1993-94 Upper Deck Basketball Series 2 Retail

The NBA season may be over, but the cards will never cease. Here's a pack from a couple of decades ago. This pack is from Series 2, while you can go relieve the Series 1 magic in my post from several years ago.

462 - Chris Morris Game Images - Hustle, or does he just like jumping on innocent bystanders for a living?

453 - Sedale Threatt Breakaway Threats - There was an awkward period in Lakers history where Threatt had to help bridge the gap between the Magic era and the Kobe era.

471 - Patrick Ewing Skylights - Ah, this is a good one. I bet you all had some posters in your bedrooms like this.

485 - Shawn Bradley Top Prospects - They could have named this Tall Prospects, I guess. The TP logo is raised, which is a nice touch.

324 - Steve Kerr - Kerr just coached the Golden State Warriors to the title in his first season with the team, which you probably already knew if you like basketball enough to have read this far.

322 - Sam Cassell - Cassell was a rookie at the time. Here's a look at his college stats.

359 - Scott Haskin - Here's the former Oregon State Beaver throwing it down on an invisible team.

414 - Chuck Nevitt - I don't remember this guy at all.

419 - Brian Williams - Not the unreliable NBC guy.

295 - Gary Payton - The Glove! This gives the pack some much needed HOF cred.

300 - Shaquille O'Neal - Shaq dunked it so hard my scanner couldn't even handle it.

303 - Bimbo Coles - Bimbo.

1989 Score Baseball

1989 was an important year for baseball cards. Despite being stuck dead in the middle of the overproduced card era, 1989 was famous for the first Upper Deck baseball product, and RC's of Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson, John Smoltz, and Curt Schilling. Topps famously passed on issuing a card of Griffey in their set until Traded.

Score is probably the lowest on the totem pole of the 1989 product issues. But let's see if we find anything interesting. Johnson, Smoltz, Biggio, and Sheffield are the main rookies in this set.

 Carlos Quintana once had 6 RBI in one inning, but otherwise was unremarkable.

 Eric King's most memorable "accomplishment" was giving up Ken Griffey Jr's first home run.

 Bergman, who passed away in February, was on the World Series winning 84 Tigers.

 Drew played a total of 7 major league games.

 Otis Nixon stole 620 bases in his career.

Despite what this card says, 1988 is actually considered Edgar Martinez rookie season. Martinez is, of course, famous for being possibly the best DH of all time.

 Check out the awesome numbers on the pants of Greg Walker.

 The late Bob Welch was a 2x All Star.

 Doug Jones was a great reliever, with 5 All Star appearances.

 Willie Fraser had an unremarkable career with a losing record and a 4.47 ERA.

 This Sportflics-style card highlights the 79 Pirates.

1995 Fleer Ultra Series 1

Here's a nice steroid-era pack, 95 Fleer Ultra. Instead of showing the whole wrapper, I'm going to show the best part:

Good advice!

 Darryl Strawberry, a great model for the whole "Do Cards, Not Drugs" motto.

 Mark Whiten and Eddie Taubensee. The latter was once traded for Kenny Lofton.

 Darryl Hamilton, who tragically passed away this week, and Dan Wilson.

 Kevin "don't call me cracker" Ritz, and Pat Rapp, journeyman pitcher.

 Mike Bordick and Matt Walbeck. Bordick was a one-time all-star.

 My insert is Paul O'Neill.

And finally, Bob Wickman. Judging by the picture alone I wouldn't have guessed this was Bob Wickman.

1993 Donruss Triple Play

Here is a pack of 1993 Donruss Triple Play. These cards were insanely hard to scan due to being bent, and some were stuck together and got mangled.

 Starting things off is Ol' 55, Orel Hershiser.

 The legend, Dandy Randy himself, and Joe Grahe.

 Damion Easley sporting the double-flap helmet.

 Tim Wallach and Jody Reed, New Dodgers!!

John Wetteland, one of the great 90's closers. Notice how these scans are low quality? That's because these cards were so curved, I could not get them straight on the scanner glass. 

 Mark Lewis using the force on a bad hop.

 Ramon Martinez, who even on Wikipedia's search for his name, is simply known as "Brother of Pedro Martinez."

 Eric Anthony, the bench player who got traded for Mike Hampton, and the outspoken Ozzie Guillen.

This "Action Baseball" card has a scratch off portion. I'm not entirely sure what the point was.

And finally, Robbie Alomar making a play.

This would have been a half decent pack if the card stock wasn't so bent.

1994 Conlon Collection Baseball

You may have run into Conlon Collection at somepoint if you have opened a "World's Greatest Card Chase" Blaster Box, or a retail repack. This series focuses on early-mid 1900's players. Many of these players had not been on cards before this set. The name of the set comes from Charles Conlon, who took the photos.

 Johnny Couch went 29-34 with a career 4.63 ERA.

 Rusty Peters was a career utility guy with a .236 average. Bill Brenzel was a career .198 hitter.

 Dick Attreau played for two seasons.

 Jim Bivin pitched in 47 games and then became a minor league manager. Cal Dorsett was 0-1 with an 11.85 career ERA.

 Tiny Chaplin was 15-23 with 118 career K's. Ulrich was 19-27.

 Don Songer was 10-14 with 44 K's. Promo card for the Megacards Collector's Club.

 Haskell Billings was 10-15 for his career with the Tigers.

 Bluege was a career .213 hitter.

Heinie Groh, pictured in this card, ACTUALLY HAD A CAREER unlike the rest of these guys. He hit .292 and had 180 stolen bases.

If this pack was a team it would be... bad.