World Series Winners Part 3: 2001 Topps #796 Lance Johnson

Lance Johnson came up to the Majors for the first time in 1987 with the Cardinals. The next 8 years he spent with the Chicago White Sox, making a name for himself as a great centerfielder and hitter. In 1996 he played with the Mets, and split 1997 between them and the Chicago Cubs after he was traded. He stayed with the Cubs in 1998 and 1999, before spending his last year in MLB with the Yankees in 2000, where he won a World Series.

I remember watching Lance play while a teenager. I saw many of his games on TV, since he was with the White Sox and they were on WGN all of the time. I just remember him being so fast and getting so many triples and being called "1 Dog" for his uniform number. I also remember him Homering in the 1993 ALCS against the Blue Jays. Some of the highlights from Johnson's career include leading the league in triples for 4 straight year, becoming the first player to do so. When he led the NL in triples in 1996, he became the 4th player in history to achieve that feat. He led the AL in hits in 1995 and the NL in 1996, becoming the 1st player in history to do so. He also had a 6 for 6 game in which he hit 3 triples. Lance is also on one of my favorite cards in my collection, as I have his 1993 Topps Finest Refractor.

Lance appeared on every Topps set from 1989-2000. He missed out on getting into the 1988 Topps and 2001 Topps sets. It's funny because he was given a card in the 1988 Topps Big set, but not the regular set. This 2001 Topps custom only leaves the 1988 Topps card in order to finish Lance's career Topps run.

I'm hoping to get a few packs of 2017 Topps whenever they come out (I'm not sure if it's the 1st or the 8th of February, I've seen different dates on it), and I think I'll probably post what I get. While this blog is mostly about custom cards, I love collecting cards and I may try to post more about my collection.  Hope everyone gets some good stuff out of their first packs of the new year. 

Thanks for reading my latest post.

-Jeremy

1994 Topps Frank Tanana

Frank Tanana was an underrated pitcher, who nearly got 3,000 strikeouts in the Bigs. He pitched for 21 seasons in the Majors and tallied up 2,773 strikeouts, leading the AL in K's in 1975. He came up with the Angels in 1973, and played with them through 1980. He spent the '81 season in Boston, then pitched 1982-1985 with the Rangers. He was traded to the Tigers in 1985, and stayed with them through 1992. His final season in 1993 was spent with the Mets and Yankees.  I actually saw Tanana pitch in Spring Training in 1992. I was 9 years old and had a copy of his 1989 Donruss card. I took a few pictures of him warming up in the bullpen before the game, and I may still have them somewhere. We are hopefully moving in a few months, and if our new home is big enough, I will probably move some of my boxes out of storage and hopefully find my old pictures.  Anyways, after the game, I was outside the stadium trying to get autographs. I had managed to get Kevin Ritz of the Tigers and I believe Gary Redus of the Pirates to sign a softball I had. Barry Bonds came running out of the tunnel, and I had his 1989 Topps card. He ran off and didn't sign, but some guy who had a poster of him followed him and came back with it signed. If I knew how good Bonds was going to be in the next decade, I would've chased him too, but I was 9 and didn't know any better. Later, Frank Tanana comes out. I followed him (why him and not Bonds???), and he just walked to his car and got in, never signing a thing. I would get revenge about 10 years later when I went to the Tigers fantasy camp in Lakeland to try to get autographs. Frank was there and he signed my 1989 Donruss card as well as a few others. I never know why, but Frank is always kind of ambrasive when signing autographs in person. He signed my cards, but made a comment like I had a ton of them and like I was going to sell them. Oh well. I got my '89 Donruss card signed by Frank.

Tanana was only missing 1 Topps card from his career run, which was his final '94 sunset card. His Topps run is now complete with this custom. He only got 1 card in 1994 (from Score), and I actually had to use the same photo for my card since I couldn't find any online.

Now to something totally off topic, but earlier in the week, I had brought a pack of Topps Series 1. It was nothing special, but I did get the base card of John Jaso, as well as the Gold parallel card of Jaso. I'm sure if you've collected for 5 or more years, you have probably had it happen to you where you pull a base card and a parallel card of the same player in 1 pack. Does anyone know if there is a term for that?  I know if you get like 3 or more of the same card in a row in a repack/pack/trade stack it is called 'Getting Bipped' in honor of Bip Roberts, but what about when you get the base and parallel card in the same pack?  Can we call it 'Getting Jaso'ed'?  While we're at it, how did the term 'Getting Bipped' begin?  It would be cool if the term 'Jaso'ed' would catch on to describe the whole base/parallel in a pack thing. Any thoughts?

Thanks for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy

Missing Topps Cards: Mariano Rivera 1992 Topps, 1993 Topps, 1994 Topps Traded Update, 1995 Topps Traded, 1996 Topps

I had planned on doing the next cards in order numberwise, but I started making a few random Mariano Rivera cards, and decided to do a post where I completed his Topps run of cards. I did the 1992 card as part of my 1992 Topps blog. the others came as a request from REJ who writes Century 21 Topps Cards. I could've paired some great pitchers with Rivera in the 1993 card, but since Topps chose to post a player from each Minor League class, the pickings were slim. Topps already had a Coming Attractions card for the Yankees in the '94 set, but I decided to give them 2 more (including one with Jeter and Posada) in the Traded Update set. Rivera had a card with Lyle Mouton in the '95 Traded set, but didn't have his own card, so I gave him a Future Star card, and finally the '96 card pictures him with 3 borderline Hall of Fame pitchers. 

I have never been a Yankee fan, but I have a little respect for Rivera since he does alot of charitable work in his hometown. I'll try not to post too many Yankee cards on my blog, but I think I can live with a few of Rivera. 

In one of the next posts, I'll do another Missing Topps Card post of Jeromy Burnitz. I don't know how many of them I'll do, but I'll do a few at least to get the ball rolling.

Fun with Guillermo Hernandez!

I decided to make 2 'sunset cards' for Guillermo Hernandez. Most Detroit Tiger fans know that Guillermo's last year was 1989 and that he didn't get a card in the 1990 Topps set. So I created his 1990 Topps card. Few people (including myself until a few weeks ago) knew that Hernandez was a replacement player for the New York Yankees in 1995 during Spring Training while the regular players were on strike. An arbitrator ruled the strike over shortly after Spring Training ended, so Hernandez and over 700 other players never got to play that year or appear in any card sets. Since no sets were made featuring replacement players, I decided to make a 1994 Topps Traded card of Guillermo, since his replacement player appearance marked the official last time he put on a Big League uniform. I figured that since Topps already put the 1995 Series 1 set out before Spring Training (I believe in either January or February of 1995), that I would put replacement players in a 2nd series of 1994 Topps Traded cards, as if the set had been released shortly after the replacement players signed (I'd guess January 1995-late February 1995). So imagine that the '94 Topps Traded (Update Series?) was released in early March of 1995 (instead of Topps having to issue '95 Series 2 in March, just a few weeks after Series 1 came out), and that all the replacement players got cards, and this is what you would get.
I decided that I'm not going to make anymore backs to the cards, unless someone really wants them. It just saves me time, and makes the cards alot easier to make. Hope you enjoyed these 2 cards, and thanks for checking out my blog.
-Jeremy

1993 Stadium Club Derek Jeter 1st Day Issue

I hate the Yankees. I hate Derek Jeter. So why am I making a card of him? Because Topps Stadium Club didn't feature him in their 1993 set. They had many other rookies, but failed to include any of the 1992 #1 Draft Picks. Since Stadium Club came out with the 1st Day Issue cards for the first time in 1993, which were limited to 2,000 of every card, this card would probably be one of Jeter's most popular cards. It should be mentioned that Jeter also didn't appear in the 1993 Topps Finest set. Beckett did a 1993 Finest Jeter, and Topps included him in their 2001 Finest reprint set, and I may try a stab at a '93 Finest Jeter in the future as well. For now, here is his 1993 Stadium Club 1st Day Issue card.