1989 Topps Steve Carlton

I have looked all over, but I have been unable to find a 1989 Topps custom of Steve Carlton. I'll be the first to admit that mine certainly isn't the best, but now we finally have one. Steve got his last Topps card in the 1987 Topps Traded set. He really isn't missing too many cards from Topps during his career, just missing a 1966 issue, a 1988 Topps card, and his 1989 Topps sunset card. Interestingly, he has 3 1987 Topps cards featuring him win 3 different teams. His regular card features him with the White Sox, his '87 Traded card shows him with the Indians, and he has a box bottom card that could be found on the bottom of 1987 Topps boxes featuring him with the Giants. So 3 '87 cards with 3 different teams, but no cards in 1988 or 1989. Crazy.

I probably should've used a smaller font on this card, but it was too late when I realized it. I need to watch a tutorial on how to write text on a path using GIMP. I tried following directions to 1 video I watched, but it must've been a different version of GIMP because some of the screens they had up weren't on my version. One day I will figure it out and sets like 1989 Topps, 2002 Topps, and 2006 Topps will be a lot easier.

I haven't been doing too many customs lately as I am trying to get all my loose baseball cards in binders before I have to give up my man cave so it can become a nursery. Hopefully in our next house I can have a basement or something to call my own and I'll have all my binders out and I will finally hang up all my posters and things that have been in boxes for the past 10 years or so waiting for the perfect room. I probably will hold off on making customs for a little bit, but that's ok because I have about 50 that I haven't posted. Thanks for checking out the latest one.
-Jeremy

1995 Topps Rich Gossage

Tops gave Rich "Goose" Gossage his final Topps card in the 1992 set. Gossage played his final season in 1994. He was not the closer he once was, but still was a valuable player, so it's strange to see that Toops didn't include him in a set from '93-'95, not even in a Traded set.

Cards that never Were did a 1991 Topps Traded card of Goose to fill in one of the holes in Gossage's Topps run. I have the 1993 and 1994 Gossage cards on my list of cards to make, but if everything goes well, I may not have as much free time to make cards in the coming months/years as I have had, but it will be worth it I think. I'll eventually make Rich's missing Topps cards, if not in the coming months, than certainly in the years to come if I keep this blog going, and there is nothing right now saying that I won't, just might be a slower pace of posting and making cards.

Thanks to checking out my latest custom.
-Jeremy

1994 Topps Sparky Anderson

1993 was the last year Topps included Manager cards in their sets until 2001. I think we missed out on a bunch of cool cards during that period. We missed a 1995 Topps card of Felipe Alou (manager of the great 1994 Montreal Expos team, we missed a 1996 Bobby Cox card (manager of the 1995 World Series winning Atlanta Braves), and we missed out on manager cards of the expansion Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays during their first seasons (I fixed half of that mistake with a 1998 Topps Buck Showalter custom that I made a few weeks ago).

I decided to try to make a 1994 Topps card of Sparky Anderson. I made the front basically the same as a normal card, but messed around a little on the back so it didn't have a picture and had more room for stats. I like how it turned out. I will be doing more manager cards in the future, and if you have any ideas for manager cards (or anything else), feel free to leave me a comment and let me know. Thanks for checking out my blog.

-Jeremy

1996 Topps Dave Winfield

A little over a month ago, Nick from the Dime Box blog did a post on Dave Winfield's sunset cards. Topps made their last Winfield card in 1995, so I put a 1996 Topps Winfield on my list of cards to make. His card finally came up, so here it is. I really like how it turned out. It was a little bit of a challenge, but not so much that it wasn't fun to make.

1982 Topps Ryne Sandberg

A 1982 Topps Ryne Sandberg isn't a new idea. Heck, Topps even made one for their eTopps set a few years back. I decided I'd try my hand at one. I didn't realize that Ryno's first year was 1981. I figured that he debuted in 1982. That begs the question: Why didn't Topps make a card of him in 1982 or 1981? I may have to create a 1981 Topps Traded card. I will get some practice on the 1981 design, as the next card in Series 1 is a 1981 Topps Minnie Minoso.

1988 Topps Traded Ken Griffey, Jr.

The second card I'm doing from the 1988 Topps Traded set is Ken Griffy, Jr. I think that if this card would've been released, that it still wouldn't have been as popular as the 1989 Upper Deck rookie, but you never know. Topps wasn't doing Draft Pick cards in 1988, and the 1989 Bowman set with more rookie focus wasn't out yet, but Topps did feature Delino DeShields (the Montreal Expos #1 1988 Draft choice) in their O-Pee-Chee set in 1988, so if Topps really wanted to, they could've made this card. Or better yet, a 1987 Draft Pick card. Maybe I'll try that in the future.

1967 Topps Mets Rookie Stars

This isn't the first 1967 Topps Nolan Ryan/Tom Seaver card, but I still thought I would add it, since I haven't seen anyone do one with a back to it. Mets 360 did a nice one that used Ryan's photo from his 1968 Topps card. The 1967 Seaver card that Topps made would probably be worth at least double what it is if Ryan had been on it. This card and the 1952 Topps Eddie Gaedel are probably the oldest cards I will do in my custom set for now. I was born in 1983, so mainly cards from the 1990's, 2000's, and 1980's respectively are cards that I know like the back of my hand. I have working checklists of the next 2 series of 25 cards, and they mostly consist of '80's, '90's and a few '00's cards of stars, but I do have a few cards of players who weren't superstars, and a few cards before 1980. For the 4th series, I plan to do a few lesser-known players, and maybe venture into more cards before 1980. I have a huge list of cards that never were from 1951 to the present that I made, and maybe someday I'll get around to posting them. If you are reading this and have any ideas for cards, feel free to let me know, and thanks for checking out my boring blog.

1978 Topps Rookie Infielders

If things play out like I think they will in the Hall of Fame voting in the next year, this card would've been the rookie card of 4 Hall of Famers. Topps made a seperate card for Eddie Murray in the 1978 set, and didn't include Ozzie Smith (his rookie would appear in 1979. I found an awesome blog called KOD14 in my search for photos, and though there's not much information about it, I believe I got the basic idea of the blog. The blog's writer and a few other people participated in a computer-based simulation using real MLB teams from various years. For every team, they took the rosters, and made Topps cards for the players who Topps left off (kind of like I am trying to do with my 1992 Topps set on my other blog). Being an Out of the Park Baseball fan, I really like the concept of the blog, and it almost looks like they are using OOTP. Well, one of the teams was the 1978 San Diego Padres, so the writer made a regular 1978 Topps card of Ozzie Smith. I looked at the writer's other blogs on his profile, and it looks like the group did a few more seasons and made more cards as well. I might have to contact them and see if I can get in on it. Back to this card, I wish Topps would've had the forsight to put Murray and Smith on this card. It would've been one of the most popular cards of that decade.

1986 Topps Traded Barry Larkin

Barry Larkin was another player left off of the 1986 Topps Traded set. He made his MLB debut in August, so Topps probably didn't have enough time to get him in the set, but it's still a shame that he wasn't included in the set.
JT from The Writers Journey made a 1986 Topps Traded Larkin, and in reading his blog, I discovered that Barry didn't wear #11 until 1988, so it was difficult to find a picture of him wearing his old #15. I found the one I used on an Out of the Park Developments forum. This is off topic, but OOTP is a great game, and I eventually want to do a few custom seasons with it.
Here is the 2nd card from the 1986 Topps Traded set (Mark McGwire was the first).

1994 Topps Carlton Fisk

In 1993, I was 10. I had just started following baseball and watching games on TV and getting baseball cards. I was into the sport deep enough to know many of the more popular players, and my favorite team was the Detroit Tigers since I was born in Michigan and they spent their Spring Training in Lakeland, Florida, where I lived at the time. I also followed the Atlanta Braves because they were on TBS just about every night. 1993 was a big year. Nolan Ryan, George Brett, Robin Yount, and Carlton Fisk were all in their final seasons. In 1994, Topps issued cards of each of them, except for Fisk. The 1994 Topps Ryan card was one of the most popular cards out at the time. I never got why Topps gave a final card to Ryan, Brett, and Yount, but not Fisk. He was a popular player, and while typing up the stats on the card, I realized that he missed alot of games in his career, and that if he had played in 140-150 games each year that he would've put up some numbers that only maybe Mike Piazza would've touched. The stats are blurry as heck because I could only fit a 2pt font on the card in order to get all of them to fit, but trust me, they are there. It's a challenge to make these custom card, and sometimes I feel that they look like crap, but I enjoy making them, and it completes something that Topps should've done in my opinion, and that makes me feel like it's worth it. Here is what Topps' final Carlton Fisk card could've looked like.

1990 Topps Mike Schmidt All-Star

Mike Schmidt retired before the 1989 All-Star game, but fans still voted him in as a starter. Here's his 1990 Topps All-Star card (apologies to Howard Johnson).

1990 Topps Mike Schmidt

Mike Schmidt only recieved cards in 1990 from Donruss and Upper Deck. If I was running a card company back then, I would've at least thrown a tribute card into my set. I think I may do a 1990 Bowman Schmidt card in the future, but for now, here is what his 1990 Topps card may have looked like.