1990 Upper Deck Baseball stickers

May it first be noted that this, being the fifth post of 2012 on TDTC, marks the passage of lasts year's post mark of four! Progress! Here, now is Upper Deck's 22 year old foray into team stickers. Shiinneee...These actually scanned surprisingly well, considering how hard it is to see them. Best I can tell, these were inserted one per pack of 1990 Upper Deck.

A Pirates sticker here-Each sticker is a little bit like "A history of MLB logos". Pirates fans, did that particular scalawag have any sort of nickname/existence as a team mascot? Jess wonderin'...

St. Louis Cardinals sticker. The back of the sticker is a blank white back. Yawn...I actually have a nice stack of these hologram stickers-maybe I could use them as trade package throw-ins. Unfortunately I do not have the Braves version of this sticker-anyone care to help me out there?

This card is sorta creepy. Apparently Chief Wahoo has gone...3-D! Considering this was 1990, this is like, bangin', cutting-edge technology! Amazing! (Looking back, Mr. Cardinal seems to have this 3-D form too. Cool, I guess. (Picture 1990 kid pulling Mr. Wahoo here: "Buzz Hype, yo! Man, that is clean!!!")

Last, I post a Cubs card. I posted this mostly because I have like 5 of them I don't really care for. (Picture afore-mentioned 1990 kid: "I have like, five of these Cubs hologrammies. Buzz kill, man!)Any diehard Cubs fans want these? (I know you're out there.)

So there you have it. 1990 Upper Deck hologram stickers! I frankly have no idea what a kid in 1990 would have done with these. They're not by any means something you stick on your car bumper (though that would look awesome to have the entire back of your car a giant hologram, ...right?) They're just...shiny. Huh. Well, anyway, 1990 UD holograms, everybody! (Let's bounce on outta heah, ya'll!)

Spring Training Is Here!

Quite a few baseball cards depict players in spring training. This is for two reasons: First,

it is easier for photographers to get close to the players when they are playing meaningless games than when they are, and also to get shots of players in new uniforms (See 2008 Tampa Bay Rays Upper Deck cards) or posed shots for various sets. The alternative for this second reason is airbrushing, which is a whole 'nother story.

Along with this rather random Trot Nixon card, here is an interesting poem I came across that seemed appropriate for today.

William Carlos Williams, "At the Ball Game" (from Spring and All)

At the Ball Game

The crowd at the ball game

is moved uniformly

by a spirit of uselessness

which delights them--

all the exciting detail

of the chase

and the escape, the error

the flash of genius--

all to no end save beauty

the eternal--

So in detail they, the crowd,

are beautiful

for this

to be warned against

saluted and defied--

It is alive, venomous

it smiles grimly

its words cut--

The flashy female with her

mother, gets it--

The Jew gets it straight--it

is deadly, terrifying--

It is the Inquisition, the

Revolution

It is beauty itself

that lives

day by day in them

idly--

This is

the power of their faces

It is summer, it is the solstice

the crowd is

cheering, the crowd is laughing

in detail

permanently, seriously

without thought

We're underway with the 2012 baseball season everyone! Go Braves!

1991 UD Comic Cards 2

Let us delve into a pack of cards I received as part of a "Non-Sport" purchase.

Taz gives Reggie a high-five.  Each card features a title ("Seventh Inning Stretch" here), the Looney Tunes and UD logos and some kind of picture.  Sometimes, the pictures are of actual people.  Other times, well, it's just looney.

Every card ties the Looney Tunes cast into a baseball-related scenario.  The backs of the cards feature trivia questions with answers.  What was the name of the LAST Bugs Bunny cartoon to be released in theaters?  No, really, without Google.  Go ahead.  Okay, fine, it was in 1964 and it was "False Hare." Happy now?

I'm not sure if you put the cards in order they would tell a story. Judging by the dialogue, I would have to guess yes.  Judging by the talking bubles, I'd have to say the writers are probably out of work these days.  Well, most folks are out of work at UD these days.

This appears to be the title card.  Reggie and Nolan are smiling all the way to the bank.  Though, I'm not sure just how many of these packs were actually sold.  You can see the "photoshop" technique employed with multiple layers, masking, and more.

Do you see that!? Dupes. In a single pack, I get dupes.  Yeesh.

"So, Nolan, you're one of the greatest pitchers ever, right?  Well, we'd like to take some pictures of you pretending to talk to Bugs Bunny.  Yes, I said Bugs Bunny. Hello?  Hello, Mr. Ryan?"

*This post appears in a three-way cross-posting between "APAD," "A Pack To Be Named Later," and "Things Done to Cards."

"But is it art"? (2007 UD Masterpieces)

Upper Deck did a nice turn in 2007 with these pastoral, brushed-up cards. Available in slim packs of 4 (corrected from 6), UD Masterpieces captured memorable moments on roughened, canvas-like stock with gold foil framing. Loaded with parallels and other inserts as modern sets often are, I see its artful look as competing with Topps' 2006 resurrection of Allen & Ginter.

2007 UD Masterpieces (Ryan Howard and Chipper Jones):


2006 Topps Allen & Ginter (Ryan Howard auto & Chipper Jones):


My handful of cards came from a Wal-Mart repack, but I enjoyed the artistic style enough to consider buying more. (As a 99% vintage collector, not many current-day sets grab my attention.) People willing to pony up for a hobby box can score unusual cards like 5"x7" inserts, black borders, and other curiosities. Back in 2007, A Pack A Day blogged their box break live and included a number of nice scans; the affecting "Lou Gehrig Day" is my favorite.

2007 UD Masterpieces reverse:


OK, there's one obvious weakness, the repeated back photos. I assume the painting "treatment" came from a reusable series of Photoshop filters, so why not pick out a nice player profile shot and run them again? Adding more variety would nail it and could even be superior to A&G's "foggy nostalgia" look.

UPDATE: As noted in the comments, I assumed incorrectly--the pictures used are real paintings and thus closer to "art" than one might suspect. What to do about the backs, then? They still seem unnecessarily repetitive. How about a painting of the home park for all members of a given team?

More UD Masterpiece links!

• About.com's review of 2008 UD Masterpieces
• All Masterpiece-related posts from "A Pack A Day" (includes hockey and football)
  
• eBay search for "2007 UD Masterpieces"
  

1998 Upper Deck Craig Biggio

This is one of the cards I recently received from Spiff over at the Texas Rangers Cards blog. It was one of a hefty box of Phillies and Astros he sent. I'll be refilling the box with Rangers cards for him.

I have other examples of cards like this but this one was at hand.

I love these cards where the back photo is a continuation of the play from the front of the card. Biggio was a great at second base. You can see the concentration as he throws the ball to first to complete the second half of a double play as Wally Joyner bears down on him.

I imagine for this type of card, the photographer has his camera on autowind and just holds the shutter button down until the play is over.

I know I have a two cards where the one card features the fielder and the other card features the runner with different shots of the same play. I think it's in the 1993 Upper Deck set. If I ever find them I'll post them.

2004 Upper Deck First Pitch - Pitch, Hit, and Run

I cannot believe it has been four years (this being written in 2008) since my son participated in the 2004 Pitch, Hit, and Run contest that was held in our town. He did well enough to make it to the regionals in Houston, but decided he didn't want to go. That turned out to be a shame because we were told he would have been the ONLY contestant in his age group. I find that hard to believe, but whatever.

At the contest, there were stacks of these sheets laying on a table. They were free for the taking. I wish I had been a lot more greedy than I was. I snagged two untorn sheets and left a LARGE stack behind.


The cards came in a set of six and are perforated, should one wish to separate them. The only thing that distinguishes these cards from regular 2004 UD First Pitch cards is the white home-plate logo with "Pepsi" above it. The home-plate logo is the Pitch, Hit, and Run. Though there are six cards, only five players made the cut: Garret Anderson, Torii Hunter (An Arkansan), Mike Piazza, Sammy Sosa, and Frank Thomas. The sixth card is one that features a child pitching, hitting, and running and the back has a place for the contestant to record his/her results from the contest.

I had actually forgotten all about these until my last post about the 'vette cards. These are in the same binder as those. It's finds like these that should serve as a reminder to all of us that we need to break open our binders every once in a while and take a trip down memory lane...

1999 Upper Deck Powerdeck

A baseball card as a CD-ROM.

Upper Deck produced these in 1999 and 2000. An eternity ago in computer terms. The base set consisted of these cut down CDs. They were cut down so they would fit in a pack with normal sized baseball cards. There were a few insert sets. You got two of these in a pack along with 1 or 2 insert cards.

I've always had a Macintosh at home and, even though it was supposed to be compatible with a Mac, I've always been afraid to put the thing into my CD-ROM drive. So I've never seen what's on the disk.

If you're a computer geek, check out the minimum requirements for playing this disk: Pentium processor-based PC. 133 MHz, 12 MB of available RAM, Windows 95/98 or NT 4.0. QuickTime 3.0 extension for Windows (included), 16-bit color display monitor (required). Sound Blaster card, 4X or faster CD-ROM drive. In those days, a computer like that just screamed with power.

2003 Upper Deck Post

What to make of this?

Over the years, Post Cereal has produced many different sets of baseball cards. They used to actually come in a box of cereal, sometimes with a redemption coupon to get the whole set for a bunch of boxtops. In 2003, Post produced a 31 card set, which came in a little box. The cards were actually made by Upper Deck. I don't know how Post distributed them. I got three sets in repack boxes. They used to sell these boxes in Toys R Us, where packs of cards were glued (with extremely strong glue) to a cardboard box (with just sides) and then the box was put into another box which had windows on the side so you could see what packs you were going to get. There was also a special surprise in the interior which you couldn't see. I got a few weird baseball things in those boxes.


These Post cards were pretty nice and featured all the big stars.

I got this odd card in one of the sets. I have no idea of what its supposed to be. My guess is that the cards were printed on a sheet which held 32 cards but since the set only had 31 cards (what, they couldn't find one more player who was good enough?), the blank space had this rainbow thing. Since only one of the sets I got has this, I'm sure it wasn't supposed to get in the box. You can't tell from the scan but the rainbow has a solid white border.

The best part about it is that it has the Upper Deck holographic logo on the back, which, of course, is the only way to tell it's the back.

Serious Hang Time

While going through my boxes of older cards, picking out cards for trades, I was stopped in my search by this card. I just want to know two things. How did Jose Lind get that high? I don't see any trampolines or wires. Plus, which direction was Jose going? If Jose was moving towards Spanky LaValliere, there could be a painful collision momentarily. Either that, or Jose felt compelled to ride Spanky like a horse.

Maybe Jose was inspired by those old westerns in which the hero jumps from danger by exiting a second story window onto his trusty horse below. I always thought that was a bit cruel to the horse. I wouldn't want anyone I'm friends with jumping ten feet above me onto my back. I'd probably injure my spine.

The photo reminds me of a quote from Mel Brooks' film Robin Hood: Men In Tights. Isaac Hayes is speaking to Cary Elwes about his son Dave Chappelle. There's nothing really dirty about the quote but it's very suggestive, so I won't type it here. Fans of the film already know what I'm talking about. "... or is it the other way around?"

Any way you slice it, this is a pretty awesome picture that probably should've been on the front of the card.

2005 UD Mini Jersey Collection Replica Jersey

A card that's, well, it's not really a card.

This came in a pack of 2005 UD Mini Jersey Collection. These $7.00 packs had three cards and a mini-replica jersey.

The cards themselves were nothing special, but the mini jersey is pretty cool. And, in the only pack of this that I bought, I got Ken Griffey Jr.

The center part (not counting the sleeves) is about the size of a conventional card. The front
features little snaps. I suppose you could fit it on one of your G.I Joe action figures or something similar.

The question is, what do you do with something like this? It's not going to go into an album sleeve very easily. My solution was to mount it in a small frame and display it with my other non-baseball card baseball memorabilia.

As near as I can tell, Upper Deck only issued a baseball version of this set in 2005. But looking on eBay, it appears that Upper Deck is still publishing the hockey version. I looked through 5 pages of auctions and all the auctions were for hockey jerseys.

Man Down!

I know that this is a picture of Brian Downing's follow through. It almost looks like he's trying to down a football or praying to the baseball gods in some bizarre ritual.

What exactly was going on in this photograph? Was this a home run or a high towering pop up? Did Brian swing and miss... badly? Did he think that placing one knee on the ground would stop the play? We may never know.

Judging by the way Brian looks in the photo, I'd say it was likely the he popped the ball up and out of play. No one teaches swings like that anymore. Yet, Brian was in the majors for close to two decades. This is a guy who was 1 for 1 in his 1979 All-Star Game appearance, which was his only trip to the mid-season classic.

Brian was on his way out when this photo was taken. He still hit a respectable .278 in 1991, in 123 games. It was probably swings like this that limited his playing time to nineteen years, which is nothing to sneeze at.

The Rangers would be Brian's last stop in the majors. He is probably best known for being an Angel, but he also put in five years with the White Sox at the beginning of his career. I'm happy that someone captured this image on a card. If it didn't exist, who would believe that Brian Downing dragged his right knee on the ground during his swing?

1994 Upper Deck Fun Pack

In the early 1990s there were several attempts to interest kids in collecting cards again. Topps had Topps Kids (1992), Donruss had Triple Play (1992-1994) and Upper Deck had Fun Pack (1993-1994).

These cards went in for cartoon images, popular players, trivia questions, pictures of players when they were kids, team mascots and bright colors. I think these cards are mostly forgotten now although I guess there are probably people in their early 20s who look back fondly on them. I look back fondly on them because I bought them even though I was far from being a kid in 1994.

This Ken Griffey, Jr. card was part of a subset in the 1994 Fun Pack set. The card background is a drab black color. But the coating is heat-activated. When you press your finger on it, the coating becomes clear and a cartoon stadium background appears. I suppose that this little piece of magic will only work so many times but my Griffey card still works after 14 years.

The back of the card explains that Ken is serious "when the game is on the line" but "is all fun beforehand". It appears that someone (Jay Bruner?) is throwing a pie ("one of the games oldest pranks") at Griffey. On the left side is a guy with a camera and another player busting a gut laughing.

1991 Upper Deck Comic Ball 2

I like to buy repackaged baseball cards. For example, the Target near me sells these packages of cards distributed by The Fairfield Company. It's made of virtually indestructible clear plastic and contains 150 cards. You can usually see 6 of the cards in the package and they usually shuffle a few star players into view. The package I'm looking at now for example shows a 2004 Fleer Inscribed card of Andy Pettitte as an Astro. This year's Fairfield package is a bit different in that, in addition to individual cards there are also whole packs. I can see 2007 Topps Opening Day, 2003 Upper Deck First Pitch and I think there are 2 packs of 1989 Topps in there. I will admit that of the 150 cards in this package, I'll probably throw away more than half, maybe even 75%. Or perhaps I'll start making a Menger Sponge out of them.

But sometimes you get a real gem. I don't know exactly where I got this Nolan Ryan card but isn't it great (although the giant carrots are a bit scary)? According to the 2007 Sport Collector Digest Baseball Card Catalog, the set has 198 cards and features 18-card sequences which tell a baseball story. I only have this one card. The story, of course, must be "Field of Dreams".

And on the back, a trivia question!

1994 Upper Deck #140 - Jose Canseco

I'm not sure I ever want to find out what Jose Canseco was doing with a shovel. I know that I don't want to find out why Upper Deck felt compelled to put this image on a baseball card.

Was this the method in which Jose introduced steroids into the clubhouse?

"Raffy, let me shovel you a fresh batch of juice."

It may have been an intimidation tactic on Jose's part. Would you deny a man who was about to bean you upside the head with a dirty oversize shovel?

"Would you like an injection in the butt or a shovel across your skull?"

You'd be surprised how many said "shovel across the skull." If you said "injection in the butt", then maybe you have a career filled with tape measure home runs in your future. A not so distant future filled with cheers and highlight reels. There's no need to worry about the distant future. The good times will never end, guaranteed.

Well, everything that's "fun" must come to an end sometime. The excess of the nineties, led to the prudish behavior of the 21st century. Steroids may begin and end with Jose Canseco, but the other players didn't have to follow his advice.

OK, I've changed my mind. I want to know what the hell Jose is doing with that shovel!

1992 Upper Deck #SP4 Frank Thomas - Tom Selleck

A card from 1992 with Frank Thomas on it? That's pretty common. A card with Tom Selleck on it? That's a little less common. Did Magnum P.I. even have trading cards? Probably. A card with Frank Thomas and Tom Selleck on it? OK, that's probably even less common. They're both wearing Yankees uniforms? OK, I give.

Actually it's an Upper Deck short print card featuring a scene from the movie Mr. Baseball. Unless something monumental happens, I guarantee this will be the only time you will see Frank Thomas in a Yankee uniform.

This was a card that I have never owned. Not because it's not a White Sox card. Mostly because it was hard to find when it first came out. The dealers who had it, wanted a fortune for it. I can find this card for under a dollar now, but I just haven't been motivated enough to purchase it. It would be a tacked on card on a big order.

Mr. Baseball is one of my guilty pleasure movies. It has been on cable all week. I've caught it three times, but never at the beginning. I always seem to catch it when he gets to Japan. Even though I've seen the movie dozens of times, I still stick with it when I run across it. It's hard not to like this movie.

It's more realistic than Major League and more plausible than Rookie Of The Year or Little Big League. Plus, it's less sappy than Angels In The Outfield. You can pretty much sit me in front of any baseball movie and I'll be entertained. Mr. Baseball seems to get lost in the mix. Tom Selleck is pretty believable as a superstar forced to play in Japan. It also has a Major League movie connection in Dennis Haysbert. He's the one who played Pedro Cerrano in Major League.

The truth is that I've known about the card since 1992. I just keep forgetting about it. With my obsessive collecting of the White Sox and any card of Harold Baines and Carlton Fisk, a Frank Thomas card featuring him fictionally on the Yankees is not a top priority. It doesn't mean that I will never obtain it. It's just not an absolute must have. I have other team sets and cards that I'm seeking that have a higher "now" value than this Frank Thomas/Tom Selleck card.

If they ever come out with cards featuring the players from the movie Major League, I'll be all over that! Until then, this Mr. Baseball card will suffice.

1991 Upper Deck Hologram - Hank Aaron

I found this card in a pack of Upper Deck when I was a kid. This was probably my second best find in Upper Deck packs that year. My first would be the Michael Jordan card in a White Sox uniform. This was always a close second though.

I loved Hank Aaron as a kid. Whenever I would find a card of him in a new product, a huge smile would come across my face. He was the Home Run King! He was better than Babe Ruth! I'm afraid kids may be saying the same thing about Barry Bonds right now.

I was always hungry to find out everything I could about the history of the game. Any book about the past or the oddities in baseball, I would devour as soon as I got my hands on it. I found out everything I could about past heroes. I loved the way Hank Aaron went about his business. He didn't get caught into the same traps that some of his peers got into. He just showed up and quietly went about his business. I admired that about him.

This was the first card of Hank Aaron's that made me feel like I was at one of his games. I guess it was the 3-D effect that made me feel that way. Whatever it was, it made this card seem special. It always stood out to me, even when some of my friends were less than enthusiastic.

I'm also a sucker for older uniforms. They seem interesting to me. These Braves uniforms stand out, as well as the Astros and Pirates from this era. All that older cards do now is make me remember how I felt the first time that I saw that particular card. When I first laid eyes on this, I thought it was the coolest card of Hank Aaron I had ever seen. It may not be the coolest card ever of Hank, but it was the coolest card of him from 1991.