1996 Fleer Ultra

Past readers know my take on Fleer Ultra, so I won't go into it again. But in honor of that John Flaherty card....

My top 5 favorite Lyle Lovett songs:
Fiona
North Dakota
Church
If I Had A Boat
I've Been To Memphis

The 1996 Fleer Detroit Tigers:
57 Chad Curtis
58 Cecil Fielder
59 John Flaherty
60 Travis Fryman
61 Chris Gomez
62 Bob Higginson
63 Felipe Lira
64 Brian Maxcy
65 Alan Trammell
66 Lou Whitaker
345 Kimera Bartee
346 Greg Keagle
347 Mark Lewis
348 Jose Lima
349 Melvin Nieves
350 Mark Parent
351 Eddie Williams


There was a parallel set. It was gold. If I had a pony, I'd ride it on my boat. (That's not a very flattering pic of Sweet Lou. It's not hard to see that this was the end of the ride for him.)

I only have one other insert. It's a checklist card from Series 2.

2 Cecil Fielder

1996 Fleer

I'm tired of looking at that picture of the homecoming queen at the top of my blog. Time to do something else, even if it's half-assed.

I really dug the '96 Fleer, even if they don't look all that great. The matte finish was a great idea. But the design couldn't have been any worse than it was. I mean, I'm a minimalist and all when it comes to cards, but good grief. This may have been the plainest set in baseball card history. These make '61 Topps look like '90 Topps. (Ok, they don't, but you get the picture.....)

I never realized how much Clint Sodowsky looks like Michael Biehn. From The Abyss. Yeah, that's right....right about the time his starts wigging out.

The 1996 Fleer Detroit Tigers:

105 Danny Bautista

106 Joe Boever

107 Chad Curtis

108 John Doherty

109 Cecil Fielder

110 John Flaherty

111 Travis Fryman

112 Chris Gomez

113 Bob Higginson

114 Mark Lewis

115 Jose Lima

116 Felipe Lira

117 Brian Maxcy

118 C.J. Nitkowski

119 Phil Plantier

120 Clint Sodowsky

121 Alan Trammell

122 Lou Whitaker

There was a parallel set printed on glossy stock that was the same as the regular set.

There was also an update set:

U33 Kimera Bartee

U34 Mark Lewis

U35 Melvin Nieves

U36 Mark Parent

U37 Eddie Williams

U219 Cecil Fielder ENCORE

I have a couple of inserts, I don't know for sure if that's all there were.

Prospect

3 Tony Clark

Team Leader

6 Travis Fryman

The number of former and future Padres on that roster is staggering, and it would only get worse.....

1996 Bowman's Best

You gotta love a 180 card set from 1996 that's called "Best" and only contains TWO Tigers cards....

The 1996 Bowman's Best Detroit Tigers:
5 Cecil Fielder
69 Travis Fryman

...and Cecil was negligible by 1996......

1996 Bowman

I think there are a couple of new readers around here since I blogged about the last Bowman set so I'll reiterate what it is that I love about Bowman sets. I love looking back at the ineptitude of the Tigers' organization to draft and develop talent. I love getting to a Bowman set in the binder just to count the Tigers that I have no recollection of whatsoever and this year's set is no different. I was living in Memphis in the pre-internet days, and the Bowman set was often how I found about who the Tigers prospects were. In almost all cases, it was never good.....

The 1996 Bowman Detroit Tigers:
100 Cecil Fielder
106 Travis Fryman
138 Luis Garcia
162 Greg Whiteman
164 Tony Clark
182 Cameron Smith
214 Justin Thompson
247 Mike Darr
268 Juan Encarnacion
276 Greg Keagle
352 Raul Casanova
358 Richard Almanzar

Add Garcia, Whiteman, Smith, and Almanzar to the list of Tigers prospects I have no memory of. The only reason I remember Darr is that he was killed years later in a car wreck after being traded to the Padres.


There was a lame parallel set that replaced the cool 1968ish Topps patterned background with a solid silver metallic one. (That's the Garcia card, which doesn't scan well obviously.)

1996 Topps Gallery

Ok, last one of the night I promise. But it's felt good to get back into the rhythm of sitting down and blogging. I've been pretty busy for awhile, but I am hoping to get back to a somewhat more regular pace blogging about long forgotten Tigers cards and players. I know, I've said it before, but last year I really started picking up the pace around this time, so I'm sure I can do it again this year too.

I've admitted before, I love bagging on Topps but that I'll give credit where it's due. This is one of those times.

This is a pretty nice looking set. The concept was right on, even if the execution was a little off. The idea of cards with paintings was not new, but the added matte effect of the background was new. Too bad Topps didn't think to add that effect to the player so that it doesn't look like the background was photoshopped, but they would. The Gallery cards in years to come would be among the best issues Topps released.

The 1996 Topps Gallery Detroit Tigers:
32 Travis Fryman
85 Chad Curtis
123 Chris Gomez
138 Tony Clark
160 Cecil Fielder

1996 Topps Chrome

I imagine it went something like this:

EXT: A COLD, BLUSTERY DAY

INT: A BREAK ROOM INSIDE A LIFELESS CORPORATION

Topps Guy #1: You know what? (Unwraps tuna salad sandwich and smells it)

Topps Guy #2: What? (Picks his nose)

Topps Guy #1: You know how those Finest cards are one of our most popular sets? (Talking with a big glob of mayo stuck to his mustache)

Topps Guy #2: Yes. (Notices tomato soup has dripped on his shirt and tries to wipe it off)

Topps Guy #1: Well maybe we could make another set just like them, but instead just use the design of our base set? That way we really wouldn't have to put any extra work into them. (Wipes off glob of mayo with his bare hand and wipes his hand on his jeans)

Topps Guy #2: Ok. (Wipes booger behind ear)

The 1996 Topps Chrome Detroit Tigers:
60 Travis Fryman
157 Cecil Fielder

1996 Topps Finest

The mediocrity of Topps Finest continued in '96 with a slight twist. This was their first issue that was numbered by Calculus majors. There were three different types of cards in the base set, Gold, Silver, and Bronze. These were not parallels, but actual separate cards. Then from these, the backgrounds were then again divided up into subsets such as "Prodigies" or "Franchise" just to name a few. Each card therefore had two numbers. It's number in the base set, and it's number in the subset.

Stupid I know. I will not attempt to list both numbers here (especially since my source for checklists did not number both and I do not own all these cards), but I can provide the G, S, or B designation.


The 1996 Topps Finest Detroit Tigers:
S84 Cecil Fielder
S127 C. J. Nitkowski
B138 Phil Nevin
B152 Travis Fryman
B172 Chad Curtis
S223 Kimera Bartee
G290 Cecil Fielder
B336 Justin Thompson
B344 Cecil Fielder
B356 Tony Clark

There were also the refractor parallels of each card too. Yippee!

1996 Stadium Club

I was one of those folks who went out and bought all the new Beatles reissues last month. I already had all their stuff on iTunes that I'd acquired from here and there over the years, but I'd never actually owned any of their stuff, so I decided what the hell, they're remastered and each has a nice little documentary and booklet included.


I've managed to plow through about half of them now. I'll grab one and listen to it for 2-3 days on my commute. So far my clear favorite is Revolver, followed by Rubber Soul and Please Please Me. It has certainly been a worthwhile purchase in that it's getting me into The Beatles in a way I never had before. I would listen to the songs when they came on shuffle, and I know the hits, but actually listening to the album several times repeatedly and then reading wiki and watching the mini-documentaries on each cd has really been enjoyable.


The 1996 Stadium Club Tigers:
21 Chad Curtis
42 Tony Clark
60 Phil Nevin
84 Sean Bergman
95 Cecil Fielder
145 Chris Gomez
234 Bobby Higginson
302 Felipe Lira
337 Alan Trammell
397 John Flaherty
431 Travis Fryman
445 Steve Rodriguez
170 Bobby Higginson

The "shark's tooth necklace" set. These are awful. These are Stadium Club. I guess there was some sort of parallel set that was a game card that you could fill in the back and send away for a chance to win something. Long story short, I have the Bronze version of Chad Curtis's card.

I have a couple other insert cards too. Whoa boy.

Bash & Burn
9 Chad Curtis

Power Packed
8 Cecil Fielder


After several days of listening to Let It Be, I listened to Let It Be...Naked, which was the original album before Phil Spector doctored it up. Trust me on this one. Don't buy the Phil Spector version. Go get the Naked version. Much better. The Long And Winding Road on the Naked album is fantastic.

1996 Topps

So the Tigers are up by 2 games with 3 games to play. The 2009 season is coming down to the wire and it's nail biting time for Tigers fans. What better time than to look back at 1996 Topps?

This Tigers team was one of the worst teams of all time. Just look at that list of players below. 109 losses. Team batting average of .253. Team ERA of 6.38. No, that's not a typo. 6.38!

Topps pretty much mailed it in that year too. At around 450 cards, this was their smallest base set since the 50's. There was nothing special about the design. There was nothing special about the player selection of Tigers either (although I guess that's not really Topps' fault....). There was nothing special about 1996 period.


The 1996 Topps Detroit Tigers:
42 Sean Bergman
71 Felipe Lira
98 Bobby Higginson
134 Chris Gomez
190 Travis Fryman
202 Chad Curtis
244 Brian Powell
291 John Flaherty
337 Tony Clark
348 Phil Nevin
366 Jose Lima
393 Cecil Fielder
398 C. J. Nitkowski
425 Daryle Ward
429 Clint Sodowsky
431 Brandon Reed

Add Brian Powell and Brandon Reed to the list of Tigers I absolutely have no recollection of. I wish I could add Sean Bergman to that list too.


I have a single insert card from a set called ProFiles by Kirby Puckett. The back of the card features "Insights" about the player by Kirby. It sounds cheekier than it actually is. There's a nice little story by Kirby about Big Daddy hitting a HR over the 440 sign at Tiger Stadium. Sorta cool I guess.

AL-04 Cecil Fielder