As many of you who have been reading my blog for any amount of time know, I have a ton of baseball card projects going on at the same time. Currently, I am in the process of organizing my physical card binders, working on customs for the 1993 Topps set, making the missing player checklist for the 1965, 1964, and 1951 Topps project, trying to update my Favorite Player Collection pages, and add some of my cards to my Trading Card Database inventory.
Recently, I decided to undertake a new project, thanks to some help I got, and a book I never even knew existed.
I was 11 when the MLB strike happened in 1994, and 12 when they had replacement players during Spring Training. I was going to go to a replacement game for the Tigers, but my grandparents had come down from Michigan the week we had talked about going, and it just didn't happen. A few weeks later, when the regular players came back, I did go and see an Indians/Tigers game in the 2nd Spring Training of the year.
I had always been fascinated with the replacement players, and when I started doing customs, I really wanted to do a set of the replacement players, but never was able to find more than 150 or so of the names of them. Recently, I found out about a book called the 1995 STATS Replacement Player Handbook, which listed all of them. Not many were produced, and a few different searches turned up nothing as far as lists from it, or auctions of the handbook. I was recently able to contact someone who owns the book, and they were nice enough to scan copies of the team rosters in the book for me, so I am now in the possession of the entire replacement player rosters of 27 teams (the Orioles didn't use any). That means, it is now time for the arduous process of making the cards.
When I had worked on this idea before, I had toyed with the idea of using the 1994 Topps design, and I have now decided to use the 1995 Topps design. The '95 set would've been the first one to feature the players on them had the season went on with the replacement players, I think I like the look of them better, and it avoids the confusion of having someone who played in 1995 on a 1994 card set.
Here is a picture of the first few cards I have done.
Recently, I decided to undertake a new project, thanks to some help I got, and a book I never even knew existed.
I was 11 when the MLB strike happened in 1994, and 12 when they had replacement players during Spring Training. I was going to go to a replacement game for the Tigers, but my grandparents had come down from Michigan the week we had talked about going, and it just didn't happen. A few weeks later, when the regular players came back, I did go and see an Indians/Tigers game in the 2nd Spring Training of the year.
I had always been fascinated with the replacement players, and when I started doing customs, I really wanted to do a set of the replacement players, but never was able to find more than 150 or so of the names of them. Recently, I found out about a book called the 1995 STATS Replacement Player Handbook, which listed all of them. Not many were produced, and a few different searches turned up nothing as far as lists from it, or auctions of the handbook. I was recently able to contact someone who owns the book, and they were nice enough to scan copies of the team rosters in the book for me, so I am now in the possession of the entire replacement player rosters of 27 teams (the Orioles didn't use any). That means, it is now time for the arduous process of making the cards.
When I had worked on this idea before, I had toyed with the idea of using the 1994 Topps design, and I have now decided to use the 1995 Topps design. The '95 set would've been the first one to feature the players on them had the season went on with the replacement players, I think I like the look of them better, and it avoids the confusion of having someone who played in 1995 on a 1994 card set.
Here is a picture of the first few cards I have done.
Hopefully this will be the first of many new cards. \
Thanks for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy
Very interesting project. I'm extra excited just to see who ended up being the replacement players.
ReplyDeleteYeah, like Fuji, I'm looking forward to the rest of these. Seems there's a lot of mystery around those replacement players. Probably not a proud moment for most of them and I bet many in baseball would rather that whole situation be forgotten about. But it's an interesting part of the game's history.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like mostly guys in the minors. There were a few players who appeared in MLB in seasons before 1994 who played in Spring Training, but not as many as you would think. I would compare it to maybe former MLB guys coming out to play in the Senior Professional Baseball League, but definitely not the talent level of even that. The book describes the talent level as that of a high-A League.
DeleteIt seems many of the guys were just A-AA guys who didn’t think they would get a shot, but it is a lot more complicated than that because it’s not like they just crossed the picket lines. From what I’ve gathered from the few stories I’ve gleaned online, many minor leaguers were basically put on the spot and asked to cross the line and play in replacement games or be released if they didn’t.
What I have of the book is interesting. It was released after maybe a few weeks of spring training games were played, maybe in the last week of March ‘95. It basically lists every position player and projects if they would be a starter or backup. Not sure if it has a section for pitchers or not, but it does have a spot that gives each teams potential 4-man starting rotation as well as a closer. Even with all this, I am led to believe I am still missing the names of some position players (who may have just walked out or got injured), because I’ve found a team picture of the replacement Twins, and a few players aren’t in the book who are in the picture.
I would have to agree with you, Gavin, that the whole thing is wanted to be swept under the rug by MLB. I can’t seem to find many articles about that spring, or lists of players. I just want to put some info out there. I may just stick with the card set, I may post some pics from the book, I may start a whole new blog about the replacement player. Just depends on what the audience wants.
That's really cool. I mean, Oil Can Boyd? I'll be interested in other cards like this.
ReplyDelete