'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