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. 

Random Ray - 2000 Pacific Aurora

I really liked Pacific Baseball cards during the 1990s and early 2000s.  They started out as the Spanish card manufacturer, but got away from that at some point in the late 1990s.  The company had some really neat and innovated products.  There are always lots of well-designed insert sets, parallels, and die-cuts that went along with Pacific baseball cards.  I have plenty of Ray Lankford cards that fit into those categories, but I use my Random Ray posts for base cards.  

A simple Ray Lankford card.  

Aurora was a lower-end product that was often sold at retail stores.  I believe that it started out guaranteeing an insert per pack.  They were not great inserts.  The 2000 set was the most popular edition of this set because it featured Ken Griffey's first card on the Reds.  

Here is the Ray Lankford card.  

Simple enough design.  

Reminds me a bit of the 1963 Topps set with the large color photograph and the small black and white photo in the corner.  I also like the horizontal orientation of the card.  The background is a little odd.  The solid red background color is fine, but the pattern is rather odd.  On the left-side of the card the pattern looks like its carpeting or sand.  The right-side looks like something out of the background themes from PowerPoint or Google Slides.  

The back of the card is not the best, but this was never the strong suit of Pacific.  Always simple with really basic stats and a photo of the player.  I am not going to post scans of all the Pacific card backs from the late 1990s and early 2000s, but they made a little more effort than normal here.  

Just a screen shot off of Ebay.  Most Pacific cards had a stock photo from the team.  

I really like the sepia photo that they used on the back of this Aurora card.  It adds a little more personality to the card.  Especially given the reddish-brown and gold color of the font that was used for the writing above the stats and the player name.  

Not the flashiest card, but solid for a something out of a retail-oriented product.  

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 26 - Eric Davis

Eric Davis should be on baseball cards in a Reds uniform.  I'd also accept him as an Oriole, but I really always place him with the Reds.  When I was growing up he was a dynamic player, a great combination of speed and power.   The Cardinals and Reds were in different divisions at that point, and their games were not nearly as tense as they have been in recent years.    

Davis had some pretty insane stats early in his career.  My favorite being his 27 home runs and 80 stolen bases in 1986.  The next year in 1987 he hit 37 home runs and had 50 steals.  I loved the run the Reds made through the playoffs in 1990 too.  Not a huge Barry Bonds/Pirates fan, not a huge A's fan at that point either. 

The Nasty Boys were the lesser of several evils.  Plus, they were diluted by actual likable players on the Reds like Eric Davis, Chris Sabo and his goggles, Barry Larkin, and Paul O'Neill.  

I had Eric Davis rookie cards.  His 1985 Fleer was my favorite.  

In my opinions, this photo is much better than the one on his Topps rookie card.  The red border around the card helps too. Very clean design, nice card.   

A rundown of the baseball happenings of Eric Davis between 1991 and 1998 with some pictures and a video....

He was injured much of the 1991 season and was eventually traded to the Dodgers.  Plenty of people were excited that he got traded to his hometown Dodgers, but he did little with the team who traded him again to the Tigers.  After hitting .183 with the Tigers in 1994, Davis missed the entire 1995 season.  He returned to the Reds in 1996 and things started to look up again after he stayed healthy for a full season and hit like the Eric Davis from the 1980s.  

Davis left the Reds after 1996 for the Orioles.  His 1997 season started out well, but he was diagnosed with colon cancer in May of that season.  He only appeared in 42 games, but returned for the playoffs and helped the Orioles get to the American League Championship Series against Cleveland.  

Major League Baseball presented him with the 1997 Roberto Clemente Award before Game 4 of the 1997 World Series.  It was 35 degrees when this game started, so there is no picture of Davis with the Roberto Clemente Award on the field.....

but I assure you he has it somewhere in his house......

right next to the Gold Gloves.  

In 1998, Davis hit .327/.388/.582 with 28 home runs and 89 RBIs.  

A remarkable comeback.  

The Cardinals bought in, but there was not much left in the tank.  I am not going to use the word "bust" on a guy who had colon cancer, beat it, and returned to play professional sports.  He still showed up in games, played hard, but he just was not the same guy who was an All-Star caliber player for the Reds and Orioles.  

The Cardinals had actually signed both Eric Davis and Shawon Dunston to help out with some of the younger players on the team during the 1999 season.  The team had J.D. Drew, Fernando Tatis, Placido Polanco, and Edgar Renteria.  Good talent, but at that time all of those players were under 25.  

At the end of the 1999 season, Davis had a .257/.359/.403 slash line with 5 home runs, 9 doubles, and 30 RBIs.  He managed to play in just 58 games.  The next season, in 2000, was much better for him.  Davis was still a bench player at that point, but he did help the team win the National League Central hitting .303/.389/.429 with 6 home runs and 14 doubles off the bench.  

Davis does have a few Cardinals baseball cards.  The first few were of the mismatched logo variety, not really a good look.  This Pacific Aurora is terrible......

I used to always say that I would rather have a card with mismatched logos, uniform of one team with card logos of another team, but this is a really unattractive looking card.  I understand that the Pacific Aurora set was a one time thing, no second series, so if they wanted to include Eric Davis in the set this was what they had to do.  I guess they could have airbrushed.....

The back is slightly better since the photo is black and white and it does not have an odd background color like the front of the card.  Never really liked the stat lines on some of these late 1990s/early 2000s Pacific baseball cards.  

Pacific eventually got it right later on in the summer.  

Much better picture on the Paramount card.  Aurora was a spring release, Paramount was a summer release.  This photo is from Spring Training.  The Cardinals in the late 1990s wore blue helmets on the road, note the grey pants, but during the spring the team wore red helmets.  The Cardinals also have never worn red jerseys in regular season games.  Ever.  Clearly a batting practice jersey.  

The Spring Training photos are a common theme with the Eric Davis Cardinals cards.

Leaning towards this being a Spring Training picture too on his 1999 Bowman card.  I actually have another post coming up on this card at some point in the next week or two.  Always surprised when I run across an Eric Davis card in a Cardinals uniform, even more surprising when it is in a newer product.  

Now, for my two favorite Eric Davis card in a Cardinals uniform.  

First up is a Fleer Premium from 1999.  I am not sure what is going on with the red and yellow hazy stuff that is lingering around Davis, but I like the rest of the card.  Good photo of Davis stretching out before a Spring Training game.  The background is blurry, but you can still clearly tell that it's a Dodgers players, maybe a ballboy.  

I was curious about his shoes since they have an 11 on them next to the Nike swoosh.  There were no Cardinals with the uniform number 11 in 1999, but there were three different members of the quad with that number from the previous year.  Fernando Tatis and Luis Ordaz wore the number later in the year, but Royce Clayton started the year with that number.  

Royce, your shoes.....

I'm guess that maybe Royce Clayton abandoned them when he was traded to the Rangers in the middle of the 1998 season.  Maybe there is some other story here too, I don't know, just speculating.  

Last card.  

This is a really cool card of Davis signing autographs in a sea of kids.  It's always nice to see a card of players interacting with fans.  No creepy adults shoving any of the kids out of the way.  Quality picture.  I really miss Upper Deck.  

Davis would end his career with the Giants in 2001.  He does some work with the Reds still and recently appeared in a video opening a pack of baseball cards.  Makes fun of Geronimo Pena and Joey Votto gets in the video at the end.  

Eric Davis opens 25-year-old baseball cards

Former 2-time MLB All-Star Eric Davis joins Mike Oz of Big League Stew to open a pack of 1992 Topps baseball cards.

Complete Set: 2000 Pacific Aurora

I am now a weeks into my reorganization project and I have started to pull together a few complete sets.   Slowly, I am going to get a few posted over the next few weeks, but I am going to not repeat anything that I already put on my 30 Year Top 50 countdown from late last year.  That group of sets is intact and I have generally kept most of those cards separate from the general stash of baseball cards.  So, here's my third complete post set of the year and my first since the reorganization project began.


I actually stumbled into sorting out my 2000 Pacific Aurora cards this weekend while helping a regular trade partner find a copy of a really cool Ken Griffey Jr. card.  More on that card later.  I went ahead and sorted out the whole set while I was looking for that one card.  The late 90s and early 2000s Pacific sets are generally all the same, but each has it's own wrinkle which makes it unique in some way.  Aurora actually started out in 1998 as a retail product which was advertised as a per pack insert.  Most of the inserts were missable, but the set slowly evolved over it's three year run into its final run in 2000.

2000 Pacific Aurora Will Clark

The cards in the 2000 Pacific Aurora set are all horizontal and feature a large player picture with a colored background and a small circular black and white photograph in the top right-hand corner.  Like all Pacific sets the Aurora set was mainly driven by parallel cards and insert cards.  The most common of which was the pinstripe variations which were a one per pack card.

2000 Pacific Aurora Pinstripe Craig Biggio

The rest of the parallels in the set are the typical colored foil parallels with different print runs for the different color of foil.  While this set does not seem to stand out in any way or shape from other Pacific sets the aforementioned Ken Griffey Jr card is one of my favorites and one of the best examples of a card company properly handling a star player changing teams.  Last fall I posted an entry about my thoughts on the common practice of airbrushing.  The executive summary is that I do not like the idea and card companies should find a better way to handle players changing teams.  Which leads me to:

Favorite Card in the Set

2000 Pacific Aurora Ken Griffey Jr. 

2000 Pacific Aurora Ken Griffey Jr.

What team doesn't hold a press conference these days when they trade or sign a new player?  Pacific managed to put out two versions of the Ken Griffey Jr. card (#133) in the 2000 Aurora set by snapping a few pictures of the future Hall of Famer trying on his Reds jersey at the presser introducing him after his trade from the Mariners.  What's not to love about the two cards?  There is no airbrushing on these two cards and Pacific managed to capture Griffey in both his old Mariners uni and also with his brand new Reds digs.  Well played by Pacific and a great idea for a current card company to follow at some point in the near future.