card show piazzapalooza

the 1990's were heady days for card collectors.  there were new manufacturers, legion sets, innumerable inserts and parallels.  i stayed pretty close to the topps flagship and traded sets throughout the decade, with a fair amount of upper deck in 1992-95 and again in 1998-99.  other than that, i kind of stayed out of the loop.

that means that i missed out on a ridiculous amount of mike piazza inserts.  a dime box at the card show last week made up for a lot of that.  first, i should clarify.  the box of cards i looked through wasn't necessarily a dime box.  i asked the dealer before looking through the cards what the deal was. he said that the price varied.  after i had found about 100 piazza inserts, he said 10 bucks.  i wound up with about 160 cards (about 120 of piazza), and he charged me 15 bucks.  so, just about a dime box.

on to the piazzapalooza! 

1993 fleer ultra all rookie insert

the colors pop on the black background. 

1993 fleer major league prospects insert

piazza wearing number 60.  the same number he wore at some point in the minors, as evidenced by these 1992 classic best blue bonus

and red bonus parallels

note the carl sawatski memorial patch, too.

here are a couple of inserts from 1994 fleer ultra - homerun king

and rbi king

there's the number 31 that we know.  i think piazza also wore 25 at some point, but 31 is the number he wore for the majority of his career.

1995 fleer update soaring star insert

those rods of green kryptonite are actually bats.  i didn't realize this until i looked at the back of the card just a few minutes ago.

1995 score hall of gold

hall of fame class of 2015? i hope so.

1995 upper deck sp silver parallel

i liked the gray gear that piazza wore.  i also liked the way he flipped his helmet after every game on his way out to the mound.

1994 king-b disc

seventh annual?  where are the previous 6 years of discs?

1997 bowman chrome international parallel

as jimmy kimmel used to say, that's 'italian-american superstar slugger mike piazza'.

1998 upper deck 10th anniversary preview insert

i have a few of these preview cards, but i don't think i have any of the actual 1999 10th anniversary team cards.  no dodgers in that insert set, i don't think, so maybe that's why.

piazza appeared on his share of combo inserts.  two of the most common players he was paired with were tim salmon (the al roy in 1993) and ivan rodriguez.  this is a 1996 upper deck sp marquee matchups insert 

where salmon got the 'marquee' part.

this is a 1996 topps stadium club midsummer matchup insert

which features rodriguez on the other side

rodriguez gets some time on the same side as piazza (and darren daulton) on this 1996 donruss dominators insert

so far, i have resisted the directive to remove protective film.

last card of this post, a 1998 fleer sports illustrated cover card featuring ken griffey jr

so good, so young, and so many inserts.  i'll show some more later today.  stay tuned...

remember that time that hideo nomo shut out the braves on opening day?

tomorrow marks the 17th anniversary of one of the more memorable dodger home openers that i had the good fortune to attend.  on april 8, 1996 i somehow scored my company's corporate seats a few rows behind the dodger dugout and witnessed hideo nomo battle tom glavine and the defending world league champion braves.  nomo gave up only three hits, although he did walk 5, and he managed to make a third inning raul mondesi rbi single stand up for a 1-0 shutout victory.

one year later i was again at the ravine for opening day only to see curt schilling and the phillies shut the dodgers out.  it was a bittersweet event for me because i knew at that time that i was moving to the midwest and that it would likely be the last dodger opener i would attend for a while.  i had been to five or six in a row (plus a few of the angel openers) and i enjoyed seeing all the extra things that opening day provides, like barry manilow singing the national anthem.  it turned out that i was able to attend the '98 opener, but i haven't been to one since.

anyway, i figured this was a good time to show off a bunch of hideo nomo cards that i have had scanned for a while. some of them arrived as part of trade packages, and some have been in my collection since the days of hideomania.

here's a 1995 upper deck sp card

and a card from 1995 score select certified

i appreciate the 'peek-a-boo' photos on those cards.  they remind me of nomo's 1997 bowman card which is one of my favorite cards ever.

moving on to 1995 fleer flair

and a 1996 donruss promotional sample

those two cards showcase the 'backwards lean' in nomo's delivery.  it was fun to try to emualte nomo's windup and delivery.  i almost fell over a couple of times because i leaned too much.

here's a 1997 topps screen play card

here's a video for a better look at the card

i'm looking for the mike piazza card from this set.  please let me know if you have one to send!

here the 1995 nl roy is rewarded with an award winner card in the 1996 upper deck collector's choice set.  this also happens to be a silver signature parallel

there were a lot of 'extra' nomo cards in 1996 thanks to his success.  upper deck even had a five-card nomo highlights insert set in their flagship release.  arno from i'm ballsy sent me two of the five cards recently, and here they are

i'm now looking for cards 1, 3, and 5 from the set.  there were more bonus nomo cards in other 1996 sets, of course, and this one is a checklist (duh) from 1996 upper deck sp

always nice to see nomo with the lumber

and, here's a 1997 fleer card

that was part of the base set, but was not his base card

these next two are two of my favorite nomo cards - from 1998 pacific online we get this goodness

and from 1998 upper deck we have nomo on the basepaths

both feature dodger stadium in the background, but the upper deck card gives us a view down the third base line that i enjoy quite a bit.

here's his 2004 mlb showdown card

and i'll finish the post with a 2004 topps clubhouse collection nomo bat card

it feels good to clear my scanned folder of nomo cards, but there are plenty more in the collection to display.