1994 Fleer

Drum roll please......

This is undoubtedly my favorite card set of the 90's. With the exception of the foil lettering, these are almost perfect. White borders, full frame pictures, nice unobtrusive team logo, and even the lettering style looks great wrapped around the logo. The beauty really is in the simplicity. 

I remember collecting this set like a mad man in 1994. Back when inserts were still in vogue, this was the first major set that gave you a real insert in each pack. (By my rough count, there were 217 total. Far too many, but nowhere near as bloated as a current Topps base issue...) 

I was something like 5 cards short of a base set when a couple of years later I found a card store selling unopened wax boxes of these for $6. I bought all three of them, finished my set, and probably have close to three quarters of the inserts.

And in all honesty this was probably the last set I collected that I enjoyed doing so. Hard to believe it's been 15 years now.  

The 1994 Fleer Detroit Tigers:

124 Skeeter Barnes

125 Milt Cuyler

126 Eric Davis

127 John Doherty

128 Cecil Fielder

129 Travis Fryman

130 Kirk Gibson

131 Dan Gladden

132 Greg Gohr

133 Chris Gomez

134 Bill Gullickson

135 Mike Henneman

136 Kurt Knudsen

137 Chad Kreuter

138 Bill Krueger

139 Scott Livingstone

140 Bob MacDonald

141 Mike Moore

142 Tony Phillips

143 Mickey Tettleton

144 Alan Trammell

145 David Wells

146 Lou Whitaker

709 Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker Super Star Special

For a set that had 217 insert cards, they sure didn't bother much with the Tigers. I only count 4, but they are great looking as well. Fleer really knocked it out of the park with the inserts too.

All Stars

7 Cecil Fielder

8 Travis Fryman

Major League Prospects

5 Danny Bautista

Team Leaders

6 Cecil Fielder

There is even something special about the Update set, which used the new logo that is still in use today. (I know a lot of Tigers fans who don't care for it, but I don't mind it so much.) I never noticed before now though that Danny Bautista had an insert card in the base set, but no base card, and then a card in the Update set. Interesting.

39U Danny Bautista

40U Tim Belcher

41U Joe Boever

42U Storm Davis

43U Junior Felix

44U Mike Gardiner

45U Buddy Groom

46U Juan Samuel

Whew, is that one tough list to look at. Not hard at all to see how the Tigers would have a losing record for the first of the next twelve seasons to come.....