Set Appreciation Post #12 - 2000 Topps

It's the 2000 Topps set, but I am still hoping for a good post.  

Did that giveaway the ranking? 

I like making these posts, so a short checklist and boring design are not going to stop me from finding fun and interesting things to talk about.  

If you're a big fan of the 2000 Topps set, be a good sport or go to another blog.  

Base Set

The basic design is a boring gray frame with some sort of oddly shaped player name box at the bottom of the card.  If you squint your eyes you can see that there is also a player position just above the player name on the right side of the card.  

The photography in the set is the opposite of the Upper Deck and Stadium Club sets from this era.  It's a mix of boring portrait photographs, drab action photographs, and other pictures which have aged poorly.  I hated the McGwire "Gut Punch" celebration that was in vogue with the Cardinals in the late 1990s.  Did Jose Canseco own the rights to the forearm bash?  

After watching the unauthorized biography of the Bash Brothers on Netflix, I am guessing that the answer to this question is yes.  

I asked my 10-year-old son about what he thought was happening on the front of this card.  I stared at the front of it for a minute and told me the photo on the back of the card was better.  When I redirected him to the photo on the front, his responses were, "You tell me" and "Looking dumb".  

There you have it. 

Back of the card. 

This feels boring and uninspired too.  

Did some designer at Topps forget he/she was supposed to finish up the design for the 2000 Topps set and create it at the last moment possible?  I don't want to know the answer, just in case, this was actually seen as good at the time.  

The small checklist is also problematic for me.  I can always count on the Topps base set to give me a good 20-25 Cardinals players.  The 2000 Topps set gives me roughly a dozen.  The 1999 Cardinals were pretty bad, especially the pitching, but some name players got left off the checklist. Who are some of the 1999 Cardinals players that got cut out?  

It was Willie McGee's final season in the Majors. Yes, he was the fourth outfielder, but he did not get a card in the set.  It was Placido Polanco's first season in the Majors.  No rookie card.  Shawon Dunston was a key bench player who did not get a card.  The pitchers on the team are worse.  Jose Jimenez started almost 30 games, threw a no-hitter, and did not get a base card.  Kent Bottenfield won 18 games, no card.  Darren Oliver started 30 games, no base card.  Rickey Bottalico appeared in almost 70 games and lead the team in saves.  You know, no base card.  

Where Was Dwight Gooden in 1999?  

One of the most enjoyable parts of flipping through old baseball card sets is finding baseball players in weird uniforms.  Places where you may or may not remember them playing, or you are just trying to forget about them appearing there.  

There are some good ones in the 2000 set.  

First up, we've got Hideo Nomo on the Brewers.  

Yes, I remember him as a Brewer, but I try to block it out.  Hideo had some rough years and bounced around more than I care to remember during his career.  Always a Dodger in my mind.  

Next up, Tim Raines on the A's.  

Definitely a little odd.  He was only on the A's for 58 games in 1999.  Raines was a long-time Expo and White Sox.  I always think about the end of his career being as a bench player on the late 1990s Joe Torre Yankees teams, but he played for 4 different teams between 1999 and 2001, including a return to the Expos.  

Next.  

Yes, I remember Rickey Henderson on the Mets.  Rickey Henderson was seemingly on every Major League team between the mid-1990s and the early 2000s.  There were about three different times he was on the A's, two or three times he was on the Padres, the Angels, Red Sox, Dodgers, and Mariners.  Not in the correct order and I probably left out a team.  

This brings us to Dwight Gooden.  

What the hell is this all about?  

I remember Dwight Gooden on the Indians.  He had an ERA of 6.  He was in his mid-30s, it happens.  

The Astros?

He pitched one game for the Astros.

One game.  

Did I mention that Willie McGee was a pinch-hitter for the Cardinals in 1999 and did not get a single card in this set?  

This is an insert card that Topps made of him because he had a Topps All-Rookie Team card.  It's always easy to criticize a baseball card that was made 20 years ago, but considering where he was in his career, this was a terrible decision.  Find an old Mets photograph, put it on the same card design, and it's a really popular card.  That's the way we all remember Dwight Gooden, right?  He was a Met?  

Best Cardinals Card(s) 

The obvious answer is the Fernando Tatis highlight card from his two grand slam inning against the Dodgers, which is why I am not going to choose it.  I am actually going to pick two of them. Scanned side by side, so let me explain my choices.  

If you remember Joe McEwing, chances are that you would probably remember him best as a utility player for the Cardinals and Mets.  However, he had a great half a season with the Cardinals in 1999 where he the starting second baseman. During the first half of that season, he had a slash line of .305/.355/.418 with 4 home runs and 19 doubles.  In the second half of the year his slash line .223/.303/.362 with 5 home runs and 9 doubles.  He was a great story for half a season before he was a utility player for the better part of a decade.  

Jose Jimenez pitched a no-hitter for the Cardinals against the Diamondbacks in 2000.  Bud Smith would pitch one the next year, making him the last Cardinals pitcher to do so, but the Jimenez no-no was much more memorable.  

First, he out-pitched Randy Johnson winning a 1-0 game.  Second, he ended up starting against the Diamondbacks a week later and pitched a two-hitter.  The Diamondbacks did not get a hit until the fifth inning.  

This is the only Jose Jimenez card in the set.  

Best Durham Bulls Card 

Shout out to Javy Lopez for this photo looking pained running to first base.  

If I were Javy Lopez, I would never speak to anyone at Topps again after they made this card.  

The best Durham Bulls card in the 2000 Topps set belongs to former pitching coach Kyle Snyder.  

He went to one of the blue North Carolina colleges (powder blue), so that's a negative.  He also used to give my son baseballs every time we went to a Durham Bulls game, so that's a positive.  No, seriously he is a really good coach who did great work with the Bulls and is doing the same thing with the Rays.  

Year 2000 Set, 1990s Style

Peroxide was really popular in the late 1990s.  It's an inexpensive way to make yourself blonde.  There were people who looked good with blonde hair, then there was Todd Jones.....

A closer look at Todd Jones with blonde hair.  

This was not a good idea and I am certain that Todd Jones is not the real Slim Shady.  

Although I could see him being at Burger King circling the parking lot, something about onion rings.  Go look up the song lyrics.  

I was also on the lookout for Turn Ahead the Clock uniforms, but I could only find one card.  It's not even a very good picture.  Really disappointed. 

The Turn Ahead The Clock uniform appears on the Gary DiSarcina card.    

If you are not familiar with the Turn Ahead The Clock promotion in Major League Baseball during the 1999 season, I suggest you use the Google Image search to find pictures of some truly terrible uniforms.  Short sleeves, large logos, and odd color schemes.  

 

Apparently, the Mets are moving to Mercury. 

Best Non-Cardinal Card(s) 

Topps does so many reprints these days, along with borrowed designs from past sets to make current year cards.  If I created a list of grievances of modern baseball cards, like the last 10 years, that would definitely be on the list.  

Topps did do a pretty good job with reprints in their late 1990s base set releases.  Typically they choose one great player from the 1950s, 60s, or 70s and reprinted their entire run of Topps cards both on regular card stock and Chrome card stock.  If I recall correctly, they used Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Nolan Ryan, and Hank Aaron.  

Aaron was the last player to get this treatment, as 2001 was the start of both Topps Heritage and Archives.  

Here is one of the cards.....

 

Here is why I liked these cards.  I appreciate Hank Aaron and recognize the fact that he is one of the all-time greats of the game.  Would I like to own some more Hank Aaron cards?  Yes.  Am I going to spend the money to buy a bunch of 1950s and 1960s Aaron cards?  No.  I still love looking at his cards though and can do that by looking through my 2000 Topps set.  It might be the only reason I have looked through this box of cards during the past 10 years.  

How Does It Compare?

It's not in last place on my list, but it's just really hard to get past the fact that the set is boring.  The 2000 set is not the worst Topps base set during my lifetime, but it's definitely in the bottom 5.  There just is not a lot here to love.  

The last time I did one of these was two months ago with the 1988 Donruss set.  It's not as good as that set, so my ranking decision came down to this set and the 2000 UD Ionix set.  Sad to say this about a Topps base set, but I am putting it below that Upper Deck release. 

12. 2000 Pacific Paramount Update 

11. 2010 Topps USA Baseball  

10. 2000 Topps 

9. 2000 UD Ionix  

9. 1988 Donruss 

8. 1995 Emotion XL 

7. 2017 Topps Heritage Minor League

6. 1998 Topps TEK 

5. 1986 Topps Mini League Leaders 

4. 2001 Fleer EX 

3. 1979 Kellogg's 

2. 2002 Topps Super Teams

1. 1983 Topps 

The bottom two are going to be really hard to knock out of those places.  

Cards I Love Part 2: 1980 Topps Rickey Henderson

What was the best 1985 Topps card in 1985?  I am not going to go check some old price guide, but I would guess that the answer is likely the Dwight Gooden card.  Nowadays there are three big rookie cards in that set, but none of those players were very important that summer.  Mark McGwire was in the Minors, Roger Clemens only made a handful of starts that summer, and Kirby Puckett was a fairly pedestrian outfielder for a bad Twins team.  

Meanwhile, Doc was on the way to a 20+ win season, and would strike out more than 250 batters for the second summer in a row.  All as a 20 year old.  He would end up with the 1985 National League Cy Young Award.   

We all know what his career became, but at the time he looked like the next great Hall of Fame pitcher.  People were crazy about that Gooden rookie card.  Rightfully so.  At some point that summer, from my two packs of cards per grocery store visit, I had landed a copy of the 1985 Topps Dwight Gooden.  

In 1985, I was eight, and really into stolen bases.  I had moved to St. Louis the summer before, and while Dwight Gooden was racking up some incredible strike out numbers, the Cardinals were in the middle of what would be a National League Championship season.  The team scored runs by getting players on base, and then turning them loose.  Vince Coleman stole more than 100 bases, Wille McGee was over 50, and Ozzie Smith, Tom Herr, and Andy Van Slyke were all over 30.  Fast players were really important in my world at the time.  

So, here is the shaky part of this story.  Some group of people were eating dinner at my parents house.  I am guessing that it might have been a group of my father's students, he worked as a graduate school professor, and often did that at the beginning of the semesters.  It could have also been a co-worker.  Anyway, they had kids, and the kids had baseball cards.  

Naturally being 1985, one of the other kids wanted to trade for my Dwight Gooden rookie card.  I was not really into Dwight Gooden, so I was happy to trade away the card.  My return is not in the same shape it was at the time I traded for it.  For years as a kid, this was my best card.  It has been handled a lot.  

The scan is a bit funky.  My regular scanner doing weird things this morning, so I am using the scanner app on my phone.  

This was the card I landed.  My older brother, who also collected cards, advised me not to make this trade, but Rickey was the king of fast players.  Sure, he was not a Cardinal, but he would have fit in pretty well on those WhiteyBall Era teams.  It seemed like a good trade to the eight year old version of me. 

Back of the card. 

Pretty sweet that this trade worked out so well for me, even if the card get a little bit of worn over the years.  This is still one of my favorite cards in my collection.  Yes, I have moved on and picked up a little nicer looking copy of this card.....

Already had this one scanned.  I put together a set of 1980 Topps cards a few years back, and that was my lone reason for upgrading my Henderson rookie.  I keep this card with the set, in a top loader.  Meanwhile, the other Rickey rookie is in with all my best cards.  

Cutting Corners For Conciseness

I have been working on putting together the 1980s, and the lone 1990s, Topps Glossy Mail-In sets over the past two months.  So far, I have finished up the 1983, 1986, and 1989 sets.  This post is all about my completed 1985 set, so I am down to 1984, 1987, 1988, and 1990.

No, I am not going to make my goal of finishing these sets by the end of February. 

Yes, I am fine with it.

The 1985 Topps Glossy Mail-In set is on 40 cards, so it would actually be easier to scan than some of the other glossy sets I have posted.  Yet, I am not going to do it.  Those posts dragged out.  Way too long.  We are going to give the big guy an easy day......

So, I am going to go with my favorite five cards out of the 40. 

You know there are Cardinals players, so let's get those out of the way first. 

Joaquin Andujar was a good pitcher for the Cardinals during the first half of the 1980s.  He was the starting pitcher in Game 7 of the 1982 World Series, which the Cardinals won, and picked up 20 wins in both 1984 and 1985.  This was the last season that Andujar was on the Cardinals, although he is in many 1986 products as a member of the Cardinals.  He doesn't seem like the type of player who would garner a spot in a set like this, always surprised he is in here over the Nolan Ryan and Fernando Valenzuela types.  You know, popular.  

This was also the end of the line for Bruce Sutter with the Cardinals.  Best remembered for striking out Gorman Thomas to end the 1982 World Series.  

I was always surprised that he made the Hall of Fame.  Even more surprised that he still pops up in baseball cards.  Not complaining.  

Love the 1980s Tony Gwynn cards.  Look at that brown uniform.  That's how the Padres are supposed to look.  I am a big fan of baseball cards with action shots, but this a nice look for a staged photograph.  I am sure that this was taken during Spring Training, but it sort of looks like it could also be at some random high school stadium.  

Last two cards are rookies.  

Any Dwight Gooden card from the mid 1980s was gold when I was a kid.  At one point I traded my 1985 Topps Dwight Gooden card, good story.  I ended up with a bunch of his 1985 and 1986 cards after his career fell off in the mid 1990s.  This Gloss Mail-In card is one of my favorites.  I like this picture a lot.  If you had to describe the things that made Gooden unique to watch, this follow through would have to be somewhere on the list right?  

This is the rant portion of this post.  

So, you watched that short video clip, the last batter was Alvin Davis.  He's one of the oft forgotten, good young players from the 1980s.  Why are there still people running around talking about Wally Joyner, but nobody talks about Alvin Davis?  I talk about Alvin Davis.  

Alvin did win the Rookie of the Year in 1984, so he at least got a little recognition during his career.  His 1984 appearance in the All-Star game was the only time he made it to the Mid-Summer Classic.  In 1987 the American League had Pat Tabler on their roster as a first baseman.  At the All-Star Break Alvin Davis was hitting .303/.384/.476 with 10 home runs, 19 doubles, and 45 RBIs. 

Pat Tabler? 

Pat flippin Tabler.  

That was apart of a three year stretch where he had OPSs of .886, .875, and .920.  His OPS+ were 127, 141, and 156.  I mean his comparable players on Baseball Reference from that stretch are Jeff Bagwell, Adrian Gonzalez, Paul  Konerko, and Ted Kluszewski.  Yes, let's talk about Wally Joyner.  Roll my damn eyes.  

I like Alvin.  He's getting his own post one of these days.  

  

Six Pack of Stadium Club Part 4

Six more really cool Stadium Club base cards from the 2015 product.  Not really a theme last night, but six really cool cards.  Here they are:

#13 Ernie Banks - Cubs

I like some of the off the field cards that Topps included in this product.  This Ernie Banks card was really cool.  I remember a few years before he passed away the Cardinals made a big push to get Stan Musial a Presidential Medal of Honor.  I did not realize that Ernie Banks had also received this honor as well.  Really cool card and awesome honor for Mr. Cub.  

#259 Greg Maddux - Braves 

If we are going to go off the field then how can you not include this great photo of Braves great Greg Maddux playing golf.  That's a great 1990s outfit in the picture too.  Are those denim shorts?  I am not sure if Maddux is in the same league as Smoltz on the gold course, but he still looks like he knows what he is doing.  Curious as to where this picture came from.....

#279 Joe DiMaggio - Yankees

This was a card that I noticed the second time I flipped through the set.  I like baseball numbers.  You say Joe DiMaggio and the number that pops in my mind is 56.  As in 56 game hitting streak.  However, the 45 is a significant number in that record.  Before DiMaggio set the mark for the longest hitting streak at 56 games, he bested the former mark of 45 which belonged to Baltimore Orioles star "Wee" Willie Keeler.  Cool card that has really grown on me.  

#282 Fred McGriff - Braves 

The Crime Dog had a really cool swing with a great follow thru.  It's not quite Ken Griffey Jr., but I would recognize this swing anywhere.  I always felt like Fred McGriff would have been a little bit more important if he had not played in the steroid era.  He was never a guy who hit 40 or 50 home runs, but he did hit 30 to 35 every year.  A bunch of those 35 home runs seasons came years before players like Canseco really escalated the home run totals.  

#290 Dwight Gooden - Mets 

Just a really cool picture.  

#298 Larry Doby - Indians 

Really cool card with Larry Doby and Jackie Robinson.  Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball, but Doby was not far behind.  Really cool picture of the two of them together.  

You're Going To Need A License For That Card

I was recently trading with a fellow collector trying to wrap up a trade when I was told about the chance to trade for a sweet Bob Gibson autograph.  The card was not only autographed, but also had a sweet patch.  I was eager to see the scan and quizzed the trader about the card.  What year is this card?  Set?  The answers were rather vague, but I was still hopeful.  I opened the scan and saw it: Omaha Tech.  What is Omaha Tech?

It's a high school in Omaha, Nebraska that lists one Bob Gibson as one of its famous alumni.  The card I was staring at was a 2010 Panini Century Collection.  Yes, the card did have a Bob Gibson autograph (on a sticker) and it did have a patch (which looked rather new).  I quickly shot down the card.  Nope, I cannot take that card.  My counterpart prodded me about the card.  What's not to like about a Gibson autograph with a patch piece.  My eyes darted to the words Omaha Tech on the front of Gibson's basketball uniform.  I couldn't put it into words at the time.  I worked around the Gibson card and finished up the trade.

It bothered me for a few days afterwards.  I took a stroll through the cards posted on my blog and took a look through my boxes of autographs.  I have almost 3000 autographed baseball cards in my collection and I can count the number of cards that are on a card from an unlicensed card product on one hand.  I guess it's really not been a conscience decision, but here I barely a Panini, Donruss, or post-2010 Upper Deck autograph to show for things.

2009 Donruss Elite Collegiate Patches Ryan Jackson Autograph

One fellow collector was chatting me up on the subject a week or two ago and brought up my love of the Donruss Elite College Patches.  While it is true the cards are a Donruss product, they aren't really a Major League product.  Sure, I picked up this Ryan Jackson card because he is on the Cardinals, but it's  really a University of Miami card.  Donruss has a license to make college cards and use the logos.  The card has the Miami logo and the picture features Jackson wearing his college uniform.  While I would rather have a Bob Gibson autograph over a Ryan Jackson autograph, this card is clearly much different than the Omaha Tech card.  If Donruss made a Bob Gibson Creighton card I would trade for one, or buy one a second.  

1991 Jimmy Dean Will Clark

Really, it boils down to this.  When I was a kid I hated the cards that came for free with frozen pizzas, sausage links, or ice cream cones.  Cereal sometimes.  Like this Will Clark card is really ugly.  Why?  It's an unlicensed card and Will Clark should have a big orange SF in the middle of his helmet.  I can get past the fact the this card was packaged with a bunch of sausage, it probably has the same value as many of the 1991 Topps cards, but the lack of logos and uniform markings really burns me.   

Does that make me a card snob?  If it does than I am willing to be content on missing out on a certain segment of cards available out on the secondary market.  I can still pick and choose and every once in awhile I can find some that really have some appeal.  For example, I have always really enjoyed the Tri Star Signa Cut Cards.  They have no logos and few have pictures, but the simplicity of having an autograph surrounded by a piece of colored cardboard frame can actually be appealing.  

2008 Tri Star Signa Cuts Dwight "Doc" Gooden Autograph

Most of Dwight Goden's autographs are stickers anyway and he was definitely one of the great pitchers from my childhood.  Even if he was only dominating for a few years, he was really dominating.  This card passes the litmus test into my box of autographs.  The cards that I really dislike look like the card below:

2011 Leaf Draft Carlos Martinez Autograph

What can I say about this card?  I was really digging some of the things I heard about Carlos Martinez, saw he had an autograph and picked one up.  They were hard to find via trade, so I went the Ebay route and paid somewhere just south of $20.  Of course, they were all going in that price range at the time.  However, Martinez now has out a few Bowman autographs and this card is selling for below $5. So, I have a card with Carlos Martinez wearing a black cap, which has been photoshopped to make it look like he bought it at a gas station, and a $10 loss.

So, make basic argument is this:  Why would a collector choose to buy an unattractive card that has been air brushed, or creatively photographed, not to show the logos on the jersey and cap of a player?  Is it worth the extra money or cards in trade to acquire a card made by a licensed card maker?  I would, of course vote yes. 

Case in point is my latest edition to my card collection.  I actually decided to make this one a double.  A short time ago Leaf released it's Draft set and included two Cardinals draft picks.  Michael Wacha was a first round pick, but I already had several USA Baseball cards, and James Ramsey.  Ramsey was a first round pick, a bit of a stretch in my opinion, out of Florida State.  I was tempted to go out and pick up a few of his autographs right away.  Some of his Leaf autographs sold for as low as $0.99 on Ebay. I held out and waited for Bowman Draft.  Luckily, he was included.  

2012 Bowman Draft James Ramsey Autograph

I ended up trading for the card and my trading partner was kind enough to send me this scan for my post.  I estimate that I probably put in about $20 worth of cards in snagging this Blue version which is limited to 150 copies.  They are selling on Ebay and COMC for between $20 and $30, so the value of this card is clearly between those two amounts at the moment.  I also went shopping for a Ramsey card from the Leaf set.  I wanted something similar with a limited print run and autograph to measure the cards value.  I found this:

2012 Leaf Valiant James Ramsey Autograph

This card is autographed and is serial numbered out of 99.  It's also selling for under $10 on Ebay.  I also factor in that Ramsey went crazy with the inscriptions and you still aren't paying a premium for rare or unique versions.  See Pat Neshek.  For my money, and yours, the clear choice is to focus your time, energy, and money on finding cards from licensed card makers.  They have a clear advantage with design and style, but also have value advantages both in the short term and long term.