Set Appreciation Post #21 - 2000 Pacific Aurora

Pacific Aurora has a mundane base set with a few incredible inserts, which makes it a pretty awesome product. You've got to take the boring with the exciting with this product.  

2000 Pacific Aurora was also the first card to feature a Hall of Famer in his new uniform and they did it in a creative way. Overall, this is one of the worst products that Pacific Trading cards made in the late 1990s and early 2000s and it is still probably middle of the pack in terms of overall quality. They were a high floor, high ceiling type of card company that is sadly lacking in the current baseball card market. 

I miss Pacific. 

Shall we look at the 2000 Autora set?  

Here is the base design......

Pacific started the Aurora product in 1998 and it basically had the same design concept all three years it was produced. Two photos on the front, one action and one posed, along with a solid colored background. The design in decent. I know the teal colored background is a little weird on this Darin Erstad card, but this is one of the few teams where that statement is true.

Pacific was consistent with their brands and the products tended to run true to that branding from year to year. While this is not the most exciting design concept, you knew exactly what you were getting when you bought these cards. The original Aurora was also a per-pack-insert product released in 1998 that was sold at retail stores. The 2000 set was a Hobby issued product with no per-pack insert guarantee.     

Back of the card. 

I like the sepia photo with the gold and maroon colored writing and trim. Really good look. The stats are basic, but the large photo and readable card numbers in the bottom right-hand corner more than make-up for anything left off the card by Pacific. Solid effort here. 

Let's get one highlight out of the way.  

Best Base Card 

The off-season proceeding the 2000 baseball season featured the high drama of Ken Griffey Jr. demanding a trade off the Mariners. He had a no-trade clause and was essentially only willing to accept a trade that put him on his hometown Cincinnati Reds. The trade ended up happening in early February after teams had made their way to Spring Training and the early 2000 baseball card products had already hit the shelves. 

Griffey getting traded to the Reds was huge news. The trade put the three best home runs hitters of the day, Griffey, McGwire, and Sosa, all in the same division for the foreseeable future, or Mark McGwire got gimpy knees in the middle of the 2000 season. Pacific capitalized on the excitement by producing the first Ken Griffey Jr. card with him in a Cincinnati uniform, making half his cards Mariners and the other half Reds. 

Great card, one of my favorite Griffey cards. 

On to the other things I cover in my set posts........

Favorite Cardinals Card 

It's really hard to pick out the "best" cards from this set. They are slightly devoid of personality, but I decided to go with Fernando Tatis. He had a short window of success with the Cardinals and 1999 was his best season. Fernando Sr. went 30 plus home runs, 30 plus doubles, 20 stolen bases, and nearly hit .300 come in with a .298 average. He also walked more than 80 times. It was a really unique stat line, especially for a third baseman and I love seeing those numbers on the back of the card.  

Favorite Former Durham Bulls Player 

McGriff played on the Durham Bulls at the end of his career in 2004. He's one of the few players who is smiling on his posed photograph for this set. I like the happy vibe on this card. I also like that you get McGriff's batting stance in the top right corner. He's got one of the more unique and identifiable stances from the 1990s.  

One more card and we will talk about inserts......

While the 2000 Pacific Aurora set did not have inserts in every pack, they did offer a parallel card per pack. The majority of parallel cards were pinstriped. I know there are people who enjoy these parallel cards, but I am not a huge fan. 

Perhaps if my favorite team wore pinstripes, I would feel differently. Looks kind of weird on a Cardinals card, but it makes sense and looks good on a Yankees card.......

Inserts 

Now we get to the good stuff with Pacific Aurora. The inserts.  

The most basic insert was the "Pennant Fever". When the Aurora product first started in 1998, these were the inserts that generally came as the per-pack. Pacific continued this insert again in 1999 and 2000. Based on the number in my collection, I would guess that a box typically came with 3 or 4 of these cards. The foil along the bottom of the card is nice, but this isn't even the close to the best thing in this set.  

Let's get serious.  

Pacific made some great cards involving nets in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Yes, nets. You'd think that might not work for baseball, but sounds like a great concept for a basketball insert. What has nets on a baseball diamond? Dugouts and foul poles. The good people at Pacific employed some creative people who made great cards like this Shawn Green, which is a Dugout Net card.....

It's not a game-used card or anything, just a die-cut card with the cut-out section being filled in with netting. I am not sure the scan does the card justice, but these are some of the best inserts from this era. The one draw back for these cards is that they were thicker and would chip along the bottom. Check out the white around the bottom of the net.  

Most of the cards in this insert set are available online for less than $5, which reminds me that I have not done a set project in a long time. More of these might be making an appearance in this space in the near future.  

Last one for this set.  

I love that Dugout set with the die-cut space for the netting, but the Styroteach insert with these batting helmets might be even better. These remind me of the Donruss Hard Hats inserts that came out in the mid 1990s. Just a really nice insert card, again I am not sure the scan does this justice. 

Unlike the Dugout set though, these are really pricy on Ebay and COMC. The cheapest cards are around $10 with many being closer to $30 or $40. Not sure I can put together this complete set those prices given the quantity of cards. For now, I am happy with this Barry Bonds card.  

So, how does the 2000 Pacific Aurora set rate?  

I think it's biggest positives are that it has great insert cards and a solid base set. Having the first Reds Griffey cards pumps up the nostalgia factor for me and I am sure others who collected during this time.  When you add in the fact that these were $60 a box for 24 packs, there is a lot of upside here. Obviously, the base card design could be much better, but it's also not horrible. Aurora also has a small checklist with only 150 cards. That means you're only getting 4 to 5 cards of your favorite team.  

I ended up giving the set three Wool E. Bulls for the checklist and set design, everything else was above average with the final rating coming in at 3 1/2 Wool E Bulls.  

You can still find boxes of these cards for less than $100 on Ebay, if you're interested. Given the recent interest in opening old packs of cards and boxes, that's not much of a mark up from the original price. 

The Other Fernando Tatis

I am a big fan of Fernando Tatis, the former Cardinals third baseman.  Hard to believe that he has a kid in the Majors.  Saying Fernando Tatis Jr. makes me feel old.  

I remember the old days when Fernando Tatis cards just said, "Fernando Tatis" on them.  

Then one day, several years ago this card showed up in my collection.  

Notice the front of the card does not say Jr.. 

I was a little skeptical of the other Fernando Tatis at first.  I mean, the White Sox did trade him to the Padres for James Shields.  That's either not a ringing endorsement of the other Fernando Tatis, or someone in the White Sox front office does not know what they are doing.  

I think we have our answer. 

I really like the other Fernando Tatis.  He's a fun player to watch, and I have dabbled in his cards a bit over the last two years.  Plenty of base cards, but nothing much in the way of a bigger card.  I fixed that last week.  

I ended up with an Allen & Ginter autograph.  

Not the most expensive, not flashiest, or shiniest Fernando Tatis Jr. card out there.  However, I am happy that I was able to add this card to my collection.  Maybe a few more to come, as long as people do not go too crazy over his cards.  

Weekend Countdown: Top 10 Fernando Tatis Cardinals Cards

This past week was the twentieth anniversary of Fernando Tatis hitting two grand slams in one inning.  It does not feel like it has been that long, but here we are.....

Tatis has also gotten a few mentions recently too with the play of his son Fernando Tatis Jr..  Kid is off to a really good start.  

Here are this week's rules:

• This post is only of cards of Fernando Tatis on the Cardinals both in picture and in label.  No "now with Expos" or "now with Cardinals" cards.

• My actual favorite Fernando Tatis card is his 1998 Skybox EX Essential Credentials card. 

• The ten cards are ranked in order of how much I love them.  

10.  1999 Fleer Tradition - I like the St. Louis Stars uniform on the card. 

9. 1998 Fleer Update - I like the St. Louis Stars uniform on the card.  This is also the first card that Fernando Tatis had in a Cardinals uniform.  In fact, this is the only 1998 Cardinals card of Fernando Tatis.  There were not many update sets that year, no Topps or Upper Deck.  This was it.  Picture looks familiar.  

8. 2001 Topps - One of his last Cardinals cards.  Always liked this picture with the dark background and the white home Cardinals uniform.  Also like that the card is landscape.  

7. 1999 SP Signature Autograph - This was a good set for Cardinals autographs.  Love Fernando's signature.  You can clearly read the "F. Tatis", but it has a really unique.  

6. 2001 Fleer Autographics - One of Fernando's last autographs as a Cardinal.  I had a ton of these cards, always sort of liked these.  

5. 2016 Bowman - Remember when Fernando Tatis Jr. was a White Sox prospect.  Hard to believe that the Padres got him for James Shields.  

4. 2016 Topps Archives - The first year I collected was 1983.  Big fan of the design.  I am not sure how exactly it is connected to Fernando, but this is a great card.  

3. 2000 Fleer Tradition - Great looking card.  Complete rip off of the 1954 Topps set.  

2.  2000 Pacific Revolution - My favorite Cardinals autograph of Fernando.  I like the green background on this card.  Nice look.  

1. 2001 Topps Heritage - Glad that Topps found a way to squeeze Fernando into this set.  This had been released after he was traded to the Expos, obviously could have easily not been a Cardinal here.  Also has to be about his final Cardinals card.  

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 58 - Fernando Tatis

The Cardinals picked up third baseman Fernando Tatis from the Rangers in July of 1998 in exchange for shortstop Royce Clayton and pitcher Todd Stottlemyre.  The team was not in contention and the Tatis was seen as a possible replacement for the aging Gary Gaetti, who was not playing well, and ended up getting released by the team later on in the summer.  Fernando Tatis ended up playing 55 games for the Cardinals during the second half of the year and had a .287/.367/.505 line with 8 home runs, 16 doubles, and 26 RBIs.  

Tatis had one Cardinals card during the fall of 1998.....  

which appeared in the Fleer Update set.  Actually a nice card showing him wearing a St. Louis Stars throwback jersey the team wore during for a game that summer.  Tatis had some sweet dyed blonde hair when he first got traded to St. Louis, but it would not show up on any cards until the 1999 releases.  

Many of his Topps cards had the blonde hair.  I really like the picture that Topps used on his base and Chrome cards.  Always nice to get a shot of a player interacting with the crowd.  Some of the other Topps products used recycled pictures, but that seemed to be common across the board with Tatis during the summer of 1999.  

For example, this is his 1999 Fleer card......

Looks familiar.  

Tatis's most notable on the field accomplishment took place in 1999, which probably helped push him into a few more baseball card products.  His feat was rather unique....

Tatis also started showing up in autograph sets as a Cardinal during the summer of 1999.  He had always been a good signer as a Ranger, which also continued during his time in St. Louis.  I am pretty sure that his first autograph as a Cardinal showed up in the 1999 SP Signature set.  

He also appeared in the Skybox Autographic set.  While in subsequent years the Autographics set was cross product, in 1999 all of these cards were in the Skybox Premium product.  

Actually a nice product for Cardinals collectors with several different players appearing in this set with autographs including J.D. Drew, Ray Lankford, and Joe McEwing.  McEwing was pretty hot at the time, not so much now.  

Tatis had a great year on the field during 1999 beyond the two grand slams in one inning.  He hit .297/.404/.553 with 34 home runs, 31 doubles, and 107 RBIs.  Tatis also had 21 stolen bases.  Pretty solid effort.  

Fernando had some pretty good cards in 2000.  My favorite base card was his 2000 Fleer.  One of my favorite sets of the year.  Love this design which is basically the same as the 1954 Topps set.  The whole retro set idea is pretty popular these days, would like to think that this set along with some of the Upper Deck Vintage cards might have started that trend.  

Fernando also had a few autographs during the summer of 2000.  Two of my favorites....

are his Topps autograph.  He also had a nice autograph in the Pacific Revolution set.....

although he's in about a dozen other autograph sets from that summer.  Plenty of choices.  Unfortunately, Tatis had some injury problems during the summer of 2000 and had trouble duplicating his performance from 1999.  He was traded in the offseason to the Expos for pitching help in the way of Dustin Hermanson and Steve Kline.  

One of his final cards in a Cardinals uniform appeared in the iconic 2001 Topps Heritage set.  

Tatis went on to play three years with the Expos before he disappeared for awhile.  He tried a comeback with the Devil Rays, but did not make the team out of Spring Training.  In 2006, he ended up making the Orioles where he appeared for a handful of games.  Eventually, he would end up making the Mets in 2008.  Tatis would play three years in New York before retiring for good.  

He still shows up in baseball card sets, especially as an autograph signer.  Two years ago, he appeared in the Topps Archives set as a Cardinal.  Very nice card, had to pick one of them up....

While he was only on the Cardinals for a short time, he is still a pretty popular player with Cardinals fans who were around to watch the team during the 1990s.  Amazing what hitting two Grand Slams in an inning will do for a player.  

I'm Ready To Talk About Fernando Again...

Several years ago there were a lot of current and former players who roamed social media that were pretty fun to follow along with, but in my opinion former Cardinals third baseman Fernando Tatis might have been the best of them all.  Most people remember Fernando, I like to call him Freddy Tats, from his game against the Dodgers in 1999 where he hit two grand slams in one inning off of Chan Ho Park.

Welp, the Twitter account of Fernando Tatis just added to the legend of the man who hit two grand slams in one inning.  There was so much to love about the account:  

Art work about Wendy's founder Dave Thomas....

Tweets putting down the Denver Broncos in the Super Bowl while making reference to his two grand slams in one inning game.....

and inspirational quotes, my personal favorite could not be tracked down on Twitter....

"Swag is made up of 4 characteristics, Solid fun, Winning attitude, Aggresive pursuit of humanity, and Goals"

-Fernando Tatis 

All of the fun came crashing down one day in September of 2014 when MLB writer Jesse Sanchez attended a baseball game to watch Fernando Tatis Jr..  So, while he was watching Fernando Jr., now plays in the Padres system, he ran into Fernando Tatis.  The guy who hit two grand slams in one inning.  That's when the bomb was dropped.....

Something put on the internet was not true?  I was devastated and have not many any Fernando Tatis posts over the last two years.  He's been mentioned in a post here and there in passing, but no cards.  Is it really because I was that upset about his Twitter account being fake, or was it simply that nobody really made any cool Fernando Tatis cards?  

After looking back through my cards, I noticed that there are basically no cards of Fernando made over the last two years, and I didn't buy or trade for any cool old ones either.  I do want to say though, that I miss the Fernando Tatis Twitter account, fake or not, it was funny.  

and finally someone made a new Fernando Tatis card this summer.  This card has been sitting on my desk for the last two or three months and I figured why not go ahead and post it....

I love this card.  I am not sure why Fernando Tatis is on a 1983 Topps card, but I love the design of this set.  It was one of the first sets that I collected when I was a kid, not sure how many other people like this design, but I like the reprints Topps makes of this set for the most part.  Fernando still has the same unique signature which has a pretty cool look.  

Happy to see Freddy Tats back on a baseball card.  

I Lost Ray, but I got.....Part 2

Not to rehash, but I lost a Ray Lankford card last week in a big way.....

Yes, that is a really ridiculous price for a Ray Lankford card.  Luckily the seller had some other great items listed and I was able to snag a few other cool cards, all but one cost me less than $5, and I will be sharing them all week.  Last weekend I shared the first card out of the lot, which was a copy of the Juan Encarnacion Donruss Crusade card.  Really nice.  Next up.....

Another Donruss Crusade card, they all are, featuring former Cardinals player Fernando Tatis.  He played for the Cardinals for half of the 1998 season, but started the year play for the Texas Rangers, and was traded to the Cardinals for Royce Clayton and Todd Stottlemyre.  I have always been a pretty big fan of Fernando and have enjoyed his Twitter page over the last year, but recently saw that his account on was actually fake.

I was crushed and a little bit disappointed, but this happens in the world of social media.  I still Fernando, his time on the Cardinals, and still enjoy his cards.  In fact, I feel kind of bad that someone took his name and used as their own for the past year.  They had quite a following.  I will have to post more Fernando cards to make up for his absence on the web.

1998 Skybox EX Fernando Tatis Essential Credentials Now

I have mentioned the Essential Credential parallels in several past posts and am happy to say that I was able to track down another card from this parallel set featuring a player with Cardinals connection.  Today's card comes from the second issue of the EX sets launched in 1998 as the EX-2001 set.  The cards are basically half plastic and half cardboard.  Kind of an interesting look.  Anyway, the parallel cards for these sets, Essential Credentials, can be tough cards to find.

1998 Skybox EX-2001 Fernando Tatis Essential Credentials Now

I have actually seen a few copies of this Fernando Tatis which has one of the higher print runs in the set, checking in at 98 copies.  The copies of the Tatis card however have always seemed to drift towards, and north of, $20 which is a little bit steep for this card.  A few weeks ago this copy popped up on Ebay and I was able to talk the seller down to a little bit more than $10.  Tatis is not a Cardinal on the card, but spent the second half of the 1998 season with the Cardinals after he was traded with Darren Oliver for Todd Stottlemyre and Royce Clayton.

2003 Upper Deck Vintage Fernando Tatis Bat Card

I wouldn't say that I collect Fernando Tatis cards, but he provided one of the great baseball highlights of my life.  Some people, mainly Dodgers fans, may want to cringe and find something else to read at this moment.  On April 23, 1999 I was in Cape Girardeau, Missouri visiting some friends at college.  I was in the middle of my student teaching and was spending part of my time that spring living in my parents house in suburban St. Louis driving around teaching at a few different places.  I needed a weekend off, so I backed up my car and headed two hours south for some relaxation.

I was having a couple of products from south St. Louis, hanging out, and keeping an eye on the game.  When I witnessed a truly historic event which will likely never happen again.



Needless to say no other player has accomplished the feat of hitting two grand slams in an inning.  Fernando continued his highlight season for the Cardinals, fizzled, and was traded to the Expos.  He was out of the game a few years later and made a nice comeback for a season or two with the Mets.

Tatis has really inexpensive cards and a truly unique signature if you are in the market for an good autograph.  So, recently I spotted this card for under a dollar and had to have it for my collection.

2003 Upper Deck Vintage Fernando Tatis Bat Card