1992 O-Pee-Chee Premier

Je n'ai rien l'original pour dire de cette série. Donc je serai péniblement unclever et le dis français.

L'O-Pee-Chee Premier Tigres de Détroit:

11 Danny Gladden

31 Alan Trammell

48 Mark Leiter

56 Scott Livingstone

70 Cecil Fielder

80 Eric King

88 Mark Carreon

126 Pete Incaviglia

174 Paul Gibson

Paul Gibson? Oui.

Lou Whitaker? Non.

 

Ma bonté! Remercier des cieux que je suis fini avec 1992!

1992 Upper Deck

I swore I was not going to do another Upper Deck set while under the influence.

I lied.

I like these. I really do. But I must draw this blogging session to a close.

The 1992 Upper Deck Detroit Tigers:

74 Rico Brogna

96 Team Checklist Cecil Fielder

184 Tony Phillips

251 Mickey Tettleton

255 Cecil Fielder

271 Pete Incaviglia

273 Alan Trammell

294 Rob Deer

317 Bill Gullickson

319 Mark Leiter

339 Mike Henneman

453 Rusty Meacham

466 Travis Fryman

468  Lloyd Moseby

470 Skeeter Barnes

487 John Cerutti

489 Paul Gibson

516 Lou Whitaker

520 Walt Terrell

536 Milt Cuyler

538 Scott Livingstone

601 Jerry Don Gleaton

605 Frank Tanana

643 Travis Fryman Best Infield Arm

647 Cecil Fielder Best Power

737 Dan Gladden

739 Mark Carreon

There were some inserts.

The Inserts:

Scouting Report

SR14 Scott Livingstone

Home Run Heroes

HR2 Cecil Fielder

Ted Williams Best

T5 Cecil Fielder

The first person to post a comment about the Mark Carreon photo that makes me laugh will win something to be determined sometime later. Probably a beer sometime next summer in Pittsburgh.....

Thank in advance for playing.

1992 Pinnacle

Score decided they were going to join the big boy club with their own high end set in 1992, and they didn't do a bad job with these. But from a printing standpoint, all they did was throw a gloss coating on a regular card, so these aren't really all that high end, unless you consider the sticker price on these packs.

I like these better than their base set, what with the black and orange motif, but there's not much else to like about these. No interesting design, no interesting player selection, no interesting nothing. Even the Team 2000 insert set is uninteresting. There's not even a goofy photograph to make fun of. 

Yawn.

The 1992 Pinnacle Detroit Tigers:

4 Cecil Fielder

29 Lou Whitaker

87 Bill Gullickson

110 Travis Fryman

113 Alan Trammell

164 Mike Henneman

174 Milt Cuyler

190 Walt Terrell

198 Frank Tanana

218 Skeeter Barnes

226 Mickey Tettleton

243 Tony Phillips

318 Dan Gladden

348 Rob Deer

354 Scott Aldred

441 Mark Carreon

490 Scott Livingstone

503 Eric King

513 John Doherty

579 Trever Miller

598 Shawn Hare

Egads! I picked up the one insert card I have from this set out of a commons bin. I had no idea there were that many more! 

Rookie Idols:

17 Chad Curtis and Alan Trammell

Slugfest:

1 Cecil Fielder

Team 2000:

4 Travis Fryman

44 Milt Cuyler

Rookies:

4 John Doherty

1992 Score

I'll never understand the logic behind the odd border combinations of Score's sets. At my age I spend far too much time looking for my car keys in the morning to devote too much time to thinking about things like this. So it will probably always remain a mystery. But in '92, Score came back to give us a decent looking set, weird border colors not withstanding. 

The Ty Cobb tribute card is the best Tigers card Score ever made, period. Hell, I'd collect a whole set of HOF cards that looked like that.

The 1992 Score Detroit Tigers:

26 Milt Cuyler

50 Cecil Fielder

56 Rob Deer

65 Travis Fryman

134 Mickey Tettleton

179 John Cerutti

217 Mike Henneman

242 Bill Gullickson

255 Lou Whitaker

261 Paul Gibson

271 Frank Tanana

306 Pete Incaviglia

355 Walt Terrell

375 Jerry Don Gleaton

394 Mark Salas

395 Rusty Meacham

414 Scott Livingstone

453 Tony Phillips

468 Lloyd Moseby

515 Alan Trammell

537 Andy Allanson

543 Dave Bergman

569 Skeeter Barnes

626 Mark Leiter

729 Scott Aldred

825 David Haas

828 Shawn Hare

831 Dan Gakeler

878 Ty Cobb Tribute

There was a bloated 90 card insert set of "Impact Players." Hard to fathom that there could be 90 cards of "Impact Players", but it's true. Just in case you think I am lying, Milt Cuyler, Anthony Young, and Eddie Zosky are in this set. As I like to say on occasion, there you go.

4 Milt Cuyler

47 Travis Fryman

60 Cecil Fielder

One of these days, I'm going to go on ebay and buy a Score Rookie and Traded set for each year, because it seems that I never did, and then bundle up all the non-Tigers by team to trade to other folks like me.

The 1992 Score Update and Traded:

28 Dan Gladden

37 Mark Carreon

42 Eric King

81 John Doherty

1992 Triple Play

Just to make sure the kids didn't go a wanting in '92, Donruss released a set specifically marketed for them, and it says here that they did a great job. The fiery borders somehow work here. The player selection is ok for a 264 card set. I vaguely remember that you could put this whole set together for under $10. (That would explain why I am missing a few of these....) So despite my ragging on Donruss for their previous childish designs, it's ok to do so in my book as long as the cards are cheap and made for kids to begin with.

The 1992 Donruss Triple Play Detroit Tigers:

29 Cecil Fielder

44 Mickey Tettleton

86 Travis Fryman

99 Awesome Action Tony Phillips

100 Milt Cuyler

117 Lou Whitaker

161 Bill Gullickson

176 Alan Trammell

218 Tony Phillips

249 Frank Tanana

Now to perhaps one of the best baseball cards ever. Check out the "Awesome Action" card of Luis Polonia stealing second base on the Tigers. Now look at the second picture of the ump calling Polonia out while the ball is clearly above Phillips's head. Now look at what it says on the back of the card.

Awesome. Simply awesome. They even let the kids write up the backs too. How could anybody not like these?

1992 Studio

Donruss did a much better job with their second year of Studio cards than they did with their first. The metallic gold borders and grainy sepia tone photo were both innovative in '92. Unfortunately, there isn't much else going on here. Unless you count the photo of the dad from Seventh Heaven on Frank Tanana's card. You don't think that's him? Look at the t-shirt. Enough said.

The 1992 Studio Detroit Tigers:

171 Milt Cuyler

172 Rob Deer

173 Cecil Fielder

174 Travis Fryman

175 Mike Henneman

176 Tony Phillips

177 Frank Tanana

178 Mickey Tettleton

179 Alan Trammell

180 Lou Whitaker

1992 Leaf

Some sets don't really give you much to work with, and this is one of those sets. They used the metallic silver again to excess and didn't do much with the design. The parallel cards look much much better, but again, gold foil over black doesn't scan worth a shit, so you won't see much here.

The 1992 Leaf Detroit Tigers:

21 Frank Tanana

40 Tony Phillips

61 Bill Gullickson

75 Milt Cuyler

127 Scott Livingstone

153 Cecil Fielder

172 Alan Trammell

193 Rob Deer

207 Mark Leiter

239 Dan Gladden

259 Mark Carreon

285 Mickey Tettleton

304 Travis Fryman

325 Mike Henneman

386 Kevin Ritz

391 Lou Whitaker

402 Les Lancaster

496 Chad Kreuter

There was another Gold Rookies insert set that was pretty ho-hum. The cards themselves don't look that great, but the picture of John Doherty makes him look like a bad ass flame thrower, which he never was. If I had the card I would post it, but I don't, and I can't find a decent scan on ebay.

BC24 John Doherty

1992 Donruss

I like to refer to these as Donruss' comeback set. Ok, I have never actually referred to these as Donruss' comeback set, but I would like to. Donruss leapt ahead of most of their competition in base sets in 1992. You can tell that desktop publishing was really starting to take off around this time. The gradiated blue borders (green on The Rookies of course...) really are a nice, simple touch to these. 

Donruss also figured out that the gold foil worked much better as an accentuation on their Diamond King inserts, which were the best looking DK's every produced. The cards are printed on a nice thick white card stock with a glossy finish. While this is not one of my favorite Donruss issues, it at least showed that they were done appealing to kids with their base set. Consider this a springboard to some of the fantastic cards they produced in the mid-90's.

The 1992 Donruss Detroit Tigers:

42 Andy Allanson

85 Mickey Tettleton

111 Frank Tanana

131 BIll Gullickson

164 Alan Trammell

206 Cecil Fielder

232 Milt Cuyler

253 Mike Henneman

285 Milt Cuyler

328 Tony Phillips

349 Travis Fryman

375 Paul Gibson

443 Lloyd Moseby

486 Scott Aldred

512 Mark Salas

532 Rob Deer

565 Walt Terrell

607 Jerry Don Gleaton

633 Mark Leiter

675 Scott Livingstone

709 John Cerutti

749 Skeeter Barnes

DK-25 Tony Phillips Diamond King

This was the last year of The Rookies as we would know them. If that didn't make you shed a tear, perhaps the list of Tigers will do so:

17 Rico Brogna

33 John Doherty

44 Buddy Groom

48 Shawn Hare

62 Kurt Knudsen

1992 Fleer Ultra

Hands down my favorite set of 1992. Everything about these look great. The marble background. The embossed look of the bars with the player and team name, in team colors. Even the gold foil, which I absolutely despise, looks great. (used to accentuate and not the focal point of the design, as it should be......) Even the backs look better than most card designs of the last 20 years. (I LOVE the 3D look to the Tigers' logo.) Fleer knocked one out of the proverbial park with this issue.

The 1992 Fleer Ultra Detroit Tigers:

56 Dave Bergman

57 Milt Cuyler

58 Rob Deer

59 Cecil Fielder

60 Travis Fryman

61 Scott Livingstone

62 Tony Phillips

63 Mickey Tettleton

64 Alan Trammell

65 Lou Whitaker

358 Skeeter Barnes

359 Mark Carreon

360 John Doherty

361 Dan Gladden

362 BIll Gullickson

363 Shawn Hare

364 Mike Henneman

365 Chad Kreuter

366 Mark Leiter

367 Mike Munoz

Never before this moment right now did I know that there were any Tiger insert cards in this set, which is a shame. The All-Stars set was every bit as elegant as the base set. maybe even more. I am going to have to hunt this puppy down on ebay. Maybe even tonight.

5 Mickey Tettleton

Note: I just checked ebay, and there are none. As gorgeous as those All-Star cards are, I can certainly imagine why....

1992 Fleer

1992 was just another year in a long line of lackluster releases by Fleer. Boring cards with those hideous metallic spearmint green borders. I think this was the same color as the Buick Skylark in My Cousin Vinny. When the best you can do is reference Lane Smith's best performance, it's time to move on.

The 1992 Fleer Detroit Tigers:

127 Scott Aldred

128 Andy Allanson

129 John Cerutti

130 Milt Cuyler

131 Mike Dalton

132 Rob Deer

133 Cecil Fielder

134 Travis Fryman

135 Dan Gakeler

136 Paul Gibson

137 Bill Gullickson

138 Mike Henneman

139 Pete Incaviglia

140 Mark Leiter

141 Scott Livingstone

142 Lloyd Phillips

143 Tony Phillips

144 Mark Salas

145 Frank Tanana

146 Walt Terrell

147 Mickey Tettleton

148 Alan Trammell

149 Lou Whitaker

692 League Leaders Cecil Fielder

705 Super Star Special Cecil Fielder

715 Team Checklist

There wasn't too much special going on with the inserts either. You can see that gold foil doesn't scan all that great. Have I mentioned that before?

Rookie Sensations:

7 Milt Cuyler

Fleer All-Stars:

9 Mickey Tettleton

Lumber Company:

1 Cecil Fielder

2 Mickey Tettleton

Team Leaders:

6 Cecil Fielder

Nice, big, but still boring, Update set:

19U Rico Brogna

20U John Doherty

21U Dan Gladden

22U Buddy Groom

23U Shawn Hare

24U John Kiely

25U Kurt Knudsen

If you read this far to tell me that Mike Dalton's card is not in the Update set, then leave me a message telling me so. As luck would have it , I don't have any of the Update cards, except for the one insert card that was included in the factory set. Which begs the question, how can you really have an "insert" card if you put one in every set? But I'm not in a begging mood tonight, so screw it.....

'92 Headliners:

4 Cecil Fielder

1992 Bowman

Topps did with the '92 Bowman set what they did with the '91 Stadium Club set, except continuing to load it with prospect cards. If you blinked you missed this set though and once Mike Piazza burst on the scene that was all she wrote for finding these on the cheap. Outside of Justin Thompson's RC however, there was nothing special about the Tigers in the set. 

Unless you count the foil card of Team USA player Rick Greene, the card of a supposedly 26 year old Riccardo Ingram, (I think that's Rico Carty trying to sneak in a comeback...) and the fantastic card of Kevin Ritz giving the signal to the catcher of what pitch he just threw, while the ball was one its way towards home. Of course with Ritz, you know that ball didn't stick around home plate for long....

The 1992 Bowman Detroit Tigers:

3 Scott Livingstone

37 Travis Fryman

90 Cecil Fielder

111 Mark Carreon

117 Mickey Tettleton

164 Riccardo Ingram

170 Ivan Cruz

196 Milt Cuyler

229 John DeSilva

246 Joe Perona

256 Rico Brogna

272 Tony Phillips

317 Eric King

345 Tarrik Brock

363 Rob Deer

419 Kevin Ritz

441 Mike Henneman

453 Greg Gohr

476 Mark Leiter

515 Chad Kreuter

518 John Doherty

543 Justin Thompson

558 Bill Gullickson

639 Lou Whitaker

690 Alan Trammell

Add Ingram, Perona, and Brock to the list of Tigers I have no recollection of. What a collection of no recollections that group is becoming too.

1992 Stadium Club

I have zero fond memories of this set. Topps suckered everybody baaaaaaad with these cards. After the frenzy of '91 Stadium Club being impossible to find, Topps produced somewhere in the trillions of these, yet kept the $3 a pack sticker price. I distinctly remember buying a Series 1 box of these for $90. I kept those cards up until just a few years ago, when I gave them to a friend of mine. I think you can pick up a set of all three series for around $20 if you look around hard enough. Not only did they produce a NINE HUNDRED CARD premium set, but they look very similar to the year before too. (Almost identical on the back). This was Topps greed at its finest.

The 1992 Stadium Club Detroit Tigers:

5 Milt Cuyler

34 Mike Henneman

59 Travis Fryman

71 John Cerutti

92 Rob Deer

119 Bill Gullickson

139 Walt Terrell

171 Dave Bergman

195 Mickey Tettleton

223 Paul Gibson

238 Andy Allanson

250 Cecil Fielder

276 Dan Gakeler

317 Scott Livingstone

337 Kevin Ritz

362 Dave Haas

384 John Kiely

416 Frank Tanana

441 Mike Munoz

465 Shawn Hare

488 Tony Phillips

508 Rich Rowland

526 Jeff Kaiser

550 Lou Whitaker

585 Skeeter Barnes

638 Eric King

678 Mark Carreon

762 Scott Aldred

801 Danny Gladden

850 Alan Trammell

889 Mark Leiter

1992 Topps

For the second year in a row, Topps produced an outstanding set. I personally prefer the '91's over these, but there were several improvements that put these right up there with them. First and foremost was changing to the all white card stock. For the first year ever, Topps cards flat out popped when you pulled them out of the packs. 

Another thing they did that I loved was bringing back the multi-player prospects cards. I don't know whether it's the fact that Trammell, Whitaker, Parrish, and Morris' rookie cards where all this way, or just the fact that it's cool to get four rookies on one card, (although with Bowman in full swing you didn't necessarily get four...) but whatever it is I like them. I'd like to see them used more today. But with the goofy rules involved now with rookie cards, I imagine they are a thing of the past.

The 1992 Topps Detroit Tigers:

29 Mickey Tettleton

120 Alan Trammell

126 Rico Brogna

143 Paul Gibson

167 Andy Allanson

198 Scott Aldred

221 Skeeter Barnes

272 Jerry Don Gleaton

293 Mike Henneman

319 Tony Phillips

354 Dave Bergman

381 Spark Anderson

397 Cecil Fielder All-Star

425 Cecil Fielder

441 Rob Deer

458 Frank Tanana

472 Rich Rowland

487 John Cerutti

508 Bill Gullickson

522 Milt Cuyler

537 Mark Leiter

570 Lou Whitaker

621 Dan Gakeler

656 Rudy Pemberton

665 Dave Haas

679 Pete Incaviglia

684 Trever Miller

685 Scott Livingstone

722 Walt Terrell

750 Travis Fryman

Topps also introduced the full-blown parallel set in '92 (I'm not counting the Desert Storm cards of '91, because...well....if you have to go to Iraq to get them then they aren't real parallels....) with not one but two variations of their base card. One version had gold foil over the player and team name and were randomly inserted in packs. The second version looked the same as the first, but had the word "Winner" in foil as well. You got these by playing some sort of scratch off game. A co-worker of mine at the time had these by the bushel as he would throw the game cards on a light table to see where the winning scratches were.

They issued their most popular traded set in years. Unfortunately I never got one. These babies were pricey before the Nomar Garciaparra card exploded into the stratosphere. But at least I have a Trever Miller Draft Pick card I can show.

21T Mark Carreon

24T Phil Clark

41T Danny Gladden

44T Rick Greene

I thought Topps and O-Pee-Chee had split ways in '91, and I was wrong. I only have this one card, but it is numbered the same as his Topps base card. Since it is a higher number than most OPC sets usually contain, I am going to assume that the entire set contains the same checklist as its Topps counterpart. 

1991 Upper Deck

I can see already that Upper Deck is getting a bad shake in this deal. As I like to blog about a year per night, usually with beer, I find myself getting increasingly sloppy by the time I get to their cards each year. I'll address this in my final post this evening.

Upper Deck was stuck in a rut nonetheless. I have a hard time telling their first few years cards apart, which is a shame, since they were always at the top end of the spectrum. These really are great looking cards, but again, they didn't seem to have much going on with regards to originality. They just seem to keep moving home plate around. 

But, they do have that error card of Frank Tanana with Larry Wilcox's picture......

The 1991 Upper Deck Detroit Tigers:

7 Scott Aldred

45 Team Checklist - Jack Morris

73 Rico Brogna

131 Tony Phillips

201 John Shelby

203 Lance McCullers

205 Mark Salas

223 Alan Trammell

225 Travis Fryman

241 Scott Lusader

244 Cecil Fielder

316 Dan Petry

318 Mike Heath

320 Walt Terrell

336 Jack Morris

338 Steve Searcy

340 Larry Sheets

367 Lou Whitaker

369 Frank Tanana

386 Mike Henneman

389 Chet Lemon

412 Gary Ward

556 Milt Cuyler

559 Lloyd Moseby

579 Paul Gibson

599 Dave Bergman

676 Jeff Robinson

High Number Series:

726 Rob Deer

729 Mickey Tettleton

747 Pete Incaviglia

There was one insert card. Much like Donruss, it wasn't much of an insert card, it was just numbered differently. Oh, and it had a pretty bat. A silver bat. With white stars.

SS12 Cecil Fielder Sliver Slugger

Upper Deck also released an extra end of the year boxed set, the Final Edition. This was in addition to the high number series they already released. So I guess this is like the the second Update edition. Either way, that's a cool card of Livingstone.

44F Rusty Meacham

53F Scott Livingstone

82F Cecil Fielder

1991 Score

I am completely speechless. For anybody who knows me, that is no small feat. Judge for yourself. I'm just going to throw them anywhere at this point.

The 1991 Score Detroit Tigers:

38 Tony Phillips

40 Alan Trammell

112 Mike Heath

114 Jack Morris

129 Jeff Robinson

133 Lloyd Moseby

142 Mike Henneman

152 Paul Gibson

168 Cecil Fielder

176 Larry Sheets

297 Lou Whitaker

313 Lance McCullers

316 Jerry Don Gleaton

328 Frank Tanana

395 Cecil Fielder All-Star

434 Dan Petry

557 Chet Lemon

562 Dave Bergman

570 Travis Fryman

609 John Shelby

629 Darnell Coles

637 Gary Ward

649 Steve Searcy

693 Cecil Fielder Master Blaster

740 Scott Aldred

741 Rico Brogna

756 Phil Clark

770 Cecil Fielder Highlight

801 Walt Terrell

852 Alan Trammell

There was an Update set too and I don't have a single card. So I'll post this Walt Terrell card.

3T Pete Incaviglia

25T Mickey Tettleton

40T John Cerutti

47T Rob Deer

56T Bill Gullickson

1003 total cards in this amazingly bad set. 

Speechless I say. 

Speechless.

1991 Studio

Wow. Where to begin. Somebody at Donruss was dating someone at Olan Mills and voila! Studio!! I graduated HS in 1986, and I swear that 99% of the guy's senior pics in my yearbook look exactly like Lloyd Moseby's. Sadly, the other 2 pictures look just like Rob Deer's. (and Wyatt Earp's...) I will not be posting my own picture at this time.

The 1991 Studio Detroit Tigers:

51 Milt Cuyler

52 Rob Deer

53 Cecil Fielder

54 Travis Fryman

55 Bill Gullickson

56 Lloyd Moseby

57 Frank Tanana

58 Mickey Tettleton

59 Alan Trammell

60 Lou Whitaker

1991 Leaf

Year 2 of Leaf gave us these uninspired cards. It sort of looks like the cards are supposed to look like they are pictures in a photo album. A photo album full of lead paint maybe.

A great shot of things to come from Milt Cuyler though.

I can't imagine how pissed off if I would be if I were not a Tigers fan and I bought a pack of these high end cards and pulled a Jerry Don Gleaton......until I look at the Brewers checklist and see Kurt Knudsen. Suddenly I'm not so pissed anymore.....

The 1991 Leaf Detroit Tigers:

4 Tony Phillips

18 Mike Henneman

55 Paul Gibson

92 Dave Bergman

106 Cecil Fielder

120 Lou Whitaker

135 Jerry Don Gleaton

149 Travis Fryman

187 Steve Searcy

223 Lloyd Moseby

237 Rob Deer

251 Milt Cuyler

270 John Cerutti

322 Mickey Tettleton

351 Alan Trammell

366 Pete Incaviglia

402 Bill Gullickson

455 Andy Allanson

497 Frank Tanana

Leaf also added a boring insert set called Leaf Gold Rookies, which included Nolan Ryan and Rickey Henderson. No, I do not make this stuff up.

BC11 Rico Brogna

As we will see in the many years to come of Topps products, gold foil does not scan worth a damn. It pretty much shows up as black.

EDIT: Thanks again to Jon for this one.

1991 Leaf Previews:

18 Cecil Fielder