2014 Topps Jim Leyland sunset card

It's been a while since I've shared any new customs, so I thought I would share my latest one.

Jim Leyland was a terrific manager, earning 1,769 Wins in 22 seasons, winning 3 pennants, and 1 World Series title. I feel like he should've beat the Cardinals in '06 and the Giants in '12, but what do I know? Topps stopped featuring managers in their base sets after 2009, so he wasn't able to get his sunset card in the '14 set. I corrected the mistake, and gave him the hero card number of 700. 
I think he has a chance at the Hall of Fame based on his championship with the Marlins, solid work with the Tigers, his 2017 WBC title, and for turning the Pirates into contenders in the early '90's. He really got screwed over by Bonds' throw in the 1992 NLCS, and by the long layoff between the '06 ALCS and World Series, and I hope voters consider that. With some of these managers like Lou Piniella and Bobby Cox coming up on the ballot who only won 1 World Series Title, but had many division winners, I think Leyland might have a chance to get in. We know Cox will get elected, and Piniella definitely has a shot, and then you will have someone to compare Leyland to and make voters see that he is up their with them.

I finished the 2012 Topps missing player checklist tonight, and started working on some 'blank' templates for the 2013 and 2014 sets. Here is one for 2013.

I just basically have to change the color of the sea turtle, and cut and paste the team logo to make it work for every team. I hope that when I finish all of the missing player checklists that I can also provide some templates for most of the sets. I know I have all of them done for every team in the 1986-2001 sets, and I have blank templates for the 1976, 1985, 2002, 2003, 2007, 2008, 2013, and 2014 sets. Another few can hopefully be covered with some templates I made that just need some color adjustments, a few like 1952, 1968, 1983, and 1984 are already done, 1957 is just a white border with writing, so that's covered, 1962 is just a wood border and writing, so it's covered, and another are covered by the Topps custom card maker on their website (2016, 2017, and 2018). That leaves not as many sets as you think left to make templates for. I may try to work on this for a little while once the checklists are complete. Check back if you are a custom card maker and you could use some basic 2.5 by 3.5 inch .png template files.
I think I will also try to list all of the sunset cards I have come across that will be custom cards. A few years I haven't listed them on the checklist, but I think I can go on bbref and look at the page of each year and the players who played their final season, and just match them up with my checklists. If they don't appear on it, they have a Topps sunset card. If they do appear on my checklist, then that means they need a custom sunset card for that year. I think it will be really cool to make my 'Sunset Card' page and it will allow you to look and see who got a sunset card in which Topps set, and also see the hoards of players that missed out and need a custom one. Plus, it will give me a ton of cards to work on.

It's going to be a fun end of the year and a fun 2020 here at Topps Cards that Never Were. Thanks for coming along for the ride and for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy

All-Star Managers and Coaches

I haven't really been making post with regular themes lately, other than cards I have added to my collection, and although I did get a few hanging boxes lately ('19 Topps and '19 Heritage), they didn't contain anything special, and I didn't really want to waste a post on a random hanging box just for the sake of posting.
With that being said, the idea popped into my head last night to post all of the All-Star Manager and Coach cards I have made. I am coming up on the All-Star Manager and Coach cards in the 1993 Topps set, so that's where I got the idea from.

Let's start in 1983. This is the first set I really started making them in, although I had definitely added them to the checklists of earlier sets.  There isn't really that many places to search for All-Star coaches. Wikipedia and BB Reference do tell us the managers, though. For the '82 game, it was Billy Martin and Bob Lemon for the AL, and Tony LaRussa for the NL. Bob Lemon was fired after the '81 season, so in a normal year, the managers from the previous seasons' World Series game would be the All-Star managers. For the '82 game, Billy Martin was chosen to be the replacement in the AL. Here are their '83 Topps All-Star cards.

 I just finished making these cards a few weeks ago, and I really wish Topps would've given us All-Star manager and coach cards in all of their sets, but especially the '84 set.

 I haven't done '85, but here are the '86 Topps AS MGR cards, as well as one for Bobby Cox, the only coach I could find in the '85 game.

 In 1987, they didn't have the positions on the front, but the Managers were Howser and Herzog, and the coaches McNamara, Johnson, and Lasorda, each of whom would be All-Star managers in following years (McNamara and Johnson in the '87 game, and Lasorda in the '89 game.

 I haven't toyed with the '88 set, so here are the '89 cards, again with coaches.

 1990 didn't have positions listed again. Tommy Lasorda and Tony LaRussa managed the '89 game for leading their clubs to the '88 World Series.

 1991 didn't have positions listed again, but it was LaRussa and Roger Craig as the managers. I haven't got around to making the Craig, so the one you see down below Tony is a Joe Morgan coach card.

 I pulled out all of the stops in 1992, making backs to the entire set, something I will probably never do again. The Managers were Lou Piniella and LaRussa (again), and you can tell with the first few cards that I was just starting out, and that the last ones I was definitely getting better. I chose random stats and standings to put on the back of each one.

 There were a number of coaches in the '93 All-Star game, as you can see here. The managers were Bobby Cox and Cito Gaston.

After the '94 set, Topps put All-Stars in the 1995 set, and they were left out of the set until 2003, when they put in (guess what??) Managers!!!  I still will add coaches to the 2003-present sets.

As soon as I finish the coach cards in the 1993 Topps set, I will work on the All-Star manager and coach cards, with Bobby Cox and Tom Kelly being the managers for the '92 game.

I have finished the '84 set recently, have been making headway in the '93 set, and am 3 teams done from finishing the '81 Topps checklist. With all that being done, I am thinking about adding another thing to my plate by creating a Twitter account, mainly to post alot of the customs I make. I just don't want to mess up if I do create the account and I want to do everything professionally and not appear like a noob. So, a few questions...

First, what should I post? A random card? Groups of cards? A card of the day? What would attract people to follow my account?

Second, I notice there are a number of baseball players who I have made customs of that own Twitter accounts. Should I try to add them as followers first, and them post customs of them and tag them? Should I just post, and see if I can get the players as followers if these customs spread by word of mouth?

Third, should I add all of the MLB team accounts? Would Topps kill me if I added them and they saw that I was making customs using their designs?

I'm probably forgetting a few other questions, but these were the main ones. I don't even know if anyone would want to follow a Topps Cards that Never Were Twitter page, but if there is enough interest, I could create one. #ToppsCardsthatNeverWere.

Thanks for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy

'98 Devil Rays Set apart 1: 1999 Topps Larry Rothschild Manager

1998 was a big year for me. I was 15 then, I was getting a ton of baseball cards since I started getting 20 bucks a week to mow my grandpas yard, and there was finally a Major League Baseball team near me as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays started playing that year. I got a few Rays cards from packs in 1998, and in 1999 as the year went by I got even more, and this time with stats on the back for their first season. Topps probably left off a good 2/3rds of the team in their '99 set, so I am out to rectify that and give all of the '98 Rays team a '99 Topps card.

The first card I made for the set is one of Rays manager Larry Rothschild. Larry skippered the team until 2001. He didn't have much of a chance with the team as they only signed 2 really big free agents, Jose Canseco and Vinny Castilla, and one of them (Castilla) was injured for most of his tenure as a Ray. Perhaps if they would've got some pitching and signed a few big time hitters like Arizona, we wouldn't have had to wait until 2008 for our first playoff appearance and Larry could've stuck around a little longer.

Larry only has 1 Topps card, in the 2001 set. Had Topps put managers in their sets from '94 to '00, he would've been in probably 3 more sets as I suspect they would've included him in the '98 set. This is the first manager card I've made in the '99 set and I did it basically the same as I did for my 1999 Topps Dick Pole coach card, putting his Manager title in a box at the top of the card and his name underneath that. I'm going to try to make a page for my '99 Rays project with pictures to each card I have done. I'm probably about 1/5th of the way done so far.

I am also working on making 1992 Topps cards for every player/manager/coach who played in 1991 and wasn't in the original '92 Topps or Traded (rookies, not traded players) set. Larry was a coach for the Reds in '91, so I made his card in the set. It's just the front for now, but it is another card that Larry doesn't have.

I hope you enjoyed the 2 Cards that Never Were.  Thanks for checking out my latest custom.
-Jeremy