Saturday, March 30, 2019

1993 Topps/Coca-Cola Commanders of the Hill Baseball

A quick scour of the Google-verse tells me these were likely issued at military bases in 1993 with the packs attached to certain Coca-Cola products.  Can anyone confirm this?  Packaged in non-descript glossy black wrappers, these cards were likely hot commodities 25 years ago which might explain the use of the Army's old desert  uniform pattern (if you haven't been to the Middle East, it is freaking hot) for the borders on the cards.  Each pack has five cards and each card depicts each of the 30 MLB teams' 1992 ERA leaders which makes them their respective commander of the baseball mound/hill. The backs do a good job of detailing each of their 1992 outings on the mound.  Look at how many Innings Pitched these guys had compared to the game that baseball has evolved into now.

Up first is Card #15, Juan Guzman of the Blue Jays: 1992 ERA = 2.64



Card #6, Chuck Nagy: 1992 ERA = 2.96 with almost 10 complete games!!!




Card #18, Tom Glavine: 1992 ERA = 2.76 with 20 wins!




 Card #27, Bob Tewksbury: 1992 ERA = 2.16 with 16 wins!




Card #9, Bill Wegman: 1992 ERA = 3.20...not a great year for the Brewers.

Here is an unopened pack.


Have an awesome weekend watching baseball!

7 comments:

Matt said...

I've never seen these before! Very cool!

Jason Presley said...

They weren't attached to products, you could get them at the AAFES snack bars with a purchase. They came in shiny black wrappers containing I think 5 cards. When the promotion was coming to an end, my dad was stationed in Germany, and they were just trying to get rid of them, so he ended up with a couple of cases of packs. I've got tons of these.

SumoMenkoMan said...

Jason, ahh, great info. Thanks. I scanned the pack and forgot to post it so went back and added it to original post. Holy crap, cases of these????

Fuji said...

Never seen these before, but I just bought a bunch of packs on eBay. Can't wait to build this set.

SumoMenkoMan said...

Hey Fuji, you are going to be doubly surprised then this week!

Rebel Coyote said...

What a find. Never knew about this. I love how they got pitchers game stats way before Baseball Reference

Liliana said...

I have Bob Tewksbury, Roger Clemens, Tom Glavine, Sid Fernandez, Dennis Eckersley (2), Juan Guzman, Bill Wegman (2), Charles Nagy, John Smoltz (2), Bob Tewksbury, Kevin Appler, Tom Candiotti for sale. They were my dads collection and I’m not into baseball. Email me for questions. liliana_de.leon@yahoo.com