Antique Mall Mystery Pack: Wrap-up

A good chunk of my posts over the last year came from cards I purchased at the Brass Armadillo Antique Mall in Denver. I took a trip there with my girlfriend about a year ago, and this post will cover the last of my haul from that visit. In this series, you've seen team-focused posts of the Mets, Pirates, Blue Jays, Astros, Giants, Marlins, Twins, Expos, Yankees, Braves, and Brewers.

A few of the cards in this post came from teams I already covered, but since these came from a different vendor, I had them set aside in a different stack. And they range from the early 1970s through to current players that are still on the same team.

2013 Topps Emerald #587 Matt Cain

Matt Cain of the Giants was often known as one of the unluckiest pitchers in baseball, often turning in great pitching performances with minimal run support. This was certainly the case whenever he was on my fantasy team. But 2012 turned things around for him. In addition to the Giants' even-year magic, which could still happen in 2016, Cain threw a perfect game. There were three that year, but haven't been any since. Cain and Felix Hernandez threw the second and third in 2012, and they're both still pitching for the same teams. Philip Humber threw the first that April, but was released at the end of 2012. He went an appalling 0-8 for the Astros in 2013, kicked around the minors for a few years, and announced his retirement in March.

It goes without saying that perfect games are a rare beast. Max Scherzer almost had one last year until he hit the 27th batter (who really kind of leaned into it). Yu Darvish lost his bid on Opening Day 2013 when a single went right up the middle through his legs. And Rich Hill was pulled after seven perfect innings just a couple weeks ago due to injury concerns.

This Emerald parallel of Cain is not from his Perfect outing, as that came at home in AT&T Park. Cain is wearing his road jersey on this 2013 card, one that I can add to my collection of 2013 Emerald parallels. This is my favorite parallel set of at least the last ten years, even if the Giants' orange color clashes a little bit.

1977 Topps #201 Ed Kranepool

Rolling it back about 35 years, here's a 1977 card of the Mets' first franchise player, Ed Kranepool. He still holds the Mets team records for games played and singles. He was a key player for the 1969 Miracle Mets championship team, and never suited up for anyone else.

The back of his '77 card, coincidentally, contains a cartoon about the Seattle Pilots. They "were in existence for only the 1969 season." There's a drawing of some stadium gates with a sign in front that says "Home For Sale". The Pilots, you'll recall from a previous post, became the Milwaukee Brewers a year later. I'm guessing that Topps chose that bit of trivia to coincide with Kranepool's only World Series championship, which also came in 1969.

1972 Topps #164 Tug McGraw IA

Digging a few years further back in Topps' archives takes us to 1972, Giving us an action shot of Tug McGraw. 1972 was an All-Star year for him, but he'd only have a few years left as a Met before he was traded to the Phillies, where he finished his career.

Action shots were quite a new thing in 1972, and so novel that they can stand on their own without much other fanfare. The back of the card is basically just an ad for Series 3 and 4, promising the chance to "See your favorite stars when they were kids!", "Headline Higlights of 1971!", "Test your knowledge of the game's rules!", plus "12 of your favorite stars on special action cards." That last one actually omitted an exclamation mark, unlike most of the other taglines.

1995 Topps Embossed #89 Jeff Montgomery

By 1995, action shots were old hat. For that year and that year only, Topps released the Embossed set, stylized as tMB. I can't help but think of this as a kid-focused set, as MB means Milton Bradley in my mind. And I mean the company that made Battleship and Connect Four, not the retired MLB outfielder with a volcanic temper.

These cards have a raised surface on both sides, and it may have been a pioneering product. Upper Deck released a ton of cards like this in the 2000s (Ovation comes to mind) but I don't know of one that predates 1995. If there's a silver lining to the Strike, at least baseball card companies got extra-creative.

2015 Topps Gold #587 Daniel Descalso /587

I'll always like gold parallels, and I think the colored border works surprisingly well on the 2015 design. Daniel Decalso remains a Rockie into 2016, and even got a few hits last weekend against the Padres. Jon Gray's pitching performance last Saturday was one of the best in Rockies history, as he struck out a team-record 16 batters on his way to an 8-0 complete game shutout. Descalso was 2-4 that day, and it looks like he put one in play on this card, too.

1994 Score Gold Rush #445 Sandy Alomar Jr.

Score Gold Rush parallels popped up pretty frequently in these mystery packs. They're as eye-catching as anything out there, but in my experience are pretty fragile. I've had a Willie McGee Gold Rush card in my collection since I was a boy, and the lower right corner has been gradually peeling off the card stock for most of that time. You can see a bit of damage to the center of this card, probably because it was stuck to another card. And now that I look at it side-by-side with 2015 Topps, they both have three similar rows of dots on the bottom of the design. I'm pretty good with details, but I probably never would have picked up on that if I hadn't seen one right after the other.

We even get a bonus cameo of Paul Molitor on this card, a guy who's been showing up around here a lot lately.

2013 Topps Cut To The Chase #CTC-15 Dustin Pedroia

This isn't what anyone would expect to find in an antique mall. Die cut cards with a bit of shine from a Red Sox Championship year are pretty new. For all I know, it was the newest object in the entire building. Dustin Pedroia was the 2007 AL Rookie of the Year and has been a part of two Boston championships. As this card tells us, he tied Ichiro for the most hits in the league in 2008, with 213. That remains a career high for Pedroia, but was actually kind of a down year for Ichiro.

I really enjoyed this trip to the antique mall. Despite not knowing a lot of what I was getting, I significantly added to my vintage collection, relived some of my favorite sets from childhood, got a ton of material for blog posts, a bit of trade material, and got the opportunity to expand my baseball knowledge, primarily around that whole Seattle Pilots business.

It would be fun to go back.

Antique Mall Mystery Pack: Brewers

We're nearing the end of the Mystery Packs that came from my trip to the antique mall last year. Like the Yankees, this one consists of 1970s cards that were sold in a binder page. I didn't get any ninja Orioles, but the interesting history of the Brewers does have shades of another team.

1971 Topps #516 Ted Kubiak

1969 saw more expansion in Major League Baseball. The Montreal Expos began play that year, as did their National League counterparts, the San Diego Padres. In the American League, the Kansas City Royals started, along with a team called the Seattle Pilots that few people other than hardcore baseball fans have heard of.

The Pilots experienced the usual expansion team woes in their only 1969 season, and a lot more. Their repurposed Minor League stadium wasn't nearly up to par for a big league setting, and the team quickly fell into bankruptcy after poor attendance and high ticket prices. Recently retired Commissioner Bud Selig bought the team and moved them to Milwaukee to become the Brewers.

The City of Seattle didn't like this one bit, and ended up suing the American League. Everyone was happy by 1977 when the Mariners brought Major League Baseball back to Seattle. That was also the first year of the Blue Jays, ensuring there remained an even number of teams.

Anyway, in the midst of all that drama, the now-Brewers didn't really have time to come up with their own branding. The move wasn't made official until just before the 1970 season, and their uniforms hastily had "Brewers" sewn over where "Pilots" used to be. What you see here is essentially a Seattle Pilots jersey and helmet, which is given away by that unique striping on the sleeve, meant to resemble an airline captain's uniform.

Jim Bouton, author of Ball Four, and perhaps the only reason anybody at all remembers the Seattle Pilots ever existed, hated the uniforms. With all the stripes, colors, braid on the caps, and little ship's wheel logos, his feeling was that "We look like goddamn clowns."

1978 Topps #595 Sixto Lezcano

By the late 1970s, the Brewers, though they kept the blue and yellow of the Pilots, at least toned down the uniforms a bit. Lezcano had a more-or-less average 12-year career, though he does hold quite a specific record. He is the only player in Major League history to hit a grand slam on Opening Day more than once. It happened in 1978 and 1980, the seasons that sandwiched his only gold glove award.

He was part of the trade that sent Ozzie Smith from San Diego to St. Louis, and like many of Topps' 1970s American League cards, this photo was taken in Yankee Stadium. That black armband on Lezcano's sleeve was worn as a memorial to the death of teammate Danny Frisella, who died in a dune buggy accident in 1977. It was worn throughout the Brewers' 1977 season.

1979 Topps #24 Paul Molitor

This isn't Paul Molitor's rookie card. That goes to a four-player card in the 1978 set. This is, however, his first solo Topps card, and it also marks a change in the Brewers uniforms. They still kept the blue and yellow colors, but with a fancy new logo. Cleverly, though it just looks like a ball in a baseball glove, it is actually made up of the letters "M" and "B". This was a fan-submitted design, and is one of those things you can't unsee. Like the arrow in the FedEx logo. Or the little arrow going from A to Z in the Amazon logo.

But the Expos logo still looks like a JB to me.

This 1979 card is the newest one from the whole page, and the only Brewers jersey that looks familiar to me. The 1979 set didn't have cartoons, but there are on-this-date trivia questions. Try this Baseball Dates question out: What happened on October 15th, 1960?

Coincidentally, it was something I wrote about just a couple weeks ago in a book review. Taken verbatim from the card, "Bill Mazeroski's 9th-inning Homer gave Pirates the World Series championship over Yankees."

Paul Molitor was present for another World Series-ending home run, as he signed with the Toronto Blue Jays in 1993. Joe Carter won it for the Jays with a Game 6 walkoff. Molitor won his only World Series that day, and was named Series MVP. He'd continue to play through 1998, finishing up as a member of the 3,000-hit club, and being enshrined in the Hall of Fame.

1975 Topps #337 Kevin Kobel

Another 1970s card, another Yankee Stadium photo. I still have trouble telling the 1970s sets apart, but 1975 I can recognize. The telltale two-tone design (say that ten times fast) can be spotted a mile away, even if it's a player I've never heard of.

1977 Topps #406 Tim Johnson

The remainder of these cards are from 1977, which is primarily what I found in these pages. There are quite a few batting cage shots in that set, but at least it's a different backdrop than the left field seats at Yankee Stadium.

1977 Topps has cartoons! Tim Johnson's card has one depicting Cookie Rojas, and a note that Rojas has hit two extra-inning grand slams in his career for the Royals. Between this post and that doubleheader with the Dodgers last month, there's been a lot of talk about grand slams lately. The cartoon is slightly incorrect, as the line score shows the 12th inning on the scoreboard, but Rojas' grand slams were in the 10th and 11th.

1977 Topps #498 Sal Bando

Sal Bando came over from the A's for the 1977 season, and is welcomed onto his Brewers card with a very airbrushed photo. Bando played for Oakland when they dominated baseball in the early 1970s, winning three consecutive World Series from 1972-1974. No one besides the Yankees have put together such a streak.

Topps reached way, way back into the history books for Bando's cartoon. We're informed that Claude Elliott of the Giants earned a whopping six saves in 1905. That's a few weeks' work for a modern closer, but it led both leagues by far in 1905. The next player down only had three, and no one in the AL managed more than two.

If you told someone in 1905 that we'd have such a thing as a Closer in today's game, and that the all-time leaders have over six hundred, they'd probably stare in a state of amazement at how close games must be in the future.

Also they'd probably be surprised about the whole Cubs thing. But the Postseason is fast approaching, and this year could get interesting, especially with the Indians in the mix, who haven't won since 1948.

1977 Topps #159 Bernie Carbo

Bernie Carbo knows World Series droughts about as well as the Cubs and Indians. He was a key player for the Red Sox in Game 6 of the 1975 Series, tying it up with a three-run shot, and setting the stage for Carlton Fisk's 12th inning heroics. Still, the Red Sox couldn't get it done in Game 7, and would have to wait another 29 years and for a lunar eclipse to break the curse.

The Brewers haven't reached the Fall Classic within my lifetime, and this year definitely won't be it. But for an expansion club, they've seen a lot of great players and have one of the most interesting genesis stories in the entire league. These cards from their early days were a great find!

Antique Mall Mystery Pack: Braves

My trip to the Brass Armadillo Antique Mall in Denver happened almost a year ago. I got lots of good material out of it, so much that I'm still doing posts a year later. Including this one, there are three left, and we'll continue this long-running series with the Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves.

First off, a little trivia question. Who is the only player to play as a Boston Brave, Milwaukee Brave, and Atlanta Brave?

1994 Topps Archives 1954 #141 Joe Jay

I'll let you mull that one over for a while, but first, how about some 1954 Archives? This is easily my favorite Archives set, but I've yet to add anything from the actual '54 set to my collection. Joe Jay (who usually goes by Joey) was just a rookie in 1953, and had just a single start. It was a gem, though, a three-hit shutout against the Reds. He did most of his work out of the bullpen for his first four seasons, and didn't get much playing time until 1958.

Besides that excellent first start, Jay holds another claim to fame. He's the first Little Leaguer to make it to the major leagues, and "he shows amazing skill!" He was not actually in the Little League World Series, so he didn't make Night Owl's recent post, but he gave hope to millions of little kids across America, myself included.

1994 Topps Archives 1954 #176 Bob Keely

Coaches got cards in 1954 Topps, and Robert William Keely (full names on the back decades before Donruss did it) served as a coach and bullpen catcher for the Braves for twelve seasons. His Major League experience consisted of two lone games, one each in 1944 and 1945, when a lot of the league was away at war.

Coaches in those days wore a lot of hats, but he'd probably be considered a bullpen coach by today's definition. He served on the coaching staff in 1957 (his final year), which is the only time a World Series trophy has been brought home to Milwaukee. The Brewers haven't done it yet.

Last chance for guesses on that trivia question!

2003 Fleer Tradition #76 Eddie Mathews ML SP

Eddie Mathews, elected to the Hall of Fame in 1978, was the only player to call Boston, Milwaukee, and Atlanta home as a Brave.

This is a quasi-reprint card, which is based on Fleer's 1963 set. It commemorates the 40th anniversary of that iconic set, just like 1954 Archives did in 1994. Mathews didn't actually appear in that set, getting this "Missing Link" subset card forty years later. I wonder if Upper Deck will manage to pull anything off in 2029. Unlikely. Also, 40 years really isn't that long, is it?

Mathews was part of that 1957 Championship team, beating, well, I'll give you one guess on who they beat. And the card refers to him as a nine-time All Star, which was as correct in 1963 as it is today. His last appearance in the Midsummer Classic was in 1962.

You might think Mathews was a career Brave, seeing as he stuck with them long enough to call three cities home. But his production trailed off in the mid-1960s, and the Braves traded him to Houston in 1966, along with a guy named Arnold Umbach, plus Sandy Alomar, Sr., who was the Player To Be Named Later in that particular transaction. Both players the Braves got in return were out of the Majors by the end of 1967.

Mathews may have been past his prime, but he still had some baseball left in him. He passed the 500 home run milestone as an Astro in 1967 (hitting #500 off of Juan Marichal), then wrapped up his career in Detroit with his second World Series ring in 1968.

1995 Collector's Choice SE Silver Signature #142 Greg Maddux STL

The Braves have consistently fielded some truly amazing players, from Mathews and Aaron, to Maddux and Chipper. But the championships have always been hard to come by. The franchise has three, one in each city they called home. But despite dominating their division fourteen straight times from 1991-2005 (except for 1994, sorry Expos), they only had one World Series win to show for it.

Greg Maddux had a lot do to with that dominance. He was such an efficient pitcher that he now has an unofficial baseball stat named after him. When you pitch a complete game shutout with less than 100 pitches, you have thrown a Maddux.

Flip this Silver Signature parallel over and see for yourself. In the strike-shortened 1994 season, the best pitchers in baseball had an ERA of about 2.70. Bret Saberhagen was slightly above that, Steve Ontiveros a little below. Maddux blew them all out of the water with a 1.56 ERA, earning his third of four straight Cy Young awards in the process. Only Randy Johnson has matched that streak.

This was one of my favorite parallel sets in my early collecting days. I was always chasing a Gold Signature parallel, but didn't find one until many years later. I was also quite the fan of Topps Gold.

1994 Topps Gold #735 Terry Pendleton

Speaking of Topps Gold, I found one of those too! Like the Yankees pack, most of these Braves were actually in a binder page where I knew what I was getting. 1994s are a little tough to find (and even to see, if the light isn't right), but I have an eagle eye for these things.

Terry Pendleton, who appeared in one of my earliest posts, wasn't quite as dominant as Greg Maddux, but he did win the batting title and the NL MVP award in 1991, the first year of the Braves long run of division wins. And winning an NL batting title in the era of Tony Gwynn is no small feat.

1962 Topps #58 NL Win Leaders Warren Spahn / Joe Jay / Jim O'Toole

Finally, I'm still very, very slowly adding to my 1962 Topps collection. Warren Spahn, another Hall of Famer, tied for the NL lead in wins in 1961. As much as the game has changed since then, 20 wins in a season is still darn good. No Rockie has ever done it, but Ubaldo Jimenez missed the mark by just one in 2010.

Spahn gets the largest head on the front of this League Leaders card, even though Joe Jay is just as deserving. Yes, that's the same Joe(y) Jay we saw at the top of this post. He was traded to the Reds in 1960, a year before the Reds faced the Yankees (who else?) in the 1961 World Series. That Series was Jay's only appearance in the postseason, but perhaps as some consolation to losing to the Yankees and having a smaller head on this card than Spahn, Jay got listed first as a league leader on the card back.

The card looks a lot like a checklist, listing about fifty guys all the way down to just six wins. A lot of familiar names are on it, like Drysdale, Burdette, Podres, Koufax, Haddix, and Marichal. Even some lesser known players like Roy Face and Tony Cloninger appear in the second column.

The corners are a little beat up, but the printing itself is fine, front and back. It looks no worse than some of my 1987 Topps cards, and only set me back a couple dollars, if I'm remembering correctly. Not bad at all for my favorite vintage set.

Oh, and one last note on that trivia question. Warren Spahn came pretty close to being a correct answer, but his contract was sold to the Mets after the 1964 season. He retired in 1965 as a Giant, just a year before the Braves moved to Atlanta.

Good guess, though.

Antique Mall Mystery Pack: Yankees

If you've hung around for all the Mystery Packs from the Brass Armadillo antique mall these past few months, then this one will look a little bit different. That's because these next few came from an entirely different vendor clear across the store. In fact, they weren't mystery packs at all. Rather, these were in a full 9-pocket page, front and back.

But I want to keep the theme going. "Antique Mall Fully Visible Page" doesn't have the same ring. And anyway, they're definitely older than most of what you've been seeing lately.

1976 Topps Traded #528T Dock Ellis

Clear back to the 1970s, in fact. Thanks to the awesome No-No: a Dockumentary movie that came out recently, Dock Ellis, the Pirates pitcher who famously pitched a no-hitter while on LSD, has become much more well-known in recent years. Though he spent most of his career as a Pirate, he wasn't happy with getting sent to the bullpen in 1975, and following a team-imposed suspension, was dealt to the Yankees in the 1975-1976 offseason, earning a spot in the second-ever Topps Traded set.

Ellis is definitely not in a real Yankees uniform here. I'm sure that's a National League stadium in the background, and his hat has that fuzzy watercolor look common to airbrushed photos. But more tellingly, Ellis still has his mustache and sideburns, which is just barely within the limits of the Yankees' facial hair policy. It's a nice bridge between the 1972 In Action card I found in the Pirates pack and the next card.

1977 Topps #71 Dock Ellis

Following his departure from Pittsburgh, Ellis probably decided not to deal with testing Steinbrenner's limits and just went clean shaven. He passed away several years ago, after dealing with drugs, alcohol, and a domestic violence incident, both during his career and afterwards. As depicted in the movie, he spent a lot of time in his later years working as an advocate and coordinator in drug rehab programs.

Sure, the guy who dropped acid on game day had a lot of things to say about drugs, but he certainly wasn't the only one. The movie focuses quite a bit on Dexamyl, the drug of choice for many MLB players of the time, both on and off the Pirates. Drug use in the Majors goes way back, long before the recent round of steroid use, and Ellis himself contends that even guys like Ruth and Gehrig had to have been using something to play a day game after spending the night drinking.

I'm not saying that pro athletes should be involved with illegal drugs, but I am saying that it's bogus to single out steroid users while ignoring the 1970s, or even the 1920s, as Ellis alleges.

1976 Topps Traded #27T Ed Figueroa

Ellis didn't have the only 1976 Traded card in this page. The Yankees sure were busy shoring up the rotation on December 11th, 1975, acquiring Ed Figueroa the same day as Ellis. Figueroa got the airbrushed treatment too, though Topps did a much better job on Ellis' pinstripes.

Topps Traded was still finding an identity in the mid-'70s. The torn newspaper headline is a nice touch, but the card numbers are what I found most interesting. In 1974 and 1976, they used the same card number for a player's Traded card as in the base set, simply adding a "T" on the end. It's an interesting idea, if a bit confusing. Dock Ellis' card is 528T, but the Traded set wasn't anywhere near that large.

1981 was a bit different, as the Traded set just picked up at card 727, right where the base set left off. It wasn't until 1982 until we saw the numbering system we know today, staring at 1 and having a "T" as a suffix, or maybe as a prefix, or with a UH or US in the card number in the most recent sets.

Frankly, it's always been a bit of an odd set. They were printed on white paper stock instead of cardboard, they used to come in those tiny 132-card boxes, and though now it's grown to the size of a full series, it's pretty much the set commemorating the All-Star Game.

I like the 1981 numbering scheme the best. It makes it feel like it's a continuation of the base set, not some after-hours secret project.

1977 Topps #656 Ron Guidry

Ron Guidry was just getting his Major League career going when this card was printed, though he'd go an amazing 25-3 in 1978 on his way to the Cy Young award. A bunch of guys have won 24 games in a season since then, and Bob Welch managed 27 in 1990, but Guidry's still pretty far up the list of single-season wins going back to the mid-1970s.  Even better, his career lasted into the early days of the overproduction era, so I definitely pulled a few of his cards as a kid buying packs of 1987 Topps.

1977 Topps #162 Mike Cuellar

The seller that put this page together must have run out of Yankees, as a rogue Oriole stole a spot. Mike Cuellar had a pretty solid career himself, winning the Cy Young award in 1969 and a World Series ring in 1970. But by 1977, his career had come to an end, pitching a few innings for the Angels before calling it quits. To use Dime Box Nick's term, this is Cuellar's "Sunset Card", as he never got a card for his brief appearance in Anaheim.

Speaking of Nick, the birthday boy bid us "somewhat of a farewell" today, but still plans to engage with the Cardsphere. Though we may not see (m)any more posts from him, his impact on this community, including the very existence of Infield Fly Rule has been tremendous. And for that, Mike Cuellar's Sunset Card and I thank him.

1971 Topps #358 Danny Cater

But this blog goes on, continuing to the black-bordered greatness of 1971 Topps. I've never heard of Danny Cater before, but it's from the set that reached #3 on Night Owl's countdown, and it's definitely worthy of that lofty position. In fact, it was one of the sets on my second-ever post, part of the contest winnings from Nick that kicked this blog off.

Wow, I mentioned Night Owl and Nick in the same paragraph. Are those guys influential or what?

1972 Topps #22 Rob Gardner

Why is it that these miscut cards always have such nice edges? The card itself is in better condition than almost every other card from the page, but there's a tiny bit of the "tombstone" cut off the top, and a bit of the next guy's card below. If anyone has memorized the sheet layout of 1972 Topps, and can tell me who had a green-colored tombstone on a card beginning with the number 3, I'm rather interested to know whose card I have 1% of. Or who has 1% of my Rob Gardner card, for that matter.

1978 Topps #335 Bucky Dent

Jumping from one of the oldest cards on the page to the newest, here's the hero (or spoiler) of the 1978 AL East tiebreaker game, Bucky Dent. The Aaron Boone of 1978, if you will. And Dent is looking mighty dangerous at the plate with that bunt.

As is true for about 25% of baseball seasons, the Yankees won the World Series that year, thanks in large part to Bucky Dent, who went on to be named the MVP of the '78 Series. Aaron Boone's heroics didn't lead to a championship in 2003, but that was one of many home runs I have in my memory banks. Others are McGwire's 62nd (I was on the phone with my Grandfather), Brosius, Jeter, and Soriano from the 2001 World Series (best Series I've ever seen, though my team didn't win that one), and Matt Holliday's home run in Game 3 of the 2007 World Series (I was there!)

Sorry for all the Joe Buck.

Looking at that list, it comes to mind that you could get a pretty darn good baseball education just by watching World Series home runs. Joe Carter, Carlton Fisk, Bill Mazeroski, David Freese, Derek Jeter, Kirk Gibson, Reggie Jackson, Kirby Puckett. And an even better one if you extend it to pennant-winning home runs like Boone, Dent, and Bobby Thomson.

It only got them to the ALCS, but I'll put Jose Bautista in there too. Something about that bat flip seems important for the future of the game.

And of course, there's the most famous home-run hitter of them all, Babe Ruth.

I didn't run across any cards of him at the antique mall, but a page of guys that all played in "The House That Ruth Built" works for me.

Antique Mall Mystery Pack: Expos

We're past the two-year anniversary of Infield Fly Rule, a date in mid-January that I blew past about six posts ago (and long before the Denver Broncos won Super Bowl 50!). I did a giveaway and everything for my first anniversary, but this one slipped my mind. Once Off Hiatus Baseball Cards and Bob Walk The Plank write their anniversary posts, I know I didn't miss mine by much. The three of us entered this community right around the same time, though they've both done way more posts than I have.

But I have plenty of material to keep going, though perhaps not at the frenzied pace of others in the Cardsphere.

1994 Triple Play #91 Moises Alou

Material like yet another Mystery Pack from the antique mall. Obviously this one is of the Montreal Expos, the team that moved to Washington over a decade ago to become the Nationals. Perhaps no team suffered as much from the Strike as the Expos. As the 1994 season came to an abrupt close in mid-August, they had a commanding lead of the NL East, the best record in baseball, a small but passionate fan base, and a giant helping of bad timing.

Alou was one of the key members of that 1994 Expos team, but didn't get his chance to shine in the postseason until he joined the Marlins for their 1997 World Series championship. And I'm sure if you're a Cubs fan, all I have to do is say Moises Alou's name to trigger some unhappy memories. He did end up with his ring, though some other players from that team never did.

This might be the first time that I used the same set to end one post and begin the next. 1994 Triple Play must look a bit familiar by now, as the impact of those big cutout letters can't be missed.

Also, is it just me, or does the Expos logo look like a "JB"? A kid in my third grade class used to wear an Expos hat, and I spent months wondering what the heck JB stood for. I finally did see the puffy-looking "M" in that logo, but I don't remember who finally clued me in, whether it was my classmate, my dad, or someone else entirely.

1994 Triple Play #289 Cliff Floyd

Anyway, I thought I knew 1994 Triple Play pretty well until I saw this Rookie Revue subset card. It's part of the base set, but it's the first time I ever ran across anything like it. Upper Deck did some Star Rookie subsets that looked pretty much like this, didn't they?

1994 Upper Deck Electric Diamond #19 Michael Jordan

That's right, 1994 Upper Deck! Those are some pretty similar designs, which makes me wonder if one copied the other, or if they came to this independently. Of course, this is one of Michael Jordan's more well-known baseball cards (perhaps second only to his 1991 Upper Deck card), but this happens to be the Electric Diamond parallel—UD's answer to Topps Gold.

1993 Ultra #420 John Wetteland

Alou and Floyd both won their World Series rings with the '97 Marlins, Jordan almost has too many NBA championships to count (fine, six), and Wetteland took home MVP honors for the 1996 Yankees, their first World Series in almost twenty years. Wetteland was a stellar closer, though he passed the baton to the legendary Mariano Rivera after that.

I am guessing that this photo from 1993 (not 1992!) Fleer Ultra was taken at Wrigley Field. The slope of that foul territory wall looks about right, and it's definitely a day game, still a common thing in Chicago. Plus Fleer shot a ton of photos in Wrigley Field. Go check 1991 Fleer Ultra to see what I mean.

1993 Topps #69 John Vander Wal

We saw a card of John Vander Wal not long ago, as one came via trade from Brad. But before he was a Rockie, he was an Expo, reaching the Bigs for the team that drafted him.

Flip this card over and you'll see a strong influence from Leaf's Studio brand, as we get John's player data, complete professional stats, and fun facts like how he studied Civil War History, and enjoys snowmobiling and RC cars and airplanes in his free time.

If that's not a complete ripoff of 1991-1993 Studio, I don't know what is.

Topps has consistently been my favorite card brand, and honestly, if someone besides them had the exclusive MLB license right now I might be less interested in the hobby, but you have to admire all the competition and one-upmanship that was going on back then. Sure, they all printed billions of cards that are now pretty much worthless, but there was a firestorm of new ideas that hit the hobby in the space of a very few years. Pictures on the back and white card stock from Score in 1988, holograms from UD in 1989, right through the first relics and serial numbered cards in the mid 1990s.

Compared to that, new sparkly patterns and border colors don't really capture the imagination in the same way as seeing competitors push the limits of innovation. Or even blatantly rip off each other's ideas.

1993 Topps #89 Eric Anthony

Whoops, looks like an Astro snuck into this pack!

Though their team colors are quite different, and they played home games about two thousand miles apart, "Astros" and "Expos" sound enough alike to be confused from time to time. As I recall, my dad often mixed the two up, so whoever put this pack together had the same thought process. But I still have to pause when considering whether the Astros are playing an interleague game or not.

1991 Score #210 Tim Wallach

1991 Score is on my list of completed sets, so like everyone's Tim Wallach extras, this one will be headed to Corey at the Stackhouse Law Office. Happy to help the cause!

1993 Upper Deck #635 Kent Bottenfield

I don't know if Kent Bottenfield has British ancestry, but his name certainly sounds British. And not long after this card was printed, the Rockies traded a 2-8 Butch Henry to Montreal for Bottenfield, who ended up going a decent 6-6 in two seasons for the Rockies. One of those eight losses that Henry gave up was June 15, 1993, a game Tim Wallach also happened to play in.

Turns out a decent number of these Expos guys made it to Denver at some point in their careers. And we're not done yet!

1994 Collector's Choice Silver Signature #293 Rondell White

I don't remember much about Rondell White other than recognizing his name from a bunch of Expos cards in 1993-1994, though he had a surprisingly long career, and even made it to an All-Star Game in 2003. Just one of those guys that would pop up from time to time on some random team and you'd wonder aloud, "Oh, is that guy still playing?"

The image on this Silver Signature card was probably taken during his rookie year of 1993. He's just a righty, but it looks like he's wearing a switch-hitter's helmet with ear flaps on both sides. But if you look really closely, you'll notice that he's using Tim Wallach's bat!

I'm actually starting to have a bit of an affinity for this Wallach fellow. He's turning up everywhere. That's the third time he's turned up in this post alone.

1993 Score #488 B.J. Wallace

Remember that Kirby Puckett insert from 1993 Score I had never seen before? Well, here's a subset from 1993 Score I have never seen before. I have a good sixty-plus cards from that set, plus a few from the Dream Team subset, and plenty of the caricature All Star cards, but never a Draft Pick card. B.J. Wallace was picked third overall in 1992, but never made it past Double-A.

At least Greg Reynolds, picked second overall by the Rockies in 2006 ahead of Kershaw, Scherzer, and others, made it to the Majors. To snag B.J. Wallace, the Expos passed on Jason Kendall, Charles Johnson, Johnny Damon, Preston Wilson, Jeffrey Hammonds, and, most notably, Derek Jeter.

Oops. Clearly the best in the business get it wrong pretty often.

1993 Topps Black Gold #7 Marquis Grissom

1993 marked the debut of Topps Black Gold, the awesome insert set of my childhood. I pulled a few of them from packs, but I always stared longingly at the Ken Griffey, Jr. in the card shop, the one that always had a pretty hefty price tag for a nine-year old.

A guy like Marquis Grissom was much more reachable, and like many Expos players of this era, he did go on to win a World Series after the strike. In fact, he did so the very next year with the Braves, the only time Atlanta won a World Series during their decade-plus of dominating the NL East.

1993 Topps Black Gold #22 Larry Walker

Sadly, unlike many of the players you see in this post, Larry Walker never won a World Series. In fact, he never even won a World Series game, as the Cardinals were swept by the curse-breaking Red Sox in 2004, his only appearance in the Fall Classic. The Cardinals did end up winning in 2006, one year after Walker's retirement. That has to be quite a disappointment for a borderline Hall of Fame candidate. Still, he was a well-liked player in Colorado, one of the few stars to play in both the Blake Street Bomber era and as a contemporary of Todd Helton.

If I had a time machine, or at least an alternate-universe machine, I'd want to see what would have happened in 1994. And I bet Larry Walker would too.

Antique Mall Mystery Pack: Twins

There's been a fair bit of repetition so far in the Mystery Packs from my trip to the antique mall last year, but this first card is from a set we haven't seen in some time.

1993 Studio #109 Chuck Knoblauch

It's 1993 Studio, which toned down the weird a bit from the previous year. Rainbow foil facsimile signatures are found on each card in this set, but Chuck Knoblauch's John Hancock, like most, is fairly illegible. I definitely can make out a "K" in the middle of the scrawl, though.

Not only does the back of the card tell us that the second baseman enjoys ice fishing and Vin Scully, but during my trip to German-speaking Europe last summer, I learned that "Knoblauch" is their word for garlic.

This is probably the simplest Studio design from their run. Not long after this, they took a pretty huge jump to a credit card theme, whose parallels even had rounded corners. But in 1993, we just got a portrait with a close-up of the team's hat logo.

Charles Garlic, second base for the Twins, who lost the ability to consistently throw to first base after joining the Yankees.

1992 Topps #164 Shane Mack

Full-sized 1992 Topps cards always look a little strange to me. One of my earliest-ever pickups was a set of 1992 Topps Micro, whose cards are barely bigger than a postage stamp. Seeing this design in a standard 2.5" x 3.5" always seems a bit...giant.

Nonetheless, it flew under the radar despite a solid design and good photography, though most would rank it a few steps below 1991. Outfielder Shane Mack is sliding safely into third here, and based on the opposing player's uniform stripes, I think he's in Cleveland. There's not a ton to go on to date this card, but I'll go with June 15th, 1991. Mack had just doubled in a run, and advanced to third on the next batter. This heads-up baserunning meant he'd go on to score on the following play, before Scott Leius got caught trying to advance to second to end the inning.

1993 Score Franchise #9 Kirby Puckett

Though you might not recognize it, this is an insert card from 1993 Score. I opened a few packs of that when it was new. I even remember getting a pack as a Hanukkah present one night. But inserts were few and far between.

This insert set features a player from each of the teams (then just 28), but many featured as "franchise players" played on several teams throughout their careers, even Ken Griffey, Jr. The late Kirby Puckett did indeed spend his whole career on the Twins, helping lead them to two World Series titles, and earning his way into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Those are quite a series of accomplishments despite passing away at the young age of 45.

1994 Topps #583 Chip Hale

Chip Hale never reached legendary status as a Twin, though his long fly ball in a 1991 minor league game comes up on blooper reels all the time. Someone had to hit the ball that led to Rodney McCray running right through the outfield wall. And that someone was Chip Hale, current manager of the Diamondbacks, and subject of a poorly-centered 1994 Topps card.

This card also predates the Brewers' move to the National League, as they're seen playing the AL Twins a few seasons before interleague play. That move has cemented itself in my mind much more firmly than the Houston Astros moving to the AL, but ask me again in 2034 which league the Astros are in and see how long I hesitate before I answer.

1993 Topps Gold #146 Scott Leius

Scott Leius, the immortal hero that advanced Shane Mack to third base four cards ago, is seen rapidly drifting to his left to catch an infield fly. Pitcher Scott Erickson is looking on to ensure nothing goes awry in his infield, and oh yeah, it's a Topps Gold parallel!

Though I haven't seen any in person yet, this 1993 design seems to have influenced the new 2016 Topps product, as I see definite parallels between the two. Name on top, team on bottom, 45-degree banner in the lower corner. Other than the border, its clearly a close cousin.

1994 Triple Play #260 Dave Winfield

Remember how I said in my previous post that Charlie Hough in a Marlins uniform didn't look that unusual to me since I found so many cards of him when I first started collecting? The same goes for Dave Winfield as a Twin. He was only a couple years from retirement by this time, his string of 12 consecutive All-Star selections had ended several seasons prior, and the seagull incident was long behind him, but he was still able to put up some decent stats for Minnesota.

This pack was a little on the light side. There were still plenty of good cards, but quite a few commons from 1992, 1993, and 1994 Topps, so it contained a bit less variety than past packs. But the Twins are a likable team, and they've forged enough of an identity in Minnesota that few remember they were once the (first) Washington Senators.

But the city they (and the Rangers) left meant the Expos had somewhere to go when they left Montreal. Come back next time to see the team that ought to have won the 1994 World Series, had it occurred.

Antique Mall Mystery Pack: Marlins

That trip to the antique mall last year keeps on providing fresh material, and I haven't even opened two of the Mystery Packs yet, though I know they're for the Twins and the Expos. But for this round, we'll be taking a look at the Rockies' expansion counterpart, the Florida Marlins.

Yes, they're now called the Miami Marlins, partially because they haven't been the only team in Florida for close to twenty seasons, and partially because marketing got involved and decided they were in need of a re-brand. But all these cards are from the "Florida" era, and most from when their primary color was turquoise.

1994 Donruss Special Edition #5 Gary Sheffield

We see that color a little bit in their road uniforms, but there's more gold than turquoise on this card, thanks to baseball card trends of the time. Donruss wasn't quite fully on board with gold parallels, so this Special Edition set only had a hundred cards, fifty from each of the two series. Which is just as well, since the card number on the back is also done up in gold foil, making the it pretty tough to read. Hand-collating 660 of these would involve plenty of squinting.

It depends on the light, but sometimes these Special Edition cards look a little more copper than gold. But the giant Donruss logo provides plenty of area for the gold to look shiny and rainbowy. But more on copper later.

1994 Topps #20 Bryan Harvey

A common theme of these packs has been lots of 1994 Topps, and while this isn't quite the glamour shot we saw for a Giant, it's definitely a posed studio photo, along with some cartoony motion blur. Most of the card brands got into double or triple exposures and motion blur, but the flame thing that's happening here doesn't really reflect what it would actually look like if they did a long exposure.

1994 Topps #370 Benito Santiago

But there were plenty of great action photos in 1994 Topps, like this card of Benito Santiago, listed here as "Benny". I do recall various announcers referring to him by that nickname, but I heard his given name of "Benito" much more frequently. Maybe it's just one of those cases of Topps deciding what they wanted his name to be, sort of like their 1960s "Bob" Clemente cards.

Don't forget that cameo of current Mets coach Tim Teufel. You can't quite tell what the outcome of this play was, but thankfully we can date this card! The Marlins visited San Diego (Santiago's previous team) twice in 1993, and a quick look through the box scores leads us to June 6th, 1993, about a week before I attended my first-ever Major League game. The Marlins won that one, helped out by an outfield assist from Jeff Conine on this exact play. So though it doesn't quite look it, Santiago got his guy!

1994 Topps Gold #161 Darrell Whitmore

Darrell Whitmore had a short, three-season career with the Marlins, and I don't really recognize his name other than from his various inaugural Marlins cards. But this is the Topps Gold parallel, which I'll be able to add to a sizable stack of these one-per-pack cards, a good chunk of which I got on eBay several years ago.

1993 Leaf #384 Charlie Hough

Charlie Hough was definitely past his prime by the time the Marlins signed him, as he built just a 14-25 record in his final two seasons. The Marlins employed a strategy similar to the Rockies, as Colorado signed Bryn Smith in 1993 to wrap up his long career. Smith in purple and Hough in turquoise must look extremely odd to most collectors, but since I found so many of their cards in my first year of collecting, they don't look that unfamiliar to me.

Flip this card over and you'll see the same gold rainbow foil on the team logo that Leaf/Donruss used the following year on those Donruss Special Edition cards. The premium brands always get the cool stuff a little earlier. Sometimes decades earlier, as 2016 Topps is finally losing the borders and going with full-bleed printing.

25 years coming on that one.

1993 Pinnacle #562 Cris Carpenter

This is probably our best look yet at the retina-searing colors of the early Florida Marlins, especially against the black borders of 1993 Pinnacle. It even has the Expansion Draft logo, just like the Rockies cards you've seen before. And that means this Marlins card has a tiny bonus Rockies logo, which more than makes up for a little bit of damage on the left side of the card.

Cris Carpenter might sound like a familiar name, but this is not the same Chris Carpenter who won the Cy Young Award for the Cardinals in 2005. Different guy entirely, although both played for the Cardinals, confusingly.

2002 Upper Deck MVP #226 Brad Penny

As in the Mets pack, this black-and-copper 2002 Upper Deck MVP remains one of my favorites. It's always nice to see some specialty sets like this in a 50-cent pack filled mostly with overproduction cards. I guess that's the magic of antiquing.

The color coding works really well with this design, and I've found that the black background is pretty sturdy, unlike say, 1994 Score, or 1993 Pinnacle. Or 1971 Topps, for that matter.

1996 Upper Deck #339 Al Leiter

Upper Deck was still pushing the copper envelope in 1996, and it's in a bold bar at the bottom of every base card in this and the following year's set (other than the numerous subset cards, of course). They hadn't quite thought to tone it down until a few years had gone by for that 2002 MVP design. This is a fairly boring photo of Al Leiter, but 1996 was the year he pitched the first-ever no-hitter for the young Florida Marlins, which happened to be the first no-hitter pitched against the Colorado Rockies. Interesting and unlikely trivia fact, isn't it? Both expansion teams had their first taste of a no-hitter while facing each other.

1996 Upper Deck #338 Pat Rapp

Pat Rapp never threw a no-hitter; in fact he only had one winning season his whole career. But we can all appreciate a card of a pitcher at the plate, right? As with most pitchers, it looks like unfamiliar territory for him. His uniform number is 48, but the bat he is using is marked #11, the number of fellow pitcher Chris Hammond. Maybe he was just trying to break out of a slump by switching out the lumber.

1998 Ultra #295 Todd Zeile

But copper is Upper Deck's color, not the Marlins'. Fortunately, the raised green lettering found on other 1998 Ultra cards happens to match well with the Marlins' colors. even if it is obscuring the catcher in this photo, Tom Pagnozzi of the Cardinals. Though Walt Weiss beat him to it, Zeile was one of dozens of players to play for both the Marlins and the Rockies, but that was still a few years off when this card was printed, as was his two-inning pitching career.

2000 Upper Deck Hitter's Club #77 Julio Ramirez HS

I have never heard of Julio Ramirez, who "Hit The Show" in 1999, but didn't play in 2000. Nor have I heard of Upper Deck Hitter's Club, a small 90-card set entirely devoid of pitchers. It has a little bit of mint green foil, an unusual but pleasing color for a card. But that's what cards were like around the turn of the millennium. You can spend a couple decades building a collection and never know of the existence of a set like this.

Who knows what I'll unearth in the next Mystery Pack?