1995 Upper Deck SP

I keep forgetting this game is tied. I blame beer and Roy Halladay. But like any true denier (yeah, I made that word up...), I blame somebody....

Regular readers know what I think SP stands for. Irregular readers may dig through the blog to find out why. Or else eat more prunes and lots of Soy Joy bars....

The 1995 Upper Deck SP Detroit Tigers:

16 Tony Clark

152 Chad Curtis

153 Lou Whitaker

154 Alan Trammell

155 Cecil Fielder

156 Kirk Gibson

Ok, there is a DIE-CUT insert card. That must be cool (end sarcasm, as someone in the printing business die-cutting is not that big of a deal, especially nothing this simple....)

PP10 Cecil Fielder

There is also a parallel set that looks just like the 

GRANDERSON HITS A TRIPLE!!!! WHOO-HOO!!!!!

base set, but instead of red, it's silver. Whoopty doo.

GRANDERSON SCORES THE GO AHEAD RUN!!!

1995 Upper Deck Collector's Choice

Nice job by Edwin Jackson with the 1-2-3 inning!

I'm a fan of the big cheap sets and this one is no different. Simple, clean, and easy enough to build. They all should be like this. Well, except for the pink Tony Clark card...

The 1995 Upper Deck Collector's Choice Detroit Tigers:

16 Tony Clark

51 Cecil Fielder

465 Travis Fryman

466 Danny Bautista

467 Sean Bergmann

468 Mike Henneman

469 Mike Moore

470 Cecil Fielder

471 Alan Trammell

472 Kirk Gibson

473 Tony Phillips

474 Mickey Tettleton

475 Lou Whitaker

476 Chris Gomez

477 John Doherty

478 Greg Gohr

479 Bill Gullickson

There were a couple of parallel sets that aren't worth mentioning, so I will. One had a silver foil signature on the front, the other had a blue foil border. There was an insert called Crash The Game, which I don't have, but will gladly list.

6 Cecil Fielder

It turns out the parallels were not a total parallel, but a shortened set, so I'll list them too. 

217 Kirk Gibson

218 Lou Whitaker

219 Chris Gomez

220 Cecil Fielder

221 Mickey Tettleton

222 Travis Fryman

223 Tony Phillips

1995 Upper Deck

Going to the 5th and the NL is up 3-2. Mass substitutions have begun. HEY MLB, I'VE GOT AN IDEA ON HOW TO MAKE THE ALL STAR GAME MORE INTERESTING. HOW ABOUT LETTING THE STARTERS PLAY AT LEAST FIVE INNINGS? 

I like this set. Very clean, crisp, minimalist design. Upper Deck liked it so much that they pretty much duplicated it in 2008. After that horrible 1995 set, these were a welcome issue.

The 1995 Upper Deck Detroit Tigers:

184 Chris Gomez

185 Travis Fryman

186 Kirk Gibson

187 Mike Moore

188 Lou Whitaker

189 Sean Bergman

227 Tony Clark

233 Bobby Higginson

249 Rudy Pemberton

421 Greg Gohr

422 Felipe Lira

423 John Doherty

424 Chad Curtis

425 Cecil Fielder

426 Alan Trammell

They did the Electric Diamond parallel sets again, this time with a silver or gold foil stamped "home plate" in the upper corner of the card. I've only got a few of the inserts and one of them is only a checklist. Another is that lousy looking "Special Edition" set. 

I vaguely remember the Predictor inserts being game cards that if the player did something related to the statistic listed on the front you could win a complete set. I'm guessing Cecil Fielder didn't do that. Oh well, here are the inserts that I know of: 

Checklist

1 Cecil Fielder

Predictor

R13 Cecil Fielder

R32 Cecil Fielder

Special Edition

95 Cecil Fielder

96 Alan Trammell

97 Tony Phillips

98 Junior Felix

229 Chad Curtis

230 Lou Whitaker

231 Kirk Gibson

232 Travis Fryman

Joe Mauer has tied the game at 3 with an RBI double. Sweet! 

1995 Pinnacle Zenith

I laugh at the goldbricks pictured on the cards. Score/Pinnacle could not have left any more of a subtle hint. Unfortunately that's all I can laugh about with these. 

The 1995 Pinnacle Zenith Detroit Tigers:

15 Cecil Fielder

66 Kirk Gibson

105 Travis Fryman

131 Bobby Higginson

Obama is a Steelers fan? Now the NL has tied it up! I hate Score/Pinnacle! I'm done here!

1995 Score Select Certified Edition

Pujols error leads to the AL's first run in the top of the first. Lincecum fails to cover first and now it's 2-0 AL. Tim McCarver can't quit using the word buoy. NL goes 1-2-3 in the bottom of the first. So far this is fun!

Ok, I'll give credit where credit is due here. These have an interesting look with the bronze shadow silhouetting the player and the black and white background. But with only 135 cards in the whole set, why bother? Oh well, at least Gibby is actually on his own card with this Score issue. Maybe that's why these are certified?

The 1995 Score Select Certified Edition Detroit Tigers:

40 Travis Fryman

45 Kirk Gibson

47 Cecil Fielder

102 Bobby Higginson

1995 Pinnacle

Sheryl Crow singing while the Batplane flys over. Yawn. At least the introduction of all the Cardinals Hall Of Famers was cool. Always neat to see Stan The Man. Cool to see President Obama too, but did he have to wear that god awful jacket? LOL, I never knew he was a lefty. Who woulda thunk it?

This is not a great looking set, but not so horrible that it's worth complaining about, and there are still more Score/Pinnacle set to go, so I'll save it. Again, these remind me of Stadium Club cards, and I never thought they were so hot either. It's a full set, at least by 1995 standards, so there, I said something good.

The 1995 Pinnacle Detroit Tigers:

15 Danny Bautista

42 Junior Felix

69 Chris Gomez

117 Lou Whitaker

124 Travis Fryman

130 Milt Cuyler

148 Jose Lima

184 Cecil Fielder

209 Tony Phillips

338 Eric Davis

349 Kirk Gibson

379 David Wells

392 Alan Trammell

I can't find any info that there were any inserts or parallels with this one, which seems odd, but with something this mediocre, that's a good thing.

1995 Score Summit

As I sit down to write tonight I'm listening to the player introductions of the All Star Game. It's fantastic to see the Tigers' future core representing the team tonight. Congrats to Curtis Granderson, Brandon Inge, Edwin Jackson, and Justin Verlander. (who pitched his no-hitter on my 38th birthday!) Much like baseball cards, the All Star Game ain't as much fun as it was when I was a kid, but I still enjoy it. So while I'm in good spirits, I'm going to knock out the rest of the 1995 Score/Pinnacle issues. I'll do my best to stay positive in my review of these cards.

These cards suck. Yet another unneeded and uninspiring issue by the folks at Score. Or Pinnacle. Or whatever the hell they called themselves back then. Either way, this is another crappy short set that's rookie heavy. (although I think Bowman beat them to every one of these Tigers rookies years earlier.....) Nothing about the design or player selection really stand out here. 

The 1995 Score Summit Detroit Tigers:

57 Cecil Fielder

91 Travis Fryman

109 Kirk Gibson

134 Bobby Higginson

153 Rudy Pemberton

160 Shannon Penn

166 Todd Steverson

About the only interesting thing with this set is a handful of uncorrected errors involving Tigers. Pemberton's card has the Dodgers' logo foil stamped on it while Penn's card has a Cubs' logo. Meanwhile there are Tiger logos stamped on the cards of Antonio Osuna and Ozzie Timmons. If I could've picked the pair that I wished had been Tigers, it'd be Osuna and Timmons, but that's like saying I would prefer a Stroh's over an Old Style. Either way, you lose.

There only inserts were a parallel set called the Nth Degree that were a sort of speckled foil thing. These don't look as cool as the scan makes them look. I find that to be a case with a lot of foil cards. Maybe I should just scan them all. 

I'm no math expert, but N = 0 here.....

1995 Score Select

Two of the things I dislike most about card sets are horizontal designs and small sets, and this set has both of those covered.  These don't look awful though. The selection of players is interesting. No Trammell, Whitaker, or Tettleton, but there are cards of Danny Bautista and Chad Curtis.

I have never noticed this until this moment right now. The action photo on Gibby's card is of Tettleton. Well I'll be.....

The 1995 Score Select Detroit Tigers:

25 Kirk Gibson

31 Danny Bautista

96 Cecil Fielder

132 Travis Fryman

184 Chad Curtis

205 Jose Lima

What? 

Stop!

Lima Time!

Whoa-oh-oh-oh-whoa-oh-oh!!!

1995 Score

It's about 95 degrees in my apartment as I type this around 6 pm. I left Memphis because of heat like this. But I'm sipping a cold beer and settling in the for the first game of the Tigers - Cubs series, so it's not all bad. 

I guess I had pretty much given up on Score by 1995. I only have a handful of these. I remember thinking these were atrocious back then, but they really don't look so bad now. Of course I was on a steady diet of paxil, xanax, and Bud Light in 1995, so that might explain it a little bit, but that's a story for another day. The earth tones of the borders have a nice mellow look. 

The 1995 Score Detroit Tigers:

18 Junior Felix

49 Tony Phillips

78 Mickey Tettleton

94 Kirk Gibson

116 Chris Gomez

148 Mike Henneman

174 Mike Moore

203 Joe Boever

231 John Doherty

259 Milt Cuyler

292 Jose Lima

322 Series 1 Checklist

341 Travis Fryman

373 Lou Whitaker

383 Alan Trammell

398 Cecil Fielder

406 Eric Davis

484 Tim Belcher

496 Danny Bautista

504 Chad Kreuter

526 David Wells

527 Juan Samuel

594 Phil Stidham

It looks there there were a couple of parallel sets (Gold Rush and Platinum) that have just been given more mention than they deserve. 

I only have one insert card, from a set called Hall Of Gold.

HG49 Mickey Tettleton

HG50 Tony Phillips

HG79 Travis Fryman

HG82 Cecil Fielder

1995 Leaf Limited

So it's been six weeks since my last entry and in that time I have not been able to come up with anything to say good or bad about these cards. I guess I'll leave it at that.

The 1995 Leaf Limited Detroit Tigers:

25 Chad Curtis

52 Travis Fryman

93 Alan Trammell

106 Bob Higginson

139 Cecil Fielder

142 Lou Whitaker

I don't think I have ever cared for these little card sets that don't even give you a full page of Tigers. There, that's something.

1995 Leaf

This is a sweet looking set. The rainbow foil comes off the card really well. This might well be the best looking Leaf set to date. I can't say anything good about the foil stamped player name at the bottom, so I won't.

The 1995 Leaf Detroit Tigers:

9 John Doherty

35 Chris Gomez

63 Cecil Fielder

78 Kirk Gibson

113 Jose Lima

139 Greg Gohr

178 Lou Whitaker

207 Travis Fryman

224 Alan Trammell

248 Danny Bautista

254 Sean Bergman

278 Mike Moore

297 Chad Curtis

I only have one insert and it's fabulous. The best part is that the scan is about a million times better looking than the actual card. In real life, the border is a silverish looking color. But the scanned version actually makes it look like a 3D rainbow orange tiger skinish sort of thing, which totally rocks! Seriously, the card I'm holding in my hand looks nothing like the one pictured.

Cornerstones

2 Fryman/Fielder

1995 Studio

One cool thing about Studio is that they were always trying to do something not seen on cards before. These are no exception. Yeah, they're a little bit schlocky, but as a one-time issue I like 'em. The credit card motif works and lends itself well to the info on the front of the card like the debut year and birthday. 

The 1995 Studio Detroit Tigers:

27 Travis Fryman

45 Cecil Fielder

53 Chris Gomez

70 Chad Curtis

80 Lou Whitaker

98 Alan Trammell

191 John Doherty

This is one of the few cases where the parallels turned out better than base set. Technically, they are not parallels, since they didn't do this for every player, but trust me, they're parallels.

The Gold and Platinum series were a no-brainer for something credit card related. I like the rounded corners and the gold foil hologram pops a lot more than the silver base set cards. Personally I would have like to seen an insert set along the lines of Past Due or Credit Declined, but that's just me speaking from personal experience.....

Gold

27 Travis Fryman

45 Cecil Fielder

As Platinum cards typically designate something exclusive and hard to get, it should come as no shock that there were no Tigers in the Platinum set. (FTR is looks like about half the teams didn't land a single player in the Platinum set.)

1995 Donruss

I would be tempted to rank this as one of the best looking sets Donruss ever made. It could be right up there with '83, '84, and '93. It's got the great looking picture-in-picture similar to '83 Topps, except with an outstanding home plate frame bordered in team colors. But I can't do it, and regular readers will know exactly why. 

The silver foil absolutely ruins these cards. Making it even worse, the debossing of the team and player names makes them virtually unreadable. It's not hard to imagine how much better these cards would look if the ribbon was dark blue, with the team and player names reversed out in orange. Or vice versa. Instead it's all to easy to see how they add nothing to a fantastic design. What a shame.

The 1995 Donruss Detroit Tigers:

45 Lou Whitaker

82 Travis Fryman

109 Cecil Fielder

137 Jose Lima

154 Mike Moore

172 Chris Gomez

219 Chad Kreuter

249 Danny Bautista

257 Kirk Gibson

274 Milt Cuyler

309 Junior Felix

312 John Doherty

339 Tim Belcher

362 Joe Boever

407 Tony Phillips

434 Bill Gullickson

465 David Wells

502 Alan Trammell

506 Juan Samuel

537 Mickey Tettleton

Donruss issued a parallel called Press Proof, that looked just like the regular cards, except they were gold foil instead of silver, and had the words PRESS PROOF written across the top of the card. They did not look any better. 

1995 Fleer Emotion

One of the unsung joys I have received from blogging about Tigers cards is getting to see cards and sets that I completely forgot existed. For me, collecting from the mid-90's to the mid-00's usually meant going to a card store or two (when they were still around...) and sorting through common bins for an hour or two. I'd get home; crack open a beer; sort them all into the appropriate year, make, and model; file them away in plastic pages; and promptly forget about them.

This is one of those sets. I don't remember anything about these. Being a mid-90's set of course the front is all cluttered up with unreadable foil stamping, but the ghosted orange background really adds a nice original look to the set. I admit that the big lettered "emotion" printed makes checking them all out pretty good for a laugh. I've listed each "emotion" with the corresponding card. Enjoy. 

The 1995 Fleer Emotion Detroit Tigers:

41 Chad Curtis - MOVING

42 Cecil Fielder - MIGHTY

43 Travis Fryman - COMPOSED

44 Kirk Gibson - DELIGHTED

45 Bob Higginson - LEARNING

46 Alan Trammell - STEADY

47 Lou Whitaker - SAFE

See? Though ARE funny! And funny is an emotion! Get it?

1995 Fleer Flair

Not much going on here that's different from the other Flair issues, except they turned them on their sides. Here goes.

The Beatles - Here Comes The Sun

Van Halen - I'll Wait

Prefab Sprout - Cruel

The 1995 Fleer Flair Detroit Tigers:

37 John Doherty

38 Cecil Fielder

39 Travis Fryman

40 Chris Gomez

41 Tony Phillips

42 Lou Whitaker

255 Chad Curtis

256 Kirk Gibson

257 Mike Henneman

258 Bob Higginson

259 Felipe Lira

260 Rudy Pemberton

261 Alan Trammell

1995 Fleer Ultra

Quite possibly the least amount of effort ever put into a card design. 

You know what that means around here. Unfortunately I didn't listen to five songs today. Not much effort on my part either.

The 1995 Fleer Ultra Detroit Tigers:

44 Danny Bautista

45 Junior Felix

46 Cecil Fielder

47 Chris Gomez

48 Chad Kreuter

49 Mike Moore

50 Tony Phillips

51 Alan Trammell

52 David Wells

284 John Doherty

285 Travis Fryman

286 Kirk Gibson

287 Lou Whitaker

I only have one insert and it's a doozy. Nothing says cutting edge like a close up of a cleat or a batting glove. The background of this card reminds me of those little puzzles you could get at Stuckey's when I was a kid. You know, the one with 15 squares and one empty hole and you had to slide them around to end up making a picture of a map of the U.S. or some sort of wild animal? Yeah, those....

All-Rookie

2 Chris Gomez

1995 Fleer

One year after issuing one of the best looking sets of all time, Fleer gave the world this mess. This was the year they gave all the teams in each division a similar design. The funniest part about this is that the design of the A.L. East teams was probably the best of the bunch. (Yeah, we were once in that division...)

The 1995 Fleer Detroit Tigers:

44 Danny Bautista

45 Joe Boever

46 Milt Cuyler

47 Storm Davis

48 John Doherty

49 Junior Felix

50 Cecil Fielder

51 Travis Fryman

52 Mike Gardiner

53 Kirk Gibson

54 Chris Gomez

55 Buddy Groom

56 Mike Henneman

57 Chad Kreuter

58 Mike Moore

59 Tony Phillips

60 Juan Samuel

61 Mickey Tettleton

62 Alan Trammell

63 David Wells

64 Lou Whitaker

I've only got one insert card, and it's not bad looking. I like cards that incorporate newspaper themes. But would it have been that much trouble to maybe throw a Tigers headline or box score back there, instead of a Braves-Giants box?

Headliner

9 Cecil Fielder

The Tigers were well represented in the Update set. Unfortunately they were well represented by mediocre to poor players. (Bob Higginson notwithstanding)

17 Sean Bergman

18 Chad Curtis

19 John Flaherty

20 Bob Higginson

21 Felipe Lira

22 Shannon Penn

23 Todd Steverson

24 Sean Whiteside

1995 Bowman's Best

I have a hard time believing that anybody's "Best" set of cards could contain a card of Pat Ahearne. I actually have two of these, and if a certain high school baseball coach shows up for the Tigers series in Pittsburgh next month, the other one is his.

The 1995 Bowman's Best Detroit Tigers:

B20 Tony Clark

B30 Pat Ahearne

B49 Juan Encarnacion

R28 Cecil Fielder

R64 Chad Curtis

R70 Travis Fryman

1995 Bowman

Ah, I love the Bowman. I can totally overlook the piss poor design of any Bowman issue just to be reminded of the piss poor Tigers' prospects who graced these cards. And don't kid yourself, both were piss poor.....

The 1995 Bowman Detroit Tigers:

68 Justin Thompson

78 Cade Gaspar

127 Bob Higginson

167 Sean Whiteside

195 Matt Brunson

253 Tony Clark

302 Travis Fryman

340 Chad Curtis

375 Chris Gomez

416 Cecil Fielder

427 Jose Lima

Who was Sean Whiteside? Anybody?

1995 Topps Bazooka

I never realized until now that Topps issued the Bazooka cards this far back. This looks to be Topps first entry into really cheap cards for kids, but I don't remember enough about these to make that claim officially. Packs of Bazooka cards were always pretty cheap, but at 132 cards for an entire set, I'm guessing here that Topps sort of undershot the mark. What did it take, like $8 to build a whole set? I'm not complaining mind you, but why would anybody release a set of cheap cards with this few cards in the set.

The 1995 Topps Bazooka Detroit Tigers:

12 Cecil Fielder

59 Travis Fryman

101 Mickey Tettleton