1997 Topps #505 Frank Viola

Frank Viola came up to the Majors in 1982 with the Minnesota Twins. He pitched with them until the 1989 trading deadline, when he was dealt to the Mets. Viola was a 20-game winner with the Twins in 1987, and also won a Cy Young Award, World Series title, and World Series MVP honors that year. He won 20 games in 1990 for the Mets, becoming one of only a few pitchers to win 20 games in a season in both leagues. After spending 1991 with the Mets, Viola pitched for the Red Sox from 1992-1994. In Spring Training in 1993, Frank and teammate Cory Bailey pitched a combined no-hitter against the Phillies. Frank spent 1995 with the Reds, and his final season was 1996 with the Blue Jays.

Frank appeared in every Topps set from 1983-1994. He also was in the 1992 Topps Traded set. The only cards Frank is missing are from the 1995-1997 Topps sets. This 1997 Topps custom gives Frank a sunset card, and leaves him 2 cards away from getting a career Topps run.

I finished the 1989 Topps templates, and am basically done with the checklist, with big thanks to reader Paul B. for helping me with them. Still haven't figured out whether I will make the checklists front and back. I'm leaning towards front and back and possibly printing them and putting them in my binders. Once I figure out how many checklists will be in the set, all I need to do is make a few All-Star cards for the managers and coaches of the '88 game, make some postseason highlight cards, and I will have the final total number of cards for the '89 Topps set. It's amazing that I'm a little over 2 years that I have completed 1 set (1992), and almost finished the checklists to 2 others (1989 and 2001), and completed templates for 2 others (1996 and 2000). This project is coming along faster than I had hoped, and I am grateful to all of the people who have helped out so far.
Thanks for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy