1994 Upper Deck SP

I didn't blog about '93 SP because I don't have any. I'm only blogging about '94 SP because I do. It looks like Upper Deck finally joined the all foil club here. I said all I have to say about that. I never knew what the SP was supposed to stand for, but if stands for shitty product, I would not be surprised.

The 1994 Upper Deck SP Detroit Tigers:

176 Cecil Fielder

177 Travis Fryman

178 Mike Henneman

179 Tony Phillips

180 Mickey Tettleton

181 Alan Trammell

You know, if you can't at least make a set of card with at least 9 players per team represented, you really shouldn't even bother.

There were two insert sets called Holoview. Both contained the same players. One set was blue and one set was red. Oh boy....

7 Cecil Fielder

9 Travis Fryman

1994 Upper Deck Collector's Choice

Collector's Choice was Upper Deck's foray into superoverproducedcardsforkids, and as with most other issues of this type ended up outdoing their base set. There are ever so faint gray pinstripes on the cards, and the line art in the bottom corner obviously pays homage to the '75 Topps set. This was pretty much a no frills set, but sometimes no frills sets are ok with me. This is one of them.

The 1994 Upper Deck Collector's Choice Detroit Tigers:

27 Matt Brunson

56 Tom Bolton

100 Cecil Fielder

110 Chris Gomez

118 Bill Gullickson

132 Mike Henneman

167 Chad Kreuter

230 Tony Phillips

275 Mickey Tettleton

291 Lou Whitaker

352 Tigers Team Card / Cecil Fielder

364 Junior Felix

375 Travis Fryman

403 Kirk Gibson

421 Scott Livingstone

442 John Doherty

459 Mike Moore

474 Alan Trammell

499 David Wells

557 Danny Bautista

561 Tim Belcher

563 Eric Davis

There were a couple of inserts:

Home Run All-Stars

HA4 Cecil Fielder

Team vs. Team

13 Cecil Fielder

Then there were the parallel cards. Someday I'd love for someone other than me to take the time to delve into the history of the parallel card. It would be great for someone to explain to me their purpose other than to drive obsessive-complusive collectors into buying every pack they could find to try and complete these next to impossible to complete sets. Perhaps, I just answered my on question. 

But I think it's pretty clear that two parallel sets in one issue is a bit too much. Especially when the gold cards were seeded 1:36 packs. IF you didn't get any doubles, you would have had to purchase 24,120 packs of cards to get a complete set of 670. Ouch. Sometimes I think these card companies are just out to make money.......

I hope that I have been able here to demonstrate just how ridiculous parallel cards are. Since I think I have done so, I promise never to mention them again. 

1994 Upper Deck

Ok, so next to my computer sits a little table where sits the album of Tiger cards that am blogging about. For the last 6 weeks I have stared at '94 Upper Deck trying to come up with something, anything, to get through this set and continue moving along. 

Tonight I give up. 

These cards sucked. These are easily the worst Upper Deck base set ever. The inserts sucked. The parallels sucked. After tonight I hope to never see them again.

The 1994 Upper Deck Detroit Tigers:

37 Travis Fryman

51 Travis Fryman

56 Tony Phillips

93 Chris Gomez

179 David Wells

201 Alan Trammell

220 Cecil Fielder

247 John Doherty

261 Eric Davis

286 Cecil Fielder

296 Matt Brunson

301 Mickey Tettleton

316 Mike Moore

321 Mike Henneman

345 Travis Fryman

364 Tim Belcher

392 Chad Kreuter

414 Lou Whitaker

458 Bill Gullickson

547 Matt Brunson

You know a set sucks when Matt Brunson is in it twice.

I only have one insert, which apparently was released regionally in packs. (I thought they didn't start that until '95, but I'm too lazy to look it up?) Anyway, this is from the "Eastern" region.

E4 Cecil Fielder

Whew, I thought I was never going to do this again. I'm glad this is over.

P.S. Thanks to the two regular readers of this blog for contacting me in the last couple of weeks asking me if I was ever going to continue. The answer is yes. Thank you for your continued readership.

1994 Church's Chicken

This one is deserving of it's own blog entry. I don't know anything about it other than it has a 1994 Pinnacle copyright on the back. It really doesn't do for me much as an advertisement to eat more fried food though....

9 Cecil Fielder

1994 Pinnacle

These look like Stadium Club cards. That's not meant to be complimentary and should not be taken as such. 

The 1994 Pinnacle Detroit Tigers:

10 Cecil Fielder

67 Mickey Tettleton

96 John Doherty

125 Chad Kreuter

154 Mike Henneman

183 Travis Fryman

212 Mike Moore

234 Danny Bautista

281 Lou Whitaker

330 Tony Phillips

359 Milt Cuyler

388 Eric Davis

414 Chris Gomez

429 Alan Trammell

433 Matt Brunson

453 Kirk Gibson

464 David Wells

491 Tim Belcher

I'm not usually a big fan of parallels, but Pinnacle knocked it out of the park with these. Very cool. They should have just made these the base cards and called it a day.

I've got a couple of inserts, but nothing to blog home about.

Power Surge

14 Travis Fryman

The Run Creators

11 Tony Phillips

There was also a Cecil Fielder card that looks just like his base card, but with big block letter printed across the front and back that reads "SAMPLE" 

All righty then....

1994 Score Select

Damn I was hoping these were the ones where I got to play songs.....

The 1994 Score Select Detroit Tigers:

186 Danny Bautista

194 Chris Gomez

215 Tony Phillips

224 Mike Moore

233 Cecil Fielder

248 Tim Belcher

266 Kirk Gibson

273 Eric Davis

285 Alan Trammell

295 Travis Fryman

323 Lou Whitaker

327 Chad Kreuter

331 Mickey Tettleton

335 John Doherty

357 David Wells

368 Mike Henneman

Score Select Skills

10 Travis Fryman

1994 Score

I needed something to do this afternoon since I'm not getting to see my alma mater (Memphis) play their second round game against Maryland. Fortunately, judging by the scoreboard I'm not missing much.

I don't really have much here. These are ok. I guess for Score that's high praise. My favorite card is easily the Team Checklist. There is next to nobody in the stadium, yet the upper deck center field bleachers are packed. I'll admit that's the first time I've ever seen that many people out there without a huge cloud of smoke hovering right above......

The 1994 Score Detroit Tigers:

11 Travis Fryman

51 Mickey Tettleton

79 Lou Whitaker

103 Tony Phillips

117 Mike Henneman

143 Mike Moore

171 Scott Livingstone

198 Bill Gullickson

215 Dan Gladden

228 Rich Rowland

232 Skeeter Barnes

268 Gary Thurman

286 Bob MacDonald

309 Chris Gomez

322 Team Checklist

337 Alan Trammell

369 David Wells

393 Cecil Fielder

421 Kirk Gibson

503 Chad Kreuter

504 Eric Davis

531 John Doherty

532 Matt Brunson

559 Danny Bautista

There were some inserts too, including a parallel set that looked just like the regular set, but had gold foil borders. Hmmmm, I wonder where Topps stole that stupid idea from?

Boys Of Summer

51 Danny Bautista

Cycle

5 Tony Phillips

Gold Stars

40 Cecil Fielder

48 Travis Fryman

There was an update set of sorts that looks nothing like the base set.  These may rank among the worst cards I have ever seen. 

Rookie & Traded

44RT Junior Felix

84RT Danny Bautista

95RT Chris Gomez

158RT Jose Lima

Memphis wins by 19. Yay!