1991 Donruss Series 1

Somehow, no one had graced this blog with the presence of 1991 Donruss Series 1. Now it's up to me to rectify that. Perhaps this will be an ELITE pack?

57 - Jack McDowell (There was some sort of Turn Back the Clock event in 1990 which was captured on a lot of 1991 White Sox baseball cards.)

381 - Joe Oliver

376 - Donnie Hill (That's quite a 'stache you've got there, Donnie.)

372 - Luis Salazar (Yeah, right. This is how it's done.)

367 - Tim Naehring

361 - Mark Grant (Was once traded for current Cardinals bullpen coach Derek Lilliquist.)

355 - Steve Finley

53 - Rickey Henderson All-Star (Finally, a viable baseball player to talk about. Actually, Finley was pretty viable.)

21 - Dave Righetti Diamond King (I don't remember pulling this card back in the day, but I bet if I looked in my old boxes I probably have 7 of these.)

47 - Darrin Fletcher (Still sporting the classic Rated Rookie logo!)

61 - Mike Walker (Mike Walker? Who cares. Sounds like a morning drive time radio host.)

385 - Gene Nelson

380 - Glenallen Hill (He had loads of potential.)

375 - Jose Uribe

371 - Juan Gonzalez (Juan Gone tried to make a comeback with the Cardinals a couple of years ago only to quitely disappear during spring training. Makes you wonder...)

49-50-51 - Willie Stargell Puzzle (Complete with part of the pack wrapper. How lucky!)

If you are still reading this, you'll know that I did not receive any Donruss Elite inserts, numbered to 10,000. I am quite convinced that these things do not exist in real life. Somewhere, there's probably an office full of Monopoly-looking dudes rolling these things up and smoking them while swimming in piles of gold coins.

1992 Stadium Club Members Only

I recently grabbed a 3-lot of these Members Only "packs" in an effort to finish off the very picked-over sets won in a giant lot of stuff. I'm doing everything Stadium Club baseball now so this was supposed to be a simple baby step goal. Turns out it's a pain in the "member" as it were. At any rate, take a look at what was in this particular box/pack/thing.

Showing right on top of the contained clear plastic pack inside the box is one of the reasons I grabbed this lot. Well, not exactly since I already had Mr. Nevin there, but the point is that each set came with 1 of 3 Draft Pick cards (the others are Chipper Jones and the famous Brien Taylor) and Nevin is the only one I had. Bummer.
Guess which one of these guys I like better?

Awesome! Ozzie doing what he does best: defending!

Sweet! Ozzie doing what he does second best: standing at the plate.

Here's what the back of these bad boys looks like. Each player in this set is in the set for reaching some milestone or breaking some record. Jack Morris was the Opening Day starter for his team of the 13th consecutive year. Dude won 21 games in 1992.

He's about to hit that ball! Watch out, ball... it's a trap!

Guess which one of these guys still has his self-respect?

Not good news about Gary recently. Brain cancer is not the death sentence it once was, but it's a tough disease to battle. They quite literally don't get much more tough than Gary Carter, so I've got good feelings going his way for his fight. He's one of the good guys and a fellow collector, so I'm thrilled to pull his cards and root for him any day.

Talk about tough. A Night Owl badass for a reason. and inducted to the Hall of Fame the same year as Gary Carter.

If this dude doesn't get into Night Owl's badass club, it will be a shame. Of course, things like this (NSFW link there) don't exactly make you sound cool.

I can't think of a more disappointing way to end this post. We've got a group of top notch players at the top of their game looking great in high quality photos and we end with Dave Eiland drinking a Gatorade in the dugout. I'll let you guys guess why he's in this set. The winner gets a cup of Gatorade next time I see you!

I opened three of these, so feel free to check our blog for the full results. I promise I pulled 0 more Dave Eiland cards.

-Andy

2005 Fleer Showcase Baseball (Hobby)

Since I'm a semi-regular contributor to this blog, it's only right that I use my not-so recent group break to pad the listings on here. What good is it to open a pack without contributing to the cause? So, I'm going to be featuring one pack from each of the seven boxes I opened for the group break. In each case, this will be the first pack seen on video. That means, if you've already watched months ago, then you know what's coming.

This is the last one.

We come to the end of the line. I've milked this break for all it could ever possibly be worth. Only 5 more cards and you'll be free until next time. Just wait. The non-sports stuff will be coming next! There were 3 autos, 1 patch and 1 jersey relic in this box. Will this pack contain any of them?

#37 - Willy Mo Pena - What little experience I've had with Showcase has always been very very shiny. These cards are not very very shiny. They do have a very very big jersey number on them, however.

#4 - Shawn Green - The dual picture works well for this set. So much better than the underutilized space of the Classic Clippings box, though I probably would have scooted the foreground picture to the left a bit here. The ear on the shoulder bothers me.

#12 of 20 MG - Jason Giambi - Measure of Greatness - I'm not a fan of this insert. The name is front and center, but not in a friendly font. You'd think there'd be some connection to measurement somewhere on here, but there's not. Just a giant logo and back to underutilized space on a horizontal card.

Dummy Card - I forgot that these used to have writing on them. No patch here.

#48 - Adrian Beltre - The backs look nice, too, despite a rehash of the front picture and one years worth of stats. As long as it's consistent with the design of the front, it's done it's job.

#32 - Miguel Tejada - See.. The dual picture doesn't always work. Miguel is reaching for a ball alright. And otro Miguel looks happy, but confused about it.

This was my favorite box out of the bunch. If I do another Fleer break, I want to include a different year of Showcase for sure. Anyway, I hope everyone that participated enjoyed what they got. I hope everyone who didn't at least enjoyed seeing some of the cards. I know I enjoyed knocking off 7 packs from the list on APTBNL!

2004 Fleer Classic Clippings Baseball (Hobby)

Since I'm a semi-regular contributor to this blog, it's only right that I use my not-so recent group break to pad the listings on here. What good is it to open a pack without contributing to the cause? So, I'm going to be featuring one pack from each of the seven boxes I opened for the group break. In each case, this will be the first pack seen on video. That means, if you've already watched months ago, then you know what's coming.

I love packs that ask us to find cards that most people have no actual chance of finding. I'm not saying I don't understand why they say these things, but I prefer something a little more attainable. Something that would be in every box, for instance. But enough yappin'. Let's see what Ghost Pujols has in store for us.

#57 - Brian Giles - Good job Brian! You caught that "D" right in the webbing of the glove. All while only looking slightly awkward.

#29 - Mike Piazza - From the look on his face, I'm going to guess this is a big swing and a miss. Because Piazza played during the years I didn't follow baseball, it amazes me how many people collect him. I completely underrate him for some reason.

#31 - Miguel Cabrera - Pre-Tigers. Pre-first base. Pre-catch. Probably not pre-alcoholism, unfortunately. Honestly, I'm surprised it doesn't happen to more ball players.

#74 - Andy Pettitte - If you thought the card fronts wasted a lot of space, take a look at the backs. They give a box score from a single game, then practice caligraphy underneath it all. I wonder how they picked the games.

#56 - Jason Kendall - Kendall is not helping his "I promise I'm not the missing link" argument here.

I think many of us want to see some products put out an all-horizontal set. Classic Clippings shows us why this won't always work. They clipped out the good stuff in favor of making the product name as big as humanly possible on the front and back. Not the best box of the break. I didn't even get a triple patch out of 25!

1988 Pacific Eight Men Out

I'm treading into very dangerous territory here as I'm going to attempt to write about cards based on a movie that I never watched based on a true story that I don't really know very well. This was one of the big lot of packs that you see on the banner on this very website.

98 - Shano Collins (Played in the majors for 16 years and managed the Red Sox for 2.)

87 - Jimmy Ring (Was once traded along with Greasy Neale for Eppa Rixey. Yes, those are real people.)

6 - Eddie Cicotto 29-7 in 1919 (As portrayed by David Strathairn, who also appeared in A League of Their Own.)

4 - 1919 Chicago White Sox

63 - Buck played his best (Unmistakably John Cusack)

31 - "Shoeless" Joe working on his batting eye (As portrayed by D.B. Sweeney.)

23 - "Kid Gleason" (As portrayed by Frasier's dad.)

26 - Charles "Swede" Risberg (As portrayed by Don Patrick Harvey, who once appeared in a little film called She Hate Me.)

28 - Abe Attell + Arnold Rothstein (More actors.)

100 - Ray Schalk (Real guy. Nickname was "Cracker". Probably ate nails and shards of glass for breakfast.)