refractors #61 Russell Martin

Note the pattern in the background of the card. This year, Topps decided not to label the refractors as refractors. I think the Pink Refractors are hard to tell that they are refractors. This Martin card is, I believe a Prism Refractor, something new. Topps has appeared to have dropped the X-Fractor cards. 

2015 Topps Chrome Prism Refractors #112 Kris Bryant

 I didn't get any regular refractor cards but pulled two of the Prisms. And both go into the Reference Book.

7 of the 12 cards go into my Reference Book which is a pretty good percentage. So it was a good pack, even though there were no Phillies or Astros and not many really big names.

The 1990s Baseball Cards Face-Off - 1996 Circa vs. 1994 SP

Check this post to see my methodology.

After the last round, we were here:

This post will wrap up Blue level of the 1st Quartile of the Babe Ruth Division. Next week we'll work out the Red to Black levels pretty quickly then move on to the 2nd Quartile. After that, there are 3 more divisions to go. I hope you stick with me.

Today it's 1996 Circa vs. 1994 SP

1996 Circa

1996 Circa is one of many forgettable sets from Fleer/Skybox in the mid to late 1990s. The cards are thin and the design looks like an out-take from 1995 Fleer. A bit of silver foil on the front helps a bit. Front and back have out-of-context photos (which I generally don't like, especially on both sides of a set). This set was priced at $1.99 for an 8-card pack.

1994 SP

When Upper Deck premiered in 1989, it was considered a premium card, the first of it's kind. By 1994, Upper Deck was just another card. UD introduced SP in 1993 as a new level of premium card to compete with the Stadium Clubs, Pinnacles and Ultras of the world. 1993 SP was a great card. 1994 SP is just a mess. Why the decision to print the cards on foil board? That decision results in an ugly card. The backs are OK, but who buys cards for the backs?

The result: I don't care much for 1996 Circa, but in a battle of cards I don't really like, the ugly 1994 SP has to go down.

The next post we'll run the table on this quartile and determine the semi-finalist for the Babe Ruth Division.

The 1990s Baseball Cards Face-Off - 1998 Pacific Invincible vs. 1994 Topps

Check this post to see my methodology.

After the last round, we were here:

We're going to finish off the Blue level of this Quartile this week. Next week we'll move on the winner of this section (the Black level) while we're still somewhat familiar with this block of 16 cards. The Black level will the the Semi-finals of the Babe Ruth Division. Remember, we've got 256 cards to get through in this exercise so I'm in it for the long term.

Today we've got 1998 Pacific Invincible vs. 1994 Topps.

1998 Pacific Invincible

1998 Pacific Invincible is one of the very few 1990s sets of which I don't own a single card. I got these images from The Trading Card Database. It was a 150 card set, apparently meant for the Hispanic market as there doesn't appear to be any English on it. The card appears to have an excessive amount of gold foil, assuming that the background for the right 3/4 of the card is foil (which wouldn't be a bad assumption for late 1990s Pacific). I don't really care much for all-horizontal sets, and this set looks a lot like 1990 Topps Big. The cards have an out-of-context action photo and a head shot on the front. An unfortunate design choice was to use the same head shot on the back as the front but to reverse the photo on the back. That meant the hat logo needed to be removed so the team logo wouldn't be backward. Very strange.

1994 Topps

1994 Topps is a great looking card. Good photography on the front with highlight colors that sort of match the team color scheme. Easily readable script for the player name. This is the 2nd year of a 10-year stretch where Topps came up with a new substantially different back design every year. Nice sized color photo on the back and a striking color scheme. I'm not sure I like the fake marble behind the stats, as at the time I thought it looked like a pattern you could get with web design software. The cards are glossy front and back. Topps wouldn't start adding foil to their flagship card until next year, 1995, although there was a foil parallel for 1994.

The results: 1994 Topps, without a doubt. The reversed photo on the back with a sloppily removed logo really kills 1998 Pacific Invincible.

So going forward:

Coming up 1996 Circa vs. 1994 SP.