Wednesday, September 10, 2014

1997 Topps Alejandro Pena




Card #25 in the first series of my custom set was supposed to be a 1982 Topps Traded Wade Boggs card. I was excited about the 1981 Topps Minnie Minoso that I had just finished, and was even more excited about the next cards coming up after the '82 Traded Boggs (a 1980 Topps Disco Demolition Night Highlight card, a 1990 Topps Bo Jackson All-Star Game Highlight card, a 1978 Topps Ted Turner Manager card, and even the 1993 Topps Stadium Club Derek Jeter 1st Day Issue card, and I HATE the Yankee$). So I decided I would do cards #26 and 27 first (Disco Demolition and Bo Jackson) before I did #25 (the Boggs). I also had a list going of about 100 players who I followed growing up in the '90's who I believed Topps hadn't made a final card of. After checking on Wikipedia and Google, probably 80% of the players hadn't had a final Topps card. So I made a list of cards for Series 5 and 6, and have a partial list for Series 7. Now the last thing I could think about was a boring 1982 Topps Traded Wade Boggs card, and since other bloggers have done it, I decided to scrap the Boggs card, and put another card in it's place. I don't know why, but for some reason, Alejandro Pena stuck out at me. He played for the 1988 Los Angeles Dodgers championship team (one of my favorite teams of all-time), he won 3 World Series titles, and pitched for a few decent playoff teams, and he was a decent pitcher in his prime, winning the NL ERA title in 1984, tying for the lead in Shutouts, and becoming a decent reliever after getting injured the following year. So, I decided to make his last Topps card, a 1997 one. It was pretty difficult finding letters that didn't take too much re-touching, and the back was easier than the front, but I'm happy with how this card turned out, apologies to Wade Boggs. The first series is done, and now to start the 2nd series will be card #26, 1980 Topps Disco Demolition Night Highlights.

No comments:

Post a Comment