gone green

even before he was a dodger, i was collecting shawn green cards.  when he was a dodger, i collected his cards with an even greater passion.  when he was no longer a dodger, i stopped seeking out his cards.  still, i've got a lot of shawn green cards.

one that i had to pick up last year was this 2013 panini hometown heroes curtain call insert

it celebrates his 4-home run game in 2002 (i was there!) which really was a ridiculous offensive display

i give thanks to adrian beltre who hit a two out home run in the 9th inning to allow green to bat one more time and get his fourth homer that day.  hard to believe that was just over 12 years ago now.

so, i have a lot of shawn green cards as i mentioned up top.  here are a few that made their way to my scanned folder.

this one is from 2000 pacific revolution

it's an 'on deck' insert.  looks like green is on deck in an aquarium somewhere.

2001 bowman's best

2001 upper deck evolution

2002 bowman chrome xfractor

2002 donruss super estrellas poder de cuadrangula insert

this means 'home run power' i believe.  green had it in 2001, that's for sure.  he hit 49 that year, the most ever by a dodger/groom/bridegroom/superba/robin player.

here's the back of his 2002 upper deck card with his first two years of dodger stats showing

you may also notice that upper deck was back to its anti-dodger shenanigans in regards to card numbering.

2003 bowman chrome refractor

on which green plays his position under the watchful eyes of tom lasorda.  i miss the murals.

here's a card from 2004 upper deck diamond collection all-star lineup

2004 was green's last year in la, as evidenced by his 2005 fleer platinum card

which is really a diamondbacks card, and so was off my radar until recently.

i found this 2006 topps card of green actually wearing a diamondbacks uniform

in a repack recently.  like i said, i pretty much stopped seeking out his cards after he left the dodgers.  i did, however, make certain that i acquired his cards in 2008.  that's because, after the 2007 season with the mets, green retired and so his 2008 releases were final tributes.

here's his 2008 topps card

with his complete stats on the back

it's nice that he made it to 2000 hits

here's his 2008 upper deck card

also with the entirety of his big league career on the back

and, of course, his nearly identical 2008 upper deck first edition card

it's been nice to see that green has returned to the dodgers in recent years as a spring training instructor. maybe he'll return to card releases like archives as a dodger in the future, too.

2002 was a pretty good year for some final tributes

when the 2001 season ended, it took with it the careers of many players.  not all of those players, such as jose canseco, knew at the time that they had played their final big league game, but some did.  there were at least three players that i recall had announced their impending retirement during the season.  harold baines may have done so as well, but i don't think he made it into any 2002 card releases.  the three i am referring to, of course, are tony gwynn, mark mcgwire, and cal ripken jr.

all three of them were included in a number of card sets in 2002, which made me pretty happy.  lots of final tributes to collect.  unfortunately, some of the cards were short prints or some other sort of shenanigans, so i don't have them all.  here are the ones that i do have

2002 donruss - gwynn

thanks to donruss for putting the complete stats on the back

i'm not sure if donruss took a page out of topps' book or vice versa, but numbering the card to match gwynn's jersey number was a nice touch

ripken jr

also numbered to match the jersey number

cal had more hits than tony, but played in a lot more games too.

no big mac in 2002 donruss, which is weird because he was in this next set

2002 donruss fan club - gwynn

again with the complete career stats, and again card number 19

here's big mac

and his full career stats.

donruss didn't give him the card number/jersey number tribute, though.

ripken jr

card number 8 again

one of my favorite cal ripken jr. final tribute is from 2002 fleer maximum

that's a great photo for a final tribute

but they didn't bother with the full year-by-year career stats.

both gwynn and ripken had cards in the 2002 fleer tradition set, but i believe they were both short prints.  i don't own them anyway, but i do have mcgwire's card from the set

here's the back

all three are also in 2002 fleer ultra.  here's gwynn (i only have the gold medallion edition parallel)

mcgwire

ripken

there's no mention of mcgwire's retirement on the back of his card like there is on gwynn's and ripken's.  still, i am pretty sure everybody knew mcgwire wasn't coming back in 2002.

no mcgwire in 2002 leaf certified, but there were cards for gwynn

and ripken

the 2002 topps flagship set had a great final tribute for gwynn

and featured his total career stats on the back, of course

there's a lot of red on the back, too.

here's mcgwire's card from the set

he gets the hero number from topps

and a lot of red on his card back, too.

for some reason, topps did not make a card for ripken in 2002 which boggles the mind.

they didn't include him in their fantastic 206 release, either.  gywnn's card from that set is one of the best, however.

just like the ripken fleer maximum card, it's the salute photo that belongs on a final tribute card.  plus, the back notes his retirement

even though it's light on the stats.

there are three mcgwire cards in the set - two feature him as a cardinal

with a variation of the second card showing him as an athletic

all three cards mention his retirement.

as a side note, i decided to collect the 206 set when it first came out.  i don't know what happened to my want list, but i will be posting it soon, just in case anyone has any of these to spare.

2002 topps heritage again left ripken off the checklist.  gwynn's card is a short print, so i only have big mac's card

mcgwire is the only one of the three to be included in the 2002 topps opening day set

and the same goes for the 2002 topps stadium club set

upper deck gave cards to all three, however, in their 2002 flagship set, although they are mostly checklists; pulling a strategy from topps (1975 al kaline and 1978 brooks robinson for example).  here's gwynn's

mcgwire's

and ripken's

at least they are all in the set.  the only one to get a regular card in the set is big mac

and it has all the stats on the back, too

no mcgwire in 2002 upper deck piece of history, but gywnn is there

as is ripken.  ripken's base card is a short print, but i do have an insert from the set of cal

don't worry about mcgwire, though.  upper deck put out a mcgwire-centric subset as part of their 2002 ud prospect premieres set.  here's one of the four cards in the subset

mcgwire was also included in the 2002 upper deck sp legendary cuts set, but i don't have that card.  i do have tony gwynn's card from the set

but there was not a ripken card made for this set.

finally, we have 2002 upper deck vintage.  the final tribute lineup is identical to the upper deck flagship - gwynn only got a checklist

but he's on a motorcycle!

mcgwire got a regular card

with a back that matches the late series 1971 o-pee-chee cards

plus a checklist that is more about albert pujols than mcgwire

and ripken gets a card with a nice camden yards view

that's a lot of cards from a lot of sets for three big careers.  only two hall of famers, though.