Favorite Player Collection Part 10: 2001 Topps JC Romero

JC Romero has been one of my favorite players since 2001. I was in my English class at the University of Mobile, and my friend Shadrick was talking about a baseball player he knew who went to school at UM. I asked him who it was and he said it was JC Romero. He and Shadrick knew each other from previous semesters, and I guess JC had come back to school after the MLB season was over to finish his degree. Shadrick showed me the 2001 Upper Deck Vintage card of JC that he had and I vowed one day to get that card. It arrived in my mailbox about a month ago with around 100 other cards I got from COMC.

JC played for the Twins from 1999-2005, the Angels in 2006, the Red Sox for 2007, the Phillies from 2007-2011, the Rockies in 2011, and the Cardinals and Orioles in 2012. He played for World Series winning clubs in 2007 and 2008 with the Red Sox and Phillies. His only Topps cards came in the 2003, 2008 Update, and 2011 Update sets. He did appear in a few team sets as well. This 2001 card helps fill in one of the holes in his career Topps run, but there are still a ton to go.

I have been doing a lot of research on replacement players during the 1994-1995 strike. I've found a few lists of the names of replacement players, but none of them list teams that the guys played for, so I have done a ton of research, and have matched teams to probably 50-100 players. I will be trying to make 1994 Topps Traded 'Update' cards for players that I can find suitable  pictures for.  The only way that Topps would've probably made cards for the replacements would've been for them to issue an updated Traded set in March of 1995. Had the strike continued in 1995, I suspect Topps would've either included replacements in a huge Series 2 set, issued a 3rd Series with replacements included , not included them at all in any set, or waited until the 1995 season was over and included replacements who played a regular season game in 1995 in the 1996 set over both series. So I've been doing a few cards of replacement players lately, as well as other random cards.

Thanks for reading my latest post.
-Jeremy