1999 Topps #517 Dave Silvestri

Before I started my project to give every 1998 Tampa Bay Devil Ray a 1999 Topps card, I looked at their roster and searched for pictures for every player. I couldn't find any of Dave Silvestri, and I was afraid I would have to photoshop a Rays uni on him. When I made this card, I did another search, and there were more than a few photos of Silvestri in a Rays uniform. One of the photos came from a site called baseballslant.com. There was a forum there with a post about former 1998 Rays with many pictures and some crazy detailed info. It was able to help me get photos of just about every '98 Ray, even some of the more difficult ones.

Back to Silvestri, Dave Silvestri made his MLB debut in 1992 with the Yankees. He played with them from 1992-1995. He went to the Expos midway through the '95 season, and stayed with them through 1996. He played with the Rangers in 1997, the Devil Rays in 1998, and spent a final season with the Angels in 1999.

Dave's first Topps card was special, as he got into the 1988 Topps Traded set since he was part of the 1988 USA Olympic baseball team. His only other Topps card was in the 1993 set on a a Top Prospects card that he shared with Chipper Jones. He appeared in some other Topps-made sets, including the 1989 Topps Big set, the 1992 Bowman set, and the 1994 Team Stadium Club set. He is missing cards from the 1994-2000 Topps sets, and this 1999 Topps custom leaves him with only 5 more cards needed to complete his career Topps run.

I did some more customs today and now am up to card #300 in my set. I also finished finalizing the rosters for the 2000 season for every NL team, and made the '01 Topps templates for them as well, so that set might be on its way to getting completed. Richard, who has made some sweet customs that I have featured on this blog, has said he wants to help with the '01 Topps set, so that set may be the next one completed maybe by the end of 2017. I hope to finish the checklist and templates by the end of this year and start the '00 set by then as well. Thanks for checking out my latest card.
-Jeremy