Six Pack of Stadium Club Part 2

I am doing Stadium Club cards from the base set all week.  If you missed Part 1 I would encourage you to go back and check out six cool base cards from this year's Stadium Club release.  In the meantime, here's a look at six more cards that I enjoyed......

#143 Mickey Tettleton - Tigers

One of my frustrations with Topps, at times, can be their player choice.  They tend to use the same players over and over and over.  It's nice to see some cool names, especially when they are cool players from a past era.  Tettleton is not a Hall of Famer, not even close, but he did have a nice career.  He spent a lot of time with the Tigers, but also appeared for the A's, Orioles, and Rangers.  This card would be a little bit cooler if they included a picture of Tettleton in his batting stance, but he just someone different to look at, which is a good thing.  Here's a peak at his batting stance.  

Overall, Tettleton hit almost 250 home runs and collected over 1,100 hits in 14 seasons.  His career WAR is just about the same as Javy Lopez and he ranks just outside of the top 10, 11th overall, for home runs hit as a catcher.  Here's the stance in action....

#123 Lenny Harris - Reds 

Another cool player from back in the day who does not get much hobby love.  Harris played 18 years for the Reds, Dodgers, Mets, Marlins, and a few others for parts of season.  He never really played full time, but was one of the best bats off the bench for almost two decades.  Harris has entered the coach realm since retiring from baseball and is currently working for the Marlins as their third base coach.  

#164 Carlton Fisk - White Sox 

Tom Seaver and Carlton Fisk both on the same card is pretty cool, but the card is improved by the fact that they are both wearing those 1980s White Sox softball uniforms.  When I first started collecting cards this is how I remember the White Sox unis.  I know the Sox wear these as alternate uni now, but it's nice to see the originals with players who were around when I first started collecting.  

#185 Willie Stargell - Pirates

It would be cool to see this card in color.  I really liked the colors and stylings of the 1970s Pirates uniforms.  This card still stood out to me though as I flipped through the Stadium Club set.  My enjoyment of baseball and Stargell's career just missed each other, but I am very familiar with the Pirates slugger.  I am not sure if it's just I how I see him, but he always appeared to be one of those players who played the game with a smile.  Kind of a Ken Griffey Jr. smile.  Happy to be playing baseball and I imagine that this card is from a good year for the Pirates.  Is the guy in the background running on the field?  Perhaps a World Series winner.  

#168 Carlos Baerga - Indians 

This is a card that kind of grew on me.  At first glance I just noticed Carlos Baerga hanging out parallel to the ground.  I flipped past through this card a few times before coming back.  I did not really pay attention to the fact that the Indians are playing the Braves in the picture.  Check out the patch on Baerga's right sleeve and the patch on Klesko's left sleeve.  The Baerga patch is the 1995 World Series patch and the Braves patch is one they wore for the 1995 season celebrating their 30th year in Atlanta.  Klesko had a rough series, but did reach base on a hit in Cleveland and also reached twice on walks in the clinching Game 6 for the Braves.  Since the Braves are the home team, this is obviously the final game of the Series.  That picture is really cool by the way.  

#112 Paul Konerko - White Sox 

I do some farewell posts sometimes.  I did one for Lance Berkman and Juan Pierre.  Gave serious consideration to giving Paul Konerko a little love, but I passed.  If I had to do it all over I probably would have written one.  First base is a tough position and I do not think that Konerko has enough to be a Hall of Famer, but he was still a really good player for a long time.  He helped the White Sox end their World Series drought in 2005 and ranks high in several important offensive categories in the team's franchise history.  He won the MVP Award in the 2005 American League Championship Series.  White Sox fans gave Konerko a good send off, but it seemed to get completely overshadowed by all of the Jeter stuff last year.  Really cool to see a long time fan favorite get a good send off.  Really cool to see it captured a piece of cardboard.  

Quick Glance At 2015 Topps

It's like the start of a brand new school year, or being the first kid out in the snow.  The beginning of the "new" card year is always a really exciting day.  All week on Twitter I had heard about collectors finding retail packs at Target or Wal Mart, but I had not been successful myself.  Honestly, I was not really trying that hard.  However, while I was at Target picking something up for a meeting, I saw this glorious sight......

The card section at my local Target is a hot mess.   This was tucked into a corner along next to all of the odds and ends of the card aisle.  I picked up a few packs along with a bundle of bananas and bottled water to help pull me through an awesome staff development at work.  Here's a quick glance at the cards and a few thoughts on their design and the whatnot.

A lot of the initial talk with the 2015 Topps set has been focused on the design.  It's different from the white bordered designs that has ran with for the better part of the past decade plus.  2007's black border and the blue borders in 2003 are the last two non-white borders that I can think of off the top of my head.  This is a quick post, so perhaps I am wrong.  I spent a little bit of time talking about the design with Jimmy, the owner of a local card shop, and we both agreed that the bottom is a little bit different.  However, some of the parallels look really nice.

The gold parallels in particular are very nicely done.  Clearly the patterns within the design are the same on the base and the gold parallel, but there is something nice about the color scheme on the bottom card.  Topps also made a really nice home-like parallel for the 2015 set, but I am not sure how well this card shows up on the scan.....

The scan seriously does not do this card justice.  The Topps Chrome product might be really nice this year.  There are also some really nice insert cards in this the 2015 Topps set.  The Opening Pitch set has been a pretty popular topic on Twitter and in discussion rooms, so I am going to leave that set alone until I show off the hits from a jumbo I am opening at my local card store.  Here are a few other cool inserts.....

First, I have to say that any insert sets that highlight defense are always first rate.  I pulled two of these out of retail packs last night and they are both outfielders.  One centerfielder and Hamilton in left.  Not sure if these are just outfielders or if they have them for all of the positions.  Again, this is a quick right up and I am not going to go and look stuff up at the moment.  Just remember, defense always makes a great insert set.

This set about Free Agents reminds me a little bit of the 2011 Topps 60 set.  Really nice looking set and I like the cool picture on this card of Carlton Fisk in the 1980s White Sox uniform.  Maybe this will end up being the coolest set in the bunch, but I am going to say this is going to be a winner of an insert set.

I almost made it through a post with no Rays and no Cardinals, but I am not passing by a Stan Musial card.  Topps did a bunch of stuff last year with the World Series, but it appears that the theme might spill over into this year's set.  This insert set is Highlight of The Year, many of which probably happened in the World Series, so again this is a set I will give a little more feedback to when I open a box of the product.  

and my last one just because I like the look of these cards.   This Carlton card has a blurb on the back about him learning to throw his trademark slider after taking a trip to Japan.  I have high hopes.  More on 2015 Topps in a cool post this weekend.  

30 Year Top 50: 1999 Upper Deck Century Legends

#28- The Upper Deck Century Legends, or Upper Deck Legends, set was issued several times during the late 90s and early 2000s.  The 1999 release is my favorite for one simple reason: Awesome Autographs.  The base cards were nice enough and there are some other nice looking inserts, but the autographs in this set alone make it highly collectible.

1999 Upper Deck Century Legends Rickey Henderson

Again, the base cards are nice and you can see from the picture above, they have better photography than the Upper Deck Retro set.  Now, on to the autographs.  There were two types of autographs available in the set.  There were modern superstars and older player Hall of Famers.  For the most part.  Every set has a fluffy filler autograph you dread pulling which in this set is Don Larsen, not so bad, or Bucky Dent.  

1999 Upper Deck Century Legends Don Larsen Autograph

Get past those two autographs and the rest of the set is great.  I think I actually own 75% of the autograph set, maybe more, and rarely part with one.  I have a clear favorite autograph card which you can view in a moment, but I am going to post my favorite three modern autographs I own from the set and my three favorite Hall of Fame autographs I own from the set.  In no order.  

Modern Autographs:

1999 Upper Deck Century Legends Tony Gwynn Autograph

Tony Gwynn flys under the radar a lot of times on people's lists of great players from the modern era.  He was also, and still is, a great signer.  I love his autograph and he's pretty easy to find out on the secondary market.  I have several Gwynn on-card autographs, but really enjoy this one.  

1999 Upper Deck Century Legends Juan Gonzalez Autograph 

Juan Gone is a little bit trickier to find than Tony Gwynn, but I also love his signature.  In the late nineties Gonzalez signed for several sets and had lots of on-card signatures.  As his career deteriorated he signed more cards, but they tend to be stickers and feature him playing for the Royals.  Yuck.  

1999 Upper Deck Century Legends Ken Griffey Jr. Autograph

My personal modern favorite from the set and favorite autograph by a Griffey in my card collection.  Ken Griffey Jr. has one of the best signatures in all of baseball and I love the way it looks on this card.  I am not big on the fact that he signed his name over the little crest in the corner, but beggers can't be choosers.  Awesome card.  

HOF Autographs 

1999 Upper Deck Century Legends Carlton Fisk Autograph

If I owned a Harmon Killebrew I would have put it here instead, but that's one of the 25% of the set I am missing.  I own a 2000 Upper Deck Legends Killebrew which is nice, but I would love this one.  Now, Carlton Fisk.  Again, the best autograph of this player that is in my collection.  I love on most of the Hall of Fame players how Upper Deck put a sepia picture instead of the color photograph.  

1999 Upper Deck Century Legends Eddie Mathews Autograph

Eddie Mathews died at the start of the autographed card boom in the mid to late 1990s.  He does have a few certified autographs floating around out there, but this is my only Mathews autograph.  Great signature still, and even though I do love the old fashioned pictures, I like the 70s Braves hat.  Which leads us to what everyone saw coming:

1999 Upper Deck Century Legends San Musial Autograph

I own several and pick them up when I see them in great condition with a good signature.  Musial is getting up in years and his signature has really regressed.  This is an awesome card and can be found with the classic Stan Musial autograph on it.  In the past thirteen years I have traded one copy, it was for an overwhelming return which was sold and reinvested into more Musials, and rank this card as one of my personal favorites in my collection.  

Like the 1999 Upper Deck Century Legends set?  Not in my Top 50 Countdown is the Upper Deck A Piece of History 500 Home Run set.  This multi-year set started up in the late 90s and much to Upper Deck's credit, continued every time a player crossed the 500 Home Run marker.  Really tough to find and really expensive, my collection is home to approximately two of these cards.  

Upper Deck A Piece of History Ken Griffey Jr. 500 Club 

This is the best card from the set that I own.  I know, life is rough, but they rarely come up on secondary market websites and when they do you have to be willing to pay a premium in trade or money.  

Upper Deck A Piece of History Frank Thomas 500 Club 

I also own the Frank Thomas card.  While it is a cool card to have in my collection I wish Upper Deck had taken a little artistic license and put Thomas in a White Sox uniform.  After all, weren't 480 of his home runs hit as a White Sox?  The Gary Sheffield card is like this too.  He is a Met on his card.  

A Dozen Alternatives To Triple Threads Pt. 2

In the first part of this post I took a look at six sets that fans of the Triple Threads releases should take a look at for their collection.  This thread will continue with six more and include my favorite out of the bunch, the 2003 Topps Tribute set.

2012 Topps Museum Collection Jon Jay Dual Jersey/Autograph

2012 Topps Museum Collection Matt Holliday Quad Relic

2012 Topps Museum Collection Matt Moore Autograph

7. 2012 Topps Museum Collection- See the description of the 2010 Topps Marquee set too.  This set has some Triple Threads looking cards with a different package.  I did really like the white cards with the autographs though.  Generally young players, but good card design with clean space for signing.  There might be 400 of them, but I have always loved this Matt Moore autograph.  

2005 Topps Pristine Aaron Boone Autograph

8. 2005 Topps Pristine- Always a hilarious high end set in my opinion.  There is more than one issue of it.  The cards had packs of cards within packs of cards when you bought the boxes and the cards were always "limited".  One must realize that when Topps uses the word limited, it means that the card is slightly hard to find then toilet paper.  For example, this cool Aaron Boone autograph has an "Uncommon" label in the corner.  It means there are 247 of them.  

2010 Topps Sterling George Sisler 6 Piece Bat Card

2009 Topps Sterling Carlton Fisk 4 Piece Bat/Autograph

9. Topps Sterling- Like Triple Threads I didn't put a year.  This set actually has cooler relic pieces than Triple Threads and they tend to have some cool Hall of Famers.  See George Sisler.  However, that Carlton Fisk card is destroyed by the sticker autograph. 

2012 Topps Tier One Mike Morse Autograph

10. Topps Tier One- This card set is really nice.  Topps put the autographs on card.  There are some really good players out there too.  This set is one of the better ones on this list.  

2003 Topps Tribute Sparky Anderson Dual Jersey/Autograph

11. 2003 Topps Tribute-This set featured a lot of Hall of Fame players with on card autographs.  Tigers fan, or no Tigers fan this card is really cool.  Topps has continued to issue the Tribute cards, but they continue to tinker with them.  For awhile, they went to sticker autographs.  Nice cards, but not nearly as nice as the card above.  

2011 Topps Tribute Barry Larkin Bat/Autograph

Of course, Topps switched back to on card autographs this year, but they are in card containers and some people (Matt Kemp) haven't signed their redemption cards.  

2009 Topps Unique Scott Rolen Patch

12. Topps Unique-Really cool idea with really small patch cards.  There are autographs, but they have stickers.  If you are looking for a jumbo chunk of someones jersey, this is your set.