1991-92 Upper Deck Basketball

Greetings!

Couldn't let the first Leap Day in APTBNL's history to go by without a post.  The weekend certainly had lots of events to watch, with the Oscars, Daytona, and NBA All-Star Weekend all there for you.  Racing was just covered, and they don't make Oscar trading cards, so I'll go with the Association.

The festivities in Orlando drew comparison to the last time the game was held there, back in the 1991-92 season.  That game was most remembered for Magic Johnson's return after retiring due to contracting HIV.

To commemorate the All-Star Game, here's a pack from that season...here's some 1991-92 Upper Deck!

It's the first year for Upper Deck basketball cards.  Fleer had ruled the market for a few years, but the last two seasons saw the release of both Hoops and Skybox.  It's the beginning of NBA junk wax!

There's the back of the pack for you.  It's a heck of a boast of Upper Deck to claim basketball superiority with it's first set.  It's a 500 card set with Series 1 consisting of 400 of the 500 cards.  Let's see what we got:

#18 - Elliot Perry
#67 - Ricky Pierce (All-Star)
#137 - Derek Harper

The card stock is pretty weak, but the design is good and the pictures are pretty good overall.

#175 - Vlade Divac

#195 - Gary Grant

#324 - David Robinson

#265 - Mitch Richmond
#306 - Greg Dreiling (back)
#370 - Jack Sikma

Showing the back of the Dreiling card because the front is pretty boring (he's standing at the top of the key ready to defend) and the back has a Larry Bird cameo.  The shots in the back of the card are pretty good too, but because of it, they limit the stats to the last six seasons.  Standard for Upper Deck, I guess.

#349 - Tom Hammonds
#241 - Jay Humphries (back)
#249 - John Williams

The front of Jay's card is him driving to the hoop against the Cavs, so I'd like to pretend that he lost the ball and is running after it on the back.  Too bad the picture shows them against the Bullets.  If you look closely, he's a seven year pro at this point.  I guess you can have some fun determining his rookie year stats.

Anyway, that's the pack.  More later...thanks for reading!

1997 Upper Deck Collector's Choice Series 2

Man, the '90s were wild. Collector's Choice, because of its low cost, was mostly a kid-oriented set I imagine. Still, this pack wrapper is kind of ridiculous. As with most Collector's Choice sets, the base card design is pretty plain and standard.

42 of 45 - Ellis Burks All-Star Connection (According to the odds, there's an All-Star Connection card in every pack.)

455 - Darryl Hamilton (Hamilton looks like kind of a creep. Kind of a real creep.)

284 - Tim Wakefield (The recent retiree.)

337 - Omar Olivares (I only know of Olivares from his Cardinals career.)

279 - Tim Naehring (Naehring finally found his way to regular playing time in the mid-'90s after riding the bench for a number of years.)

473 - Pat Cline Rookie Class (Insert Patsy Cline joke here. Hell, insert a Cubs joke while you're at it!)

404 - Andy Pettitte (A full bleed border and All-Star logo indicates that Pettitte was an All-Star the previous season.)

CG13 - Matt Williams You Crash the Game (These are a 1:5 pull according to the odds. This reminds me of after-school '90s cartoon shows, I think. Apparently if you collected all of these cards, you could exchange them for a redemption card, and if that redemption card had a player that... zzzzzz. I'm bored already.)

279 - Tim Naehring (Him again.)

1992 Pro Set Winston Cup NASCAR

NASCAR season about to start and already its been wild wreckfest weekend. Cue back to 20 years with this pack of NASCAR cards from Pro Set. 280 cards in the set along with legends and late Dale Earnhardt championship hologram card.

Start off with Pro Set discount card which comes in every Pro Set pack. The discount card used to buy merchandise from their Gazette catalog. You got to enjoyed Pro Set for trying to expand beyond cards. Also on is TNN (now SpikeTV) NASCAR TV coverage of 1992 season.

70 - Ted Musgrave - back of the card has stats of both NASCAR and Busch (now Nationwide) series along with team name, car number, and where they placed in the point standings. Notice they use to race 29 races back then now its bloated to 36 races.

As for Musgrave he drove in 55 car for two years before signing with Jack Roush in 1994 to drive no. 16 car which he won 5 poles but no victories. He would drive Truck series winning 17 races and won the championship in 2005.

17 - Car 33 Rig - even a team hauler gets printed on a card. Harry Gant drove no. 33 Skoal Bandit car which was owned by Leo Jackson. Jackson sold the team to Andy Petrie.

73 - Greg Sacks - journeyman driver has one career victory (1985 Firecracker 400 at Daytona). He also drove one of Days of Thunder film cars.

121 - Steve Loyd - crew chiefs get their own card as well along with stats.

L23 - Jack Smith - one of NASCAR Legends cards. Raced in the series from 1949 to 1964 winning 21 races, 23 poles, and 142 top-10s. Passed away in 2001.

L9 - Neil Castles - nicknamed Soapy had journeyman career from 1957 to 1976 without winning a race. According to him he was pulled a gun and shot a flag out of flagman's hand during a race.

43 - Richard Petty - with 200 wins and 7 championships 1992 was The King final season as a driver.

171 - Jack Pennington - surprised he got a card in the set since he didn't race in any of the series in 1991. In fact he gave NASCAR the middle finger when he lost out 1990 Rookie of Year honor in controversy. Never drove another NASCAR sanctioned race again.

8 - Robert Pressley - while a winner in Busch series he struggled in NASCAR top series. Had tough task replacing Harry Gant in no. 33 car after Gant retired

100 - Alan Kulwicki - unlike Tony Stewart, the owner and driver built his own team a winner. In 1992 he overcame odds to win NASCAR championship over Bill Elliot and Davey Allison. Tragically he died in a plane car while on route to Bristol on April 1, 1993.

219 - Keith Almond - engine builder for Bobby Allison. Yes he did get stats on back of his card.

L26 - Rex White - last card of the pack. He's 1960 NASCAR champion with 28 wins and 36 poles.

Let the NASCAR season get started.

1992 Confex The Baseball Enquirer

Greetings!

I don't know what to say about this one.  Suffice it to say that these packs probably frequent many a repack box, waiting to greet an unsuspecting young baseball card collector.  Said card collector then went to an adult and asked, "what is this?"  The adult then has to console the young collector and convince him / her that the industry has gotten better since these cards were first released.  Here's some 1992 Confex The Baseball Enquirer!

I see no need to write something up for this pack, so I'll borrow from the interweb.  Here's an brief write up on the set (someone wrote about this set?), as well as a checklist.  The pack even made an appearance on our sister site (?).

Here's the back of the pack, and the highlight of the whole thing:

Yes, that's "Pete Rose" endorcing the set.  Here are the cards:

#59 - "Tony Gwynn"

#11 - ??? (maybe "Ken Caminiti")

#39 - "Dave Steib"

#31 - "Tom Kelly"

#3 - "Ron Darling"

Here are the backs of the cards, simulating an "interview" with the unnamed player.  Hilarity ensues:

#47 - "Roger Clemens"

#23 - "Don Zimmer"

#7 - "Jack McDowell"

#55 - "Mike Hargrove"

#15 - "Mike Greenwell"

And here are the backs:

And that's the pack.  They may have been topical (and maybe even funny) back in the early 1990's, but it doesn't hold up nowadays.  True junk wax.  Two parting thoughts:

1.  The top of the pack says it's a "special edition".  I wonder how awesome the regular edition is.

B.  The back of the pack says it's the "1st series".  I'll leave it to you guys and gals to hunt down and post a pack of the second series.

Enjoy NBA All-Star weekend!  Thanks for reading!

2012 Upper Deck National Hockey Card Day

Saturday February 11 was National Hockey Card Day.  To commemorate this, Upper Deck produced a 15 card set released in 5 card packs distributed to card shops.  AU Sports (in Niles, IL) was giving them away all week and I got my hands on a pack.

#2 Alex Ovechkin-Ovechkin has been an All-Star in each of his first six seasons.

#4 Pekka Rinne-Rinne was an eighth round pick for the Nashville Predators who blossomed into a top goalie.

#6 Zdeno Chara-The 6'9" defenseman is a Norris Trophy winner and a five time All-Star.

#8 Patrick Kane-Kanerrrrrrrrrrrrr!  Cool.  I am lucky enough to get the star winger for my hometown Blackhawks!

#15 Brian Leetch-Leetch is a Hall of Famer, a Stanley Cup champion and a Conn Smythe Trophy winner.

Unnumbered checklist-A little advertisement for Upper Deck.

2011 Bowman Chrome Value Pack

2011 Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects

Guys, I honestly don't really remember buying this pack at all. It doesn't even seem like something I'd normally do. I must have acted out of desperation. It was... a long... long time... before 2012 products were to come out. Don't judge me!

43 - Brandon Guyer (This 5th round draft pick from 2007 seems like a such a stand-up guy...er.)

40 - Dee Gordon (Likely has a lot of playing time in the future.)

106 - J.B. Shuck Chrome (Shuck has one of the more hilarious names in the game. I remember seeing him in late season action against the Cards.)

BDPP5 - Pratt Maynard Prospects Chrome (I know we just looked at a "J.B. Shuck", but I absolutely refuse to believe that there's a dude out there somewhere named Pratt Maynard. That's just absurd.)

60 - Al Alburquerque Gold (Topps brought back the "is it a decoy or is it not?" thing this year, which means my Not The City In New Mexico card has fingernail dents all over it from filthy rotten pack searchers who were probably searching for... what? What do people search for these days? I have no idea.)

BDPP64 - Brandon Culbreth Prospects

BDPP22 - Zach Cone (I don't know any of these prospects. Maybe in five years...)