The Food Isn't Good, But The Baseball Cards.....

There are several chain restaurants that I will not eat at for various reasons.  Usually there is just something really unappealing about their food.  Places like Jack In The Box, Hardees, and Denny's all make my list of places I will absolutely not touch.  Although my wife likes to point out that I will eat at White Castle.

Point taken.  

There is one thing that distinguishes one of those three restaurants on my list above: baseball cards.  

At Jack In Box there is the possibility of E. Coli, or perhaps getting really mediocre food off of a really overcrowded menu.  They are like the Cheesecake Factory of fast food, not really good at anything, but you can order all kinds of food.  No baseball cards though.  

Hardees.  Gross.  No baseball cards either.  

Which brings me to Denny's.  

I can't tell you the last time I ate at a Denny's.  I am going to say that it is a minimum of 20 years.  There was one where I went to college, but it was rather shady.  One of those places in town that you do not go near.  There were a bunch in St. Louis, I don't even remember a specific location of one though.  I am sure at some point I have been to one.  At least I think have been to one.  What's really important is that they have baseball cards.  

I posted one Denny's card a week ago that came in a random package.  

I was pretty excited to see this Jackie Robinson card.  I did not have it in my collection, but I knew I had a bunch of these Denny's cards from 1997.  Obviously I did not get these by eating at a Denny's, but after going through my collection, it appears that I am missing one card from the set.  Several of the cards are in my collection a few times. 

How did all of these cards end up in my house?  Great question.  A look at one 1997 Denny's card close up.....

There are some other quality Denny's sets out there from the 1990s, but this one is my favorite.  I like to think of it as a combination of two different classic baseball card products.  The fronts of the cards are very similar to the SportsFlix cards.  Right down to the texture.  

The backs of the card.....

have a hologram picture.  While the picture does not take up the whole card, this part of the card reminds me a bit of the mid to late 1990s SPx cards from Upper Deck.

There are a grand total of 29 cards in the set, but I am technically missing one of the cards from the set even though I have all 29 of the cards from the checklist.

A look at the cards in the set.

These are the first two numerical cards in the set that I was able to assemble by digging through my card boxes.  The Tim Salmon card on the right is actually card number 1.  However, Denny's made a Larry Doby card that was also card number 1, but it was only available at restaurants in the Cleveland area.  I will go find one at some point.

More of the set.

Two pretty good first baseman here.  Always forget how good Mo Vaughn was before he left the Red Sox for the Angels.  Never quite the same after that point.  Still good numbers though.  

A small checklist of 30 cards should allow for a really strong checklist of players who were active during the 1996 and 1997 seasons, but for some reason there is a Travis Fryman card in here.  He was on several All-Star teams and was considered the best player on some bad Tigers teams.  Tony Clark was a lot better though.  

Love seeing John Jaha in here.  Not a long career, but he had some great years in the mid 1990s for the Brewers.  Had a nice year or two with the A's too.  Johnny Damon on the Royals too.  Meh.

Shall we pick up the pace?

McGwire with a mullet.  The base runner in the picture is distracting and blurry.  I think it's Rey Sanchez, so Spring Training game?

ARod was in middle school when this picture was taken.  

I am pretty sure that someone at Pinnacle added that baseball to the Roger Clemens card.  

For no reason, here's Jose Hernandez.  It looks like they airbrushed him on the card next to Sammy Sosa.

The Rockies player in the set was not Larry Walker or Andres Galarraga.  I could have also lived with Ellis Burks, maybe Vinny Castilla.  Bichette.  Terrible.  

Always a positive when you can post an Expos card.  

Barry Bonds should be in the Hall of Fame because the numbers on the back of this card are that good.  Plus, he was not on steroids yet.  

Jackie Robinson a second time and Scott Rolen with the Phillies bat boy.

Overall, a great set.  They do not make these sets anymore, which is probably a good thing in terms of the quality of food consumed by baseball card collectors.  However, these were really good card sets.  

1998 Topps Tek Set Update

Two weeks ago I started working on trying to finish up my 1998 Topps Tek set.  Last week,  I added a Ken Griffey Jr. card to my set brought which brought me to needing a total of 32 more cards to finish off the 32 card set.  This week I did a little bit better.  First, I found cards for trade which meant that I did not add any money to my total amount of money spent on the set.  I am still at $5.  Second,  I was able to add almost a quarter of the cards I need for the set in one week.

Seven more cards were added bringing my total needed down to 25 cards.  I was especially happy to land the Pedro Martinez and Orlando Hernandez card.  One of the hardest parts about assembling a set is tracking down the cards of some of the star players and key rookies.  These two cards definitely fit that description.  I have a few more Topps Tek cards on my radar, so hopefully I will be adding a few more in the next few days.  

Updated list:

2 Kerry Wood, 3 Barry Bonds, 6 Frank Thomas, 7 Bernie Williams, 16 Brady Anderson, 17 Vladimir Guerrero, 18 Dave Justice, 19 Chipper Jones, 21 Roger Clemens, 22 Mark Kotsay, 23 Tony Gwynn, 25 Tino Martinez, 26 Andruw Jones, 29 Gary Sheffield, 32 Curt Schilling, 33 Robin Ventura, 34 Larry Walker, 37 Paul O'Neill, 42 Derek Bell, 45 Kenny Lofton, 51 Cal Ripken, 52 Jason Kendall, 60 Juan Gonzalez, 62 Jose Cruz, 64 Edgar Martinez, 70 Chuck Knoblauch,  76 Derrek Lee, 79 Jeff King, 80 Mike Mussina,  86 Mike Piazza

30 year Top 50: 2000 Fleer Tradition Set

#43-Today's set makes my countdown as a pioneer more than the card content within the set.  Look at the card releases issued in 2012 by Topps and you will notice that there are several sets with a vintage theme.  Topps, Fleer, Upper Deck, and even Donruss have tried to add a little bit of old time style and appearance into their sets over the past decade plus.  However, in my opinion the 2000 Fleer Tradition set was the first mainstream base set to flourish and thrive while recalling past years of card collecting.

Fleer had actually started to lean on this concept with it's release of the 1998 Fleer Tradition set.  The packaging that year featured Mickey Mantle.  The set had a Mickey Mantle card with an old color photo of the Commerce Comet in his classic left-handed hitting stance.  The following year Fleer stepped up it's game a little bit further by putting Stan Musial on the packaging, issuing a Musial insert set chronicalling the Cardinal great's career, and then also issuing a set of 1963 Fleer themed cards with modern players and Stan the Man.

In 2000, Fleer committed to issuing a base set that was completely vintage in theme.  More than a decade later it's easy to see that this set has had a lasting impression on the hobby.  A quick scan of the checklist will show that the set has little to offer in the way of important rookies, so collecting this set is just simply about owning a great looking set of cards.  End of story.

2000 Fleer Tradition Cal Ripken Jr.

The basic design of the cards Fleer borrowed from the 1954 Topps set.  I guess since they used the 1963 Fleer set design in the 1999 Fleer set they didn't want to skip and borrow the design of the Fleer's next baseball card issue in 1980.  Hmm.  Well, it's a great looking set to borrow from and Fleer did a great job of recreating the 1954 theme on these cards.  The set was a total of 450 cards and would eventually include an Update set released in factory set form.  My only complaint about this set revolves around some of the insert sets.  Let's look at a few of the designs.  

2000 Fleer Tradition Cal Ripken Halls Well

2000 Fleer Tradition Adam Kennedy Who To Watch

I never quite understood how Fleer created a great set of vintage themed cards, but then issued a handful of modern die-cut, translucent insert cards.  I guess maybe they were trying to appeal to the modern collector, but I am not going to complain too much.  There were several insert sets that shined in this release including one of my favorite relic inserts.  

First off, Fleer did issue autographs in this set and they were actually on card autographs.  Fleer had their autograph cards at the time run throughout all of their card releases and were either issued on the Fresh Ink insert or Autographics.  The Tradition set had the Fresh Ink autographs and included Alex Rodriguez, Cal Ripken, and Pedro Martinez.  I have a Tim Salmon.  

2000 Fleer Tradition Fresh Ink Tim Salmon Autograph

The best insert set from this release was the Club 3000 set which focused on hitters with 3000 hits and pitchers with 3000 strikeouts.  The cards came in a plain insert, which was die cut into the shape of the number 3000.  There were also relic versions which featured pieces of jersey or bat.  The relic version came in three versions with one relic being common, two relics being slightly hard, and three relics being very difficult.  

2000 Fleer Tradition Stan Musial Club 3000 Jersey

Like the 2000 Fleer Tradition Set?  Not in my Top 50 is the 2002 Upper Deck Vintage set.  Just like Fleer, I think Upper Deck had little tradition of it's own to use in creating a set.  The 1989 Upper Deck set is an awesome set it hardly strikes me as vintage.  Instead, Upper Deck used the 1971 Topps design.  

2002 Upper Deck Vintage Ken Griffey Jr.

The 1971 Topps set is one of the all time best designs and highly sought after sets.  Upper Deck did a great job of recreating this set of cards.  The base set was a little shorter than the Fleer Tradition at 300 cards.  The Upper Deck Vintage also did a great job with the inset sets.  The inserts were generally pretty simple in design and followed the design of the base set very well.  

2002 Upper Deck Vintage Sandlot Star Ken Griffey Jr. 

The autograph insets and jersey inserts were very tough pulls.  All of the autographs were dual signature cards with long odds of finding one.  A search on Ebay right now yields zero copies of any of these cards.  Zero.  

2002 Upper Deck Vintage Sammy Sosa Jersey Card

The base jersey cards are a little simpler to come across and still over a clean design similar to the 1971 Topps cards.  There are also many multiple jersey cards in the 2002 vintage set that are also difficult to run across.