I Love The 1990 Cardinals Part 65- Allen Watson

The Cardinals had 5 of the first 44 picks in 1991 MLB Draft.  The team chose California high schooler Dmitri Young with the 4th overall pick.  The other four picks?  Allen Watson is obviously one of them, the post is about him, but they also got Brian Barber and Dan Cholowsky.  Young and Watson made it the Majors and played for awhile, Barber played a short time, and Cholowsky never made it past Triple A. 

Young, Watson, and Barber all have a significant number of cards, Young obviously has the most of the group.  Cholowsky actually has baseball cards in Bowman, Stadium Club, and the Upper Deck Minors sets. While he never made the Majors, some card companies still thought highly of him.

Watson seemed like he was going to be someone for awhile.  He cruised through the Cardinals Minor League system and reached Busch Stadium by July of 1993.  He has a Stadium Club card to commemorate the occasion.

I am actually fairly certain that I saw his Major League debut, which was a 7-1 victory over the Atlanta Braves.  I need to double check my ticket stub box.  It would have been cool if Topps had put an actual picture from the players debut game on the front of these cards.  Watson debuted in St. Louis, card has a gray uniform, I am slightly disappointed.

Watson was in Baseball America's Top 10 Prospects prior to the 1993 season, so it was a pretty big deal when he reach the Majors.  The majority of his baseball cards treated him accordingly.

First off, when he first got drafted he started appearing in Bowman and Minor League sets right away.  My favorite Allen Watson card from his time in the Minors has to be his 1992 Upper Deck Minors card, which is quite unique.....

I am not sure why Allen Watson is wearing half a road uniform and half a home uniform.  Not something you see everyday on a baseball card.  I also like that he is hitting.  Sure, there is the occasional pitcher hitting card, but this looks like he is hitting balls for infield practice.  

Watson appeared in some of the more prominent 1990s sets.  Good rookie cards in the 1993 SP set?  Sure there is a Derek Jeter rookie card in that set, but there was also an Allen Watson.  Good card back in the 1990s. 

Watson also appeared in many of the rookie/prospect insert sets.  My personal favorite is the Flair Wave of the Future. 

These were printed on really nice stock and had nice printing and finish.  That wave in the background is sort of cheesy in this set though.  If this were a card in the 1998 Metal Universe set, it would be slam dunk best prospect card ever.  

Watson had a decent 1993, but his star faded fast with the Cardinals.  He got 22 starts with the team in 1994 and another 19 in 1995.  His ERA was near 5 during both seasons.  Allen Watson faded from trendy insert sets and shiny foiled prospect cards, and settled into the baseball card world as a player who got a token base card in the Topps and Upper Deck sets.  

I actually really like his base Topps cards from 1994 and 1995.  

Not a huge fan of the 1994 set, but I like the Watson card.  Love that background with the astroturfed Busch Stadium, blue walls, and faded red seats.  The Cardinals freshened up the stadium in between 1995 and 1996, so this was near the end of this stadium configuration and appearance.  

1995 did not have a great background, although the picture was clearly taken in Busch.  I like this card more for the action shot.  

The ball in the picture has always looked a little funny to me.  I know it's an action shot, so the ball was likely to turn out blurry, but this looks like Topps has tried to somehow crop the ball.  

At the end of the 1995 season, the Cardinals hired Tony LaRussa to manage the team and turned the roster over.  One of the first moves the team made in remaking their roster was to trade Watson to the Giants for Royce Clayton.  

Clayton was also a former first round draft pick who had not lived up to expectations.  When he arrived in St. Louis, Tony LaRussa made him the starting shortstop, putting Hall of Fame shortstop Ozzie Smith on the bench.  Ozzie would retire at the end of the season. 

Watson would go on to play for the Giants, Angels, Mets, Mariners, and Yankees.  He was on the Yankees roster in 1999 when they won the World Series against the Braves.....

earning him a World Series ring.  Watson was also on the 2000 Yankees, but only pitched until August before he was placed on the disabled list.  He never played again in the Majors.  

I Love The 1990s Cardinals Part 37 - Tom Pagnozzi

The Cardinals have had a pretty good string of defensive catchers dating all the way back to the 1980s.  Over the last 30 years, the Cardinals catchers have won 14 of the National League's Gold Glove Awards.  Many of those belong to Yadier Molina, but two of his predecessors also won a few Gold Gloves too.

Mike Matheny actually was the last starting catcher the team employed before Molina, and took home a few Gold Glove Awards with his first coming in 2000.  There were a few years in the late 1990s when the team cycled through a few different catchers, but for the majority of the decade the catching duties were handled by Tom Pagnozzi.

Pagnozzi was slow and pudgy, did not hit much some years, but he was always a very good defensive catcher.  He won a total of three Gold Gloves and has some great defensive stats to back up his awards.  Not just someone who won an award because of his reputation as a good defender.  There was a season he led the National League in defensive WAR, several where he finished near the top, several seasons with almost 50% of base runners caught, etc.

Pagnozzi also had some nice baseball cards over the years.  There is always some player on every team who always ends up with really nice cards in spite of the fact that they are not necessarily a name player.  You'd think that there were be some more time spent on Ozzie Smith or Mark McGwire, or possibly we could get good cards of the majority of players.

Maybe.

I am going to share more than the usual three cards for this post.  The good Pagnozzi cards show him playing defense, but my favorite card of the former Cardinals catcher has to be his 1995 Pinnacle card where he is arguing with an umpire......

There are not a ton of cards made with players and umpires arguing.  The card also has a really old picture on the front.  Pagnozzi is clearly wearing one of the polyster uniforms that the Cardinals wore in the 1980s and early 1990s.  The team ditched these uniforms after the 1991 season.  Mind you, Pagnozzi actually came up with the Cardinals in the late 1980s and was Tony Pena's backup for several seasons.  Even played in the 1987 World Series, so this card has a picture that is potentially seven or eight years old from the time it was printed.  If I had a cool picture of a player arguing with an umpire I would throw it on a baseball card too, even if it was older.

A few nice Stadium Clubs.

This his 1996 card from that set.  Another photo that you do not see too often on baseball cards, catchers running down foul balls around the back stop and netting.  I am pretty sure that Pagnozzi caught this ball and is turning to check on a base runner.  The fans in the stands do not seem to be moving either, which would likely happen if the ball was over the netting.  The old guy in the Rockies hat is calling the batter out.  

This is his 1995 Stadium Club.  Nice photo of him throwing, guessing a bunt or something hit in front of the plate.  Good early 1990s Busch Stadium background too with the blue wall and astroturf.

Last Stadium Club.

Always fun to see a slow catcher get on base on a ball hit on the infield.  Pretty certain that the Giants first baseman, not Will Clark, has missed the ball here.  I also like that Pagnozzi is off the ground.  Does not seem like the type of guy who would have any sort of leaping ability, but here we are.....

I had fun finding these cards of Pagnozzi, so you are getting a few more.  

Favorite Topps card.  Again, kind of a unique picture you do not see often on a baseball card.  

Last base card.  

I don't even remember this card being made, and I have a ton of these Emotion XL cards.  Gritty is such a catcher word, or maybe a backup middle infielder.  Pagnozzi is definitely "gritty".   This was only a 200 card set, a little surprised that Fleer would even include Pagnozzi.  I'd tip my cap to your set designers for adding him to the checklist, but your company went bankrupt awhile ago.  

Last card.  If you had to own one Tom Pagnozzi card it should be this one.  There are some pretty nice Cardinals cards in the 1996 Leaf Signature Series autographs, along with several players who were only around the team for a short time.  Cards of Rick Honeycutt and Mike Gallego are in a Cardinals uniform in that set, but they are not really Cardinals players.  Brian Jordan, Mabry, and Pagnozzi are much better cards if you are truly looking for a Cardinals card.  

Big Cat's Lost Year

I did not touch any packs of Topps Archives Signature this year, but I do have a few cards from the set that I have picked up over the past month or two since the product first hit the shelves of my local card shop.  There were some interesting selections in the set as far as Cardinals cards go since most of them are probably better known for wearing some other uniform.  Take it a step further, their Cardinals years were not very kind.

There are four of them, and I do not have them all yet, but I am getting close.  I am going to start off tonight with my favorite out of the bunch...

The Big Cat.

Galarraga only spent one season on the Cardinals and broke his hand on a hit by pitch in one of the first games of the season.  He never quite recovered and had one of the worst seasons of his career.  The Cardinals let him go, the Rockies signed him, and the rest is history.

Obviously the majority of Galarraga cards in the set are Expos and Rockies cards, but Topps always manages to squeeze into Archives Signatures those brief stops during a player's career that's fans my not always remember well.  I am not sure how many people remember Big Cat on the Cardinals, and even though it was not his best year, I have always liked Galarraga and am happy to own this card.

What to do, what to do....

I spent the past week eyeing another item on the Topps Vault in the hopes that I could add another unique Ray Lankford item to my collection of the former Cardinals center fielder.  I didn't actually think that I would end up winning the item since it also included a photo proof of Ken Griffey Jr. and Bernie Williams.  I am not sure how well the Bernie stuff sells on Topps Vault, but I have seen Griffey stuff on there and it is out of my price range.

Still I watched, I put in my bid, and at the end of the week I walked away with the item for less than $20.  I am still somewhat amazed that I landed this piece of Ray Lankford coolness.....

These photos were used to make the Triumvirate inserts which were sorted by player position that year.  Here's a look at what these three photos were turned into..... (Note- I always use my own cards on this site, but I do not own a copy of the Bernie Williams card.  The scan below is from COMC)

I am really happy to land these three photo proofs, but I am know trying to figure out how to display these three items.  Back in the day I won a few photo proofs of the St. Louis players, both Browns and Cardinals, in the 2003 Topps Gallery set.  I took the items and found some small black picture frames to display them in my baseball card room.  The items originally looked like this....

and here is the same item in the frame.....

I actually own three of them and they look nice in the frames.  I have them on a small section of wall stacked vertically.  Really nice.  However, the latest photo proofs I picked up from Topps are much more of a set making me want to display them all together.  Topps used some kind of adhesive to stick them onto a sheet of paper, it's just Scotch tape or something, but I can work around that.  I am actually thinking of taking them to a person that does framing and doing a nice matted display with the proofs and cards displayed someway, somehow.  I am looking forward to seeing what someone can do with these.....

Waiting and Waiting.....

I spent the last week going through some of my favorite cards in the Stadium Club base set.  I felt a little bit unusual posting all kinds of cards from the base set without posting anything with a serial number or autograph on the card.  Since I did not actually open a box of Stadium Club I am more or less just piecing together the cards I like from the product.  Not quite as fun as opening a box, or some packs, but in the end I am still going to walk away with a complete set and a few nice autographs.  

I guess the end product is ultimately the same.  I set out through Ebay, Facebook Groups, and Twitter to track down a cool autograph from this product.  I ran into a familiar problem, I have mentioned in other posts, while trying to track down an autograph of a Cardinals, or Rays player.  Namely, they are all the same Cardinals and Rays players who always appear in every Topps product.  I love the Cardinals, but I am just not excited about Matt Adams.  

After contemplating several different directions, I landed my first autograph from Stadium Club last week, and it arrived in the mail this afternoon.  Here's my latest autograph:  

No Cardinals, no Rays, no problem.  I went with this Rodon since I loved watching him pitch at my alma mater NC State.  Rodon has had several autographs recently, and while I have not rushed out to buy them all, I am excited about his prospects of being a really good pitcher for a long time.  More Stadium Club in the near future....

Six Pack of Stadium Club Part 3

Third night of cool Stadium Club cards.  I am going with nineties players who appeared in the set tonight.  I spent most of the decade in high school and college which afforded me the opportunity to watch a ton of baseball.  Not all of these players are necessarily great Hall of Famers, but they were still all really fun players to watch.  Here's tonight's six cards......

#285 Tony Gwynn - Padres

Gwynn starred for the Padres over two decades.  He had some great years during the nineties including a run at .400 in 1994.  It's great to see a card of Gwynn in with some of the other great players in this set.  There is something nice about seeing a picture of Mr. Padre with a bat in his hands.  

#54 Bip Roberts - Padres

Back in 1996 Score printed a base card featuring Padres utility player Bip Roberts wearing a sombrero.  It's hard to say a card of a baseball player wearing a sombrero is iconic, but I will go ahead and say:  The 1996 Score Bip Roberts is an iconic baseball card.  Cool to see a little bit different view of the Bipster and his sombrero.  

#93 Andy Van Slyke - Pirates 

Van Slyke came up as a Cardinal, but his best years were spent on the good Pirates teams of the late 1980s and early 1990s.  I liked Van Slyke.  He played a good center field, had some speed, and a little bit of pop.  The Pirates kept Van Slyke while allowing Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonilla, and Doug Drabek walk in free agency.  

#82 Deion Sanders - Braves 

There were three two sport stars during the 90s: Bo Jackson, Deion, and Brian Jordan.  I always thought of Bo Jackson and Brian Jordan as two sport stars who gave up football over time and became full time baseball players.  Deion kind of went the other way.  He spent time at the beginning of his career with the Yankees and Braves while starring for the Falcons as a football player.  Later in his career he became less and less of a factor in the baseball diamond.  Towards the end of the 1990s he was basically out of baseball.  I always remember Deion for speed.  I love this card of him running.  Ummm, he's got a hole in pants.  

#95 Rob Dibble - Reds 

Dibble is an interesting choice for a Stadium Club appearance.  I know he has made a few appearances in some Topps products recently, but thought this card was cool.  Dibble was a classic end of game closer from yesteryear.  Huge leg kick with a really big fastball.  My best memory of Dibble?  Giving up the fourth home run to Mark Whitten during this game.....

#226 Dennis Eckersley - Athletics 

This card is just awesome.  

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.  

Six Pack of Stadium Club Part 1

I am focusing on Stadium Club this week.  The Topps brand was successfully relaunched last year which made the product a highly regarded release on this year's card calendar.  There are autographs and die cuts in the set, but my favorite part of this product is the base cards.  How many products can you say that about during a calendar year?  Not many.  As a long time collector a great base set harkens me back to my early days as a collector when there was little more to a baseball card product outside of the base set.

At some point I will post an autograph, or two, that I have picked up from the set.  However, for this week I am going to pick out the base cards that I love from the set.  Some of the cards are going to have a simple explanation, such as, the card features a cool or unique picture.  Other cards will have other reasons for making my list.  Six per night all week long.  Here are six for tonight:

#64 Brett Gardner - New York Yankees

Brett Gardner has been know to make some nice defensive plays.  I like that this card has a cool picture of Gardner scaling the wall to make a catch.  I like the faces on the people in the crowd even better.  There is a wide range of emotions in that front row.  I also like that the ball is in the picture, but we do not know if Gardner actually makes the catch.  Or do we?  

#57 Marcus Stroman - Blue Jays 

I first saw Stroman while he was pitching at Duke.  I was a big fan then and I am a big fan now.  He's pretty fun, and interactive, follow on Twitter too.  He's a positive, energetic, and emotional player.  I collect Stroman cards and have plenty of the Blue Jays pitcher in games, but I feel like this card does a great job of capturing his personality.  Great card and a little something different for my stack of Stroman cards.  

#24 Dale Murphy - Braves 

The first year I collected cards was 1983.  It was the height of Dale Murphy's career.  I am not of the opinion that Murphy belongs in the Hall, but the peak of his career was spectacular.  The picture on this card looks like the great version of Dale Murphy who won back to back MVP awards.  I am not sure what's going on with all of the bats and balls on the floor.  Maybe one of those pictures someone took on photo day during spring training.  Anyways, really cool card of The Murph.  

#22 Ivan Rodriguez - Rangers 

Do you remember when stadiums used to have foul ground?  There are still a few, but I feel like most stadiums have a really limited amount of foul ground.  Plenty of cool plays happened because of foul territory.  I can think of dozens of times I watched Ozzie Smith chase down long foul balls behind third base, near the visitors bullpen, in old Busch Stadium.  While I grew up watching Ozzie, this card shows another great defensive player tracking down a foul ball near the railing of the dugout in Arlington.  It looks like the ball is in Rodriguez's glove, so I am going to go ahead and say that he made this play.  Really like that Rodriguez has a card showing him as playing defense.  

#34 Mariano Rivera - Yankees 

I watch the World Series without fail every fall.  There are some that are anti-climactic, but still turn out to be memorable.  I watched the Giants and Tigers a few years back.  The Giants swept the series, but not too memorable.  I also remember when the Yankees battled the Padres in the 1998 Series.  I was happy to see Tony Gwynn make the World Series and I was hoping to see him get a ring.  Honestly though, the Yankees were in complete control of the series.  They were a great team and you knew, watching them in the playoffs, they were going to win it all.  As much as people complain about the Yankees "buying" a team to win the World Series, those late 90s teams were heavy on the word "team".  I think the 1998 Yankees might have been one of the best teams of my lifetime.  Love this picture of Rivera.  

#36 Frank Robinson - Reds 

Rain delay or was this the pre-game routine?  No videos, no video games, no Beats by Dre.  Just a Hall of Fame player wearing his uniform reading a newspaper.  Something really different and really cool from Topps on this card.  

#MyCardMonday

I am going to be doing a whole bunch of stuff with Stadium Club this week.  I have spent a lot of time this month on Minor League Baseball games and Minor League card sets which has limited the amount of time I spent on new cards coming into my collection.  How many different products were released in the last few weeks that I did not get to touch on yet?  A bunch, and I plan on slowly catching up over the next few weeks.  So, for this week's version of #MyCardMonday I am choosing to go with an older Stadium Club card.

Two weeks ago I picked a Stadium Club card of Matt Holliday because I loved the fact that the card told a story.  There are many Stadium Club cards that fit into this category and make them one of my favorite products.  This Mark McGwire card definitely tells a story, so here it is......

The Stadium Club Scenes cards were a pretty popular insert back in the 2000 Stadium Club product.  I pulled one of these out of a box and ended up picking up a few more out of the dollar box at my local card shop back in the day.  I love the panoramic view of Busch Stadium II in the card and dig the view of Big Mac on deck.  If you ever saw McGwire in person he had a really unique on deck routine.  I always liked watching him stretch the bat behind his back, squint his eyes, do head rolls, and just stand there like he is in the card.

The scan does not really do this card justice, but there is a lot of information on the scoreboard in the background.  Edgar Renteria is batting for the Cardinals, the game is in the first inning, and the Cardinals are losing to the Dodgers 1-0.  So much here to work on, so it was not hard to track this game down to a single game....

The picture in this card was taken on May 16th, 1999.  The Cardinals beat the Dodgers 5-4, and while Mark McGwire did not hit a home run during this game, my 90s favorite Cardinals player Ray Lankford hit two home runs including a walk off in the ninth against Dodgers closer Jeff Shaw.  Sorry, MLB has not published a video of this awesome highlight yet.  More Stadium Club tomorrow..... 

#MyCardMonday

I picked up the a copy of the new 2015 Stadium Club set last week and have not really stopped looking at the cards yet.  There are tons of great looking pictures and cards in the set from all kinds of different eras of baseball.  A bigger post on the set is coming later this week, but until then I decided to pick out one card to use for #MyCardMonday

There are several other cool Cardinals cards that I could have gone with, but I like this card because it is one of those that can be traced back to a specific moment in time.  Here's what I see:

• Matt Holliday hit a home run in Busch Stadium
• Lance Lynn (31) is pitching for the Cardinals and has 5 wins
• Is that a Yankees player in the background?  

I think I found it.  Great card.  

Friday 5: Best 5 Sets from 1991

I love the 1991 baseball card sets and I had a hard time sitting on this post all week.  If you were not collecting that year and are looking for something fun and inexpensive to open any of these sets would be a great deal of fun to assemble.  Before I show off my Top 5 I am going to have to put up an Honorable Mention for this week for one of my most underrated sets of all time.  It's already had a post or two....

Honorable Mention- I have always loved the 1991 Bowman set.  I will go ahead and admit that I am slightly biased towards it, but it is a well deserved love.  The set has a lot of important rookie cards in it that are of no particular value, but they are a lot of fun to take out of the box and flip through.  Of course there is Jeromy Burnitz and his incredible follow through along with Jim Thome, Chipper, Jeff Bagwell, Mike Mussina, and Ivan Rodriguez.  Those guys are going to be prominent through out this post.

#5- Upper Deck Final Edition- This is a really tiny set that you can probably find for $1.00 on Ebay.  Sure there will be shipping, but they are seriously ridiculously cheap.  How many copies of this set did Upper Deck print?  I am going to guess many many thousands.  Anyway, it's Upper Deck's first stab at an "Update" set and it's not too good except two cards.  First, there is a Jim Thome rookie card in the set.  They also put in a Pedro Martinez rookie card.  Classic also had a Pedro rookie card in 1991, but the vast majority of the Pedro rookie cards appear in 1992 products.  Having a rookie card of one of the best pitchers from the era is a definite plus and makes this set worth owning.

#4- Fleer Ultra Update- The Ultra Update set is a lot like the Upper Deck Final Edition set, but with one huge difference.  It is actually a 1991 product with a somewhat limited print run.  Fleer distributed this product in set form and made it a Hobby only product.  I think it was a pretty crazy idea at the time, but it has seriously made this set more difficult to collect then others of this era.  While there are good rookie cards in the set of Ivan Rodriguez, Mike Mussina, and Jeff Bagwell there are also some other cards which have good value and collectability like the Juan Gonzalez card.  Second year card, but it's hot.  Why?  Not sure.

#3- Studio- This was a really unique set at the time of it's release.  While there were a lot of products that were trying to go high end with foil packaging and different card stocks Studio changed some of the basics of baseball cards.  Studio did that, but there were other changes too.  First, the pictures are black and white head shots.  Is there another set like this?  No.  Really unique.  Flip the card over and there are no stats.  Mark McGwire likes Whitney Houston.  Consider me shocked and disappointed at the same time.  Not the most expensive set, but a really fun product to open from packs.  Or just buy the set and enjoy the pictures.  Either way you're going to be happy.

#2- Topps- Always been a really underrated Topps set in my opinion.  There are not any really great cards in this set, nor Earth shattering design, but there is some really good photography here.  There are a lot of action shots and the staged shots are done really creatively.  Always loved that Benito Santiago card.  This is also the last Topps set before Topps started using thinner card stocks with progressively more and more gloss.  Kind of an end of era set and one that is fun to flip through and look at.  If you don't own this set it is cheap and fun to put together as boxes often sell for less than $10 on Ebay.

1991 Stadium Club- The Topps answer to Upper Deck and quite well done.  The photography was cool, the packs were foil, and the cards were glossy.  These cards also cost a dollar per pack pack in 1991, so they also match Upper Deck's SRP.  Lots of great cards in this set, so I went with the cool Nolan Ryan tuxedo card.  After it's 1991 debut Stadium Club was a staple of the Topps product line for more than a decade.  As a collector during the 1990s is was nearly impossible to not dabble in Stadium Club every year.  Like all of the rest of the products on this week's list you can find packs and boxes of Stadium Club for next to nothing on Ebay.  Fun boxes to open.