Random Cards from My Collection #68

I expect to get back to a more normal blogging schedule after Thanksgiving. Here's hoping that all my readers have a great Thanksgiving Holiday - eat too much turkey, watch too much football (Go Eagles!) and don't get trampled shopping.

Card #18041
2010 Topps Vintage Legends Collection #2 Johnny Mize

Comments on the card/player: The idea behind this 25-card insert set was to take some past great, pick some year in his career and put him on a card from a year in that player's future. Then make some half-hearted attempt to compare the stat's from the past player's year to the stats of the year the card was from. Clear? They also took some more recent players, like Eddie Murray, and put them on a card from before their career.
How/When acquired: Paid $0.26/card for 2 Series-2 blaster boxes of Topps in July 2010.

Card #17756
2008 Topps #264 Byung-Hyun Kim

Comments on the card/player: Is this the best photograph they could find for Kim? There is so much going on in the background that he's literally lost in the crowd. Horizontal cards are a good fit for a pitcher in full windup but only if the photo is cropped closer than this. I'm only two cards into this post but I expect this will be the worst looking card in the post.
How/When acquired: Don't know

Card #21529
1998 Skybox Dugout Axcess Double Header #16 Scott Rolen

Comments on the card/player: Yet another attempt to make a baseball card insert that can be used to play a baseball related game. Unlike most of these games, it looks like you only need one card to actually play the game. Go ahead and read the rules. It would be easier, and probably more fun, to just use the dice to play craps.
How/When acquired: I got this with 40 other cards for $0.28/card from a fellow blogger's group break.

Card #34255
1992 Pinnacle #189 Mark Portugal

 Comments on the card/player: What Pinnacle looked like in the very early days before it flamed out in a blaze of full-bleed printing, gold-stamping and optical effects in the later 1990s.
How/When acquired: Don't know.

Card #14963
2010 Topps #48 Joey Votto

Comments on the card/player: This set is generally known as The Wave set, for obvious reasons. When the Topps designers were putting this design together did they stop and think, "Yeah, this looks OK, Joey Votto about to be engulfed in a tidal wave of blood"?
How/When acquired: Paid $0.24/card in a 'cereal box' (remember them?) in March 2010.

Card #2706
1979 Topps Burger King Phillies #4 Steve Carlton

Comments on the card/player: This was a 23-card set available in Philadelphia area Burger Kings. Having never been fond of Burger King, I never saw these cards when they were distributed. The cards look exactly like the player's card in the regular set with one exception, the card number.
How/When acquired: Paid $0.36/card for 22-card set on eBay in November 2009.

Card #6267
1993 Upper Deck #814 Dennis Eckersley

Comments on the card/player: Although I've always liked these team checklist cards from 1993 Upper Deck, I never really looked that closely at the signature on these cards. The artist is Vernon Wells who, according to his web site, is "The most commissioned sports artist EVER". He's also the father of baseball player Vernon Wells. I'm sure everyone already knew that.
How/When acquired: Don't know.

Card #40094
1993 Donruss #446 Will Clark

Comments on the card/player: Let me tell you my Will Clark story, which coincidentally happened in 1993, the year of this card. I was in San Francisco for a business conference in September 1993. I saw the Giants play twice and the A's once. The second Giants game was on 9/24 against the Padres. The Giants record was 95-57 going into the game. They were in 2nd place, a game and a half behind the Braves. Considering the closeness of the pennant race I was surprised that I could get a ticket to the game, in fact the stadium seemed half empty. Maybe it was because Candlestick Park was cold that night. I mean bone-chilling cold. Or maybe it was that the Padres were 39 games out of 1st place.  The game went 10 innings. Will Clark won the game with a walk-off home run. Amid the cheers I hear a guy in front of me say "It's about time that guy did something for this team". Clark was playing for the Rangers in 1994.
How/When acquired: Don't know.

Card #5737
2000 Topps #460 Jesse Orosco

Comments on the card/player: This is a card from the Highlights subset in 2000 Topps. The highlight was that on 8/17/99, Orosco broke Dennis Eckersley's (see card above) record for mound appearances at 1,072. Orosco played for several more years eventually ending with 1,252 games. This seems like a record that will stand for a long time. The only pitcher in the list of top 50 appearances is Francisco Rodriguez, with 799.
How/When acquired: Don't know.

Card #14112
2007 Topps Generation Now Chase Utley

Comments on the card/player: I don't know how anyone else felt about this insert set, but I hated it. It was simply a pack filler. Here's how this worked. Topps picked some random stat, like Utley's 2006 35-game hitting streak. They then produced 35 virtually identical cards, one for each day of the streak. The Utley set had only 2 poses for the 35 cards. As near as I can tell there were 1,210 cards in this insert set.
How/When acquired: Paid $0.20 in a repack in December 2009.