It's The End Of January 2009 As We Know It....

.....and I feel fine. I'm also closing in on almost five months since I bought a pack of baseball cards. The boycott is going well, and the only reason that I'm mentioning it today is that I found myself in Target this afternoon with four packs of Upper Deck products in my hand. I had a pack of X, Documentary, Timeline, and SP. I was this close to buying them.

But then I remembered that I already have the Tigers' X set, so I put that pack back. Then I remembered that I usually don't care for SP, so I put that pack back. By that point I remembered that I was boycotting buying packs, so I threw the other two packs back too. 

All was not lost though, as I left Target with the dvd for U2's Under A Blood Red Sky, which will be coming out of the wrapper and going into the computer sometime this evening. 

However, I was curious about the Documentary and Timeline issues, so I googled them to see what I was missing. As it turned out, I wasn't missing much. Two more extremely bloated card sets. But in reading one blogger's review, I came across a comment that shocked me.

You mean to tell me, there are people who film themselves opening packs of cards, just so they can post a video to youtube when they pull a really expensive card? Are you fucking kidding me? Again, are you fucking kidding me??? I'm sorry to go all potty mouth in what I try to make a kid friendly blog, but that is the most fucking ridiculous thing I have ever heard of. 

Is that really where this hobby has gone? Is that what's driving away collectors who truly enjoy set building, but can't because each pack of 6 cards has to have two lame inserts so that some dipshit named Dougie can show all of cyberspace when he pulls a 1 of 1 insert card of Jed Lowrie?

Unfuckingbelieveable......

I feel a whole lot better for putting those packs down and walking away. It's only fitting that the first song on the dvd as I cue it up is Out Of Control.

1994 Bowman's Best

I figure I'll knock out one tonight and this is as good as any. This is basically Bowman's version of Topps Finest, ripping off all the elements of the early Fleer Ultra cards. They had that lame ass numbering system where instead of numbering them 1-180, they numbered them B1-B90 and R1-R90. (B equalling Blue, for rookies, and R equalling Red, for veterans) Then there were some numbered X, but since I've never seen one, I'd just be talking out my ass to go any further.

At one time this was THE Tony Clark RC to own, but that time has long since passed. These are just flat out crappy.

The 1994 Bowman's Best Detroit Tigers:

B6 Justin Thompson

B16 Danny Bautista

B62 Tony Clark

R32 Cecil Fielder

R61 Travis Fryman

X108 Travis Fryman

1994 Bowman

Ok, another year of Bowman, another list of Tigers I have no recollection of! Phil Stedham, Joe Perona, David Mysel, and Keith Kimsey, come on down! Grab a seat next to Brian Edmondson, last year's defending champion who is making a return this year!

Oh well, you knew what you were getting into when you were collecting Bowman cards. Despite my dislike of foil stamping and my sort of dislike for cards without borders, this is a nice looking set. It had the rookie card of one of the all-time Tigers good guys, Tony Clark. 

But it also had the first pics of the Tigers after they added those god awful thick stripes to their road uniforms that made them look like race car drivers. The orange bill road caps were horrendous too. To this day I like the script "Detroit" on the jerseys, but the rest of that uniform was a mess.

The 1994 Bowman Detroit Tigers:

13 Chad Kreuter

28 Matt Brunson

41 Sean Bergman

69 Cecil Fielder

97 Danny Bautista

125 Mickey Tettleton

181 Mike Henneman

204 Phil Stidham

209 Tony Clark

237 Lou Whitaker

265 Brian Edmondson

293 Eric Davis

321 Chris Gomez

372 Justin Thompson FOIL

397 Tony Phillips

425 Rick Greene

453 Joe Perona

481 Jose Lima

509 Alan Trammell

537 David Mysel

561 Keith Kimsey

565 Mike Moore

621 Travis Fryman

649 Justin Thompson

677 Tim Belcher

The JT FOIL card was the only insert (don't get me started on short printing base set cards...). Like Finest, there was a "pre-production" set that was issued in Stadium Club packs. These looked similar to the regular issue, but with the cooler rainbow foil instead of the gold.

8 Tony Clark

1994 Topps Finest

Year two of Topps Finest was a lot like year two of Stadium Club. Everybody who missed the boat the debut year before went out and bought these en masse, and Topps kept right on making more. (FTR, I still have never even seen a '93 TF card, hence why I missed blogging about them. What did they make, like a hundred of each card?)

The metallic finish gives it a cool look, but I question a set called "Finest" that includes Mike Moore, John Doherty, and Tim Belcher.

The 1994 Topps Finest Detroit Tigers:

34 Mike Henneman

80 Eric Davis

83 Mike Moore

108 David Wells

159 Alan Trammell

178 Tony Phillips

219 Cecil Fielder

228 Travis Fryman

277 John Doherty

281 Mickey Tettleton

301 Tim Belcher

364 Lou Whitaker

388 Chad Kreuter

398 Bill Gullickson

435 Danny Bautista

The only insert in the actual Finest packs were the parallel refractor cards. There were "pre-production" inserts in Series 2 of regular Topps which looked just like the base cards, of which there was one Tiger.

159P Alan Trammell

1994 Stadium Club

It was 11 degrees here today. This morning I got up and balanced my check book while downloading cds to my computer. I went out and ate chinese food for lunch. I then went to Borders and picked up a couple of books out of the clearance bin. One by Al Franken, the other a Not For Tourists guide to Chicago. I spent less than $6 total. Then I headed over to FYE, where I contemplated picking up a used 2-cd set of the remastered version of The Joshua Tree, but I decided to pass. From there on to a check cashing place where I cashed my $95 expense reimbursement from last month. Now I'm sitting in my apartment watching the second half of the Memphis Tigers' game against those bozos wearing orange.

That's how little I care about Stadium Club. In fact, from now on this is the new format I'm going to use for Stadium Club. 

The 1994 Stadium Club Detroit Tigers:

25 Cecil Fielder

50 Skeeter Barnes

73 Chris Gomez

99 Mike Moore

155 Danny Bautista

184 John Doherty

192 Mickey Tettleton

209 Eric Davis

309 Travis Fryman

331 Alan Trammell

351 Scott Livingstone

370 Bill Gullickson

401 Mike Henneman

411 Chad Kreuter

443 Lou Whitaker

458 Joe Boever

474 Mike Gardiner

535 Quick Start Cecil Fielder

553 Tony Phillips

582 Tim Belcher

617 David Wells

660 Junior Felix

679 Juan Samuel

There were a couple of insert sets.

Super Teams:

20 Detroit Tigers

Draft Picks:

13 Cade Gaspar

25 Mike Darr

63 Dave Kauflin

As soon as this game is over I'm probably going to make a beer run. 

1994 Topps

I like the '94 Topps set if for no other reason than it was the last one where gold foil stamping was not used as part of the base set design.  This was also the first year of the high glossy coating. You can tell this was likely the first year that The Topps Company started using a Mac for design and layout by the multiple vignette gradiations used in the home plate shaped border and the bottom crawl line. The "cursive" writing is a nice touch, ever though it is almost identical to '93 Upper Deck.

Topps also came up with a lot of clever designs for the subsets. The Future Star card with the computer chip background, the Draft Pick card with the scout's clipboard, and the Coming Attractions card with the movie screen motif were all well done and were far and away better than anything they had done with subsets in years past. The only drawback to these cards are the pathetic Tigers who graced them.

I don't think Fuduric ever sniffed the big leagues. JT was an injury bust whose biggest career highlight was striking out Ray Lankford in the 1997 All-Star game before being a part of the Juan Gonzalez trade. Bergman pretty much stunk it up everywhere he went, but Bautista had a nice little career as a 4th OF (batting .583 in the 2001 World Series for the D'Backs). Oh well, this would not be the first time that the future of the Tigers turned out to be lousy.....

The 1994 Topps Detroit Tigers:

19 Scott Livingstone

48 Tony Phillips

75 Alan Trammell

105 David Wells

133 Mark Leiter

162 Bob MacDonald

190 Cecil Fielder

228 Kirk Gibson

257 Chad Kreuter

285 Travis Fryman

313 Future Star: Justin Thompson

342 Danny Gladden

371 John Doherty

410 Lou Whitaker

438 Mike Henneman

448 1b Prospects: Shawn Wooten

467 Joe Boever

488 Eric Davis

495 Mickey Tettleton

523 Mike Moore

552 Bill Krueger

561 Skeeter Barnes

588 Rich Rowland

626 Chris Gomez

654 Bill Gullickson

682 Storm Davis

711 Greg Gohr

757 Draft Pick: Tony Fuduric

768 Coming Attractions: Danny Bautista and Sean Bergman

Topps made no changes to their approach to inserts in '94. The gold foil parallels and Black Gold inserts were the only ones issued. (Although they may have issued some in factory sets that year, but I don't know because I don't have any...)

Topps Black Gold

5 Cecil Fielder

6 Travis Fryman

The Traded set was short and sweet, which is surprising because Fleer's Update set had 8 players, with no Ingram card. 

30T Riccardo Ingram

32T Tim Belcher

89T Junior Felix

1993 Upper Deck

I didn't think I was ever going to get to these. These are one of my all-time favorite 90's sets. Top 5 material. So many great cards and themes in this set. Upper Deck had the knack for pulling off the cheesy subsets, but without making them look cheesy. I offer up the Motown Mashers card as exhibit A.

Upper Deck was still doing the team checklist cards with the great paintings on the front, which I always though looked better than the Dick Perez paintings over at Donruss. This is just a great card of Travis Fryman. 

This base card of Rico Brogna is one of the all-time best Tiger cards. I have always thought it was cool as hell how they lined up the photo so that the OED on his cap replaced the D in the UPPER DECK crawl across the top of the card.

The 1993 Upper Deck Detroit Tigers:

46 Motown Mashers

63 Scott Livingstone

68 Frank Tanana

86 Mickey Tettleton

95 Mark Leiter

162 Milt Cuyler

195 Tony Phillips

217 Rob Deer

251 Dan Gladden

273 Lou Whitaker

364 Travis Fryman

378 John Kiely

386 Rico Brogna

398 Bill Gullickson

403 Mike Henneman

446 Rick Greene

455 Travis Fryman - Peter Gammons By The Numbers

499 Cecil Fielder - RBI Champion

512 Mike Moore

530 Bill Krueger

532 Alan Trammell

564 Cecil Fielder

601 Mike Munoz

633 Tom Bolton

685 Greg Gohr

699 David Wells

757 John Doherty

766 Kirk Gibson

836 Team Checklist

Hell, I even love the card of Mark Leiter looking like he just watched a Mark Leiter start....

There were a lot of insert cards, but Upper Deck was still banging out great looking cards with those too. I can't seem to find any info on this Travis Fryman card, other than it was from a set called Diamond Gallery, and it was card #25, but I don't know if it was an insert set or something else. But it looks cool too. The scan doesn't do the hologram justice.

Clutch Performers

R9 Cecil Fielder

Home Run Heroes

HR 3 Cecil Fielder

Iooss Collection

WI23 Cecil Fielder

On Deck

D11 Cecil Fielder

1993 Score Select

This is another one of those stupid Score sets that was absolute crap and everybody knew it when it came out. For starters, just what in the hell was "Select" about it? There were 405 base cards, 162 insert cards, and 150 Traded cards. By my rough count that's over 700 cards. Not very "Select" in my book. That ratio of base cards to insert cards is something Topps would be very proud of. 

The 1993 Score Select Detroit Tigers:

20 Cecil Fielder

44 Travis Fryman

60 Mickey Tettleton

85 Bill Gullickson

112 Lou Whitaker

138 Mike Henneman

166 Milt Cuyler

186 Rob Deer

218 Tony Phillips

230 Alan Trammell

244 Dan Gladden

298 John Doherty

306 Kurt Knudsen

320 Scott Livingstone

335 Phil Clark

398 Frank Tanana

There was an update set, and it's a shame I don't have any of these because these were three of my favorite Tigers from that era of crappiness.

1993 Score Select Rookie & Traded: 

80T Chris Gomez

92T Eric Davis

113T David Wells

Now for the insert cards. I think the card pictured above speaks volumes about the overabundance of insert cards. Tony Phillips. This may be the card where the ship sailed on insert cards being "special." 

1993 Select Chase Stars

13 Cecil Fielder

1993 Select Stat Leaders

27 Cecil Fielder

31 Cecil Fielder

37 Tony Phillips

I guess it could have been worse. They could have put Cecil Fielder on another insert card instead of TP.

You know the worst part about this set. They don't really look all that bad. This could have been one of Score's nicer sets. 

1993 Pinnacle

Everything I said about 1992 Pinnacle applies here. All of it. 

Except.....

Just this week there was a discussion about the quality of Jack Morris' bad 'stache in the Detroit Tigers Forum at Worldcrossing.com (see sidebar). I think this pretty much ends all discussion. At least now I can see what exactly he was trying to cover....

The 1993 Pinnacle Detroit Tigers:

26 Cecil Fielder

52 Mickey Tettleton

79 Travis Fryman

106 Scott Livingstone

114 David Wells

193 Milt Cuyler

202 Mike Moore

240 Rico Brogna

264 Rich Rowland

287 Phil Clark

333 Dan Gladden

352 BIll Gullickson

353 Alan Trammell

385 Mike Henneman

406 Tony Phillips

407 John Doherty

429 Eric Davis

472 Jack Morris Now & Then

509 Lou Whitaker

547 Bill Krueger

615 Greg Gohr

There were a slew of insert sets. The only one I have is not even listed in the checklist book I am using, so I don't know much about it.

Cooperstown Card

28 Cecil Fielder

Slugfest

3 Cecil Fielder

30 Travis Fryman

Team 2001

10 Travis Fryman

1993 Score

Now that the holiday season is over and most of the resolutions have been broken (I'm not buying any packs or boxes of 2009 cards, but that's for another entry...) it's time to get back to blogging about Detroit Tigers baseball cards!!!

Which makes it such a shame that 1993 Score is where I left off. They went from the one end of the spectrum to the other with this design. I prefer the cleaner more visually appealing look of this more than any other Score set, but then they went and screwed it up by squishing the letters on the players' names to where they are almost illegible. I have to hold one of these right in front of my face to read the player name. Maybe they were just getting us ready for Topps use of goil foil.

The 1993 Score Detroit Tigers:

11 Travis Fryman

31 Cecil Fielder

60 Mickey Tettleton

82 Milt Cuyler

114 Rico Brogna

166 Mike Henneman

196 Scott Livingstone

207 Dan Gladden

215 David Haas

228 Mike Munoz

264 Kurt Knudsen

283 Rich Rowland

313 Alan Trammell

353 John Doherty

366 Mark Carreon

442 Gary Pettis

596 Lou Whitaker

614 Tony Phillips

636 Rob Deer

643 Bill Gullickson

652 Frank Tanana

Score really scaled down the operation in 1993, only releasing a few insert sets.

Boys Of Summer

17 Rico Brogna

30 Rich Rowland

Franchise

6 Cecil Fielder

They didn't even bother with an update set, so neither will I!