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

My custom Little League card

Jeff over at 2x3 Heroes has a contest going on where readers can create their own custom trading card. I got home from my first softball game of the season at 9PM tonight and got to work trying to make a decent custom of myself. I wanted to make a back to the card to poke fun at my skills (or lack thereof). 

I played only 1 year of Little League, the '93-'94 season for Lakeland City Little League. I was the Rightfielder for Tony's Pictures, and I usually came off of the bench, and got 2 Strikeouts in  2 At-Bats, and if the ball got hit to me in right, I would make a decent play maybe 65% of the time (I didn't catch any flyballs, though. I only got 1 Hit all season, a slow roller down the 3B line. I also got 1 during a practice game, but unfortunately, we all know they don't count those stats in the regular season. After the year, I retired from baseball to play basketball, piano, and persue things I was actually good at. 

I would end up playing softball a few times over the years, and have fared alot better at that than my Little League career. Last season, I hit .310 on my church's team, and we had our first game on the '16 season earlier tonight. As usual, during the first game there were more than enough players, so I ended up being 1 of 4 DH's, and only got 1 At-Bat. We were visiting, and I was due to lead off the top of the 7th, but we gave up a 3-run HR to make the score 15-4, and we forfeited due to the 10-Run rule. Sucks, but I did go 1-1 with a Single to shortstop. We had a few scoring chances blown due to people not hustling, and I was involved in a double play myself. I was on 2nd with 1 out, and the batter hit it right to short. I tried to avoid the tag, but they got me and made the easy pitch to second. It was all good, because my pregnant wife was at the game, and I told her I would get a hit for our son. He is due mid-November, so if everything goes good, he may be able to watch his Old-Man play when he is outside of the womb towards the end of the season.

Sorry this post was so late, and good job to all of the other guys who made customs in the contest.  Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy

Coaches Center Part 10: 1999 Topps #497 Greg Riddoch

Greg Riddoch first got into the Majors as a coach for the Padres. He served as a coach with the Friars from 1987 through the middle of the 1990 season, when he took over the managerial duties. He stayed on as Padres manager until the last few days of the 1992 season when Jim Riggleman replaced him. I'm not sure what he did from 1993-1997. Wikipedia doesn't mention anything, but I would assume he was in some kind of coach or player development role with a team. In 1998, he was a coach with the Devil Rays in their first season, and remained with them the next year, which would be his final one in the Majors.

Greg appeared in the 1990 Topps Traded set, and got into the 1991 and 1992 regular sets. He is missing from the 1988 and 1989 sets as a Padre (I will make a card of him in the 1990 regular set as well as a Padre coach), and he is also missing from the 1999 and 2000 sets as a Devil Ray. This '99 card gives him his 2nd to last Topps card.

My 2nd season as (hopefully if we get enough and don't have too many players) First Presbyterian DeLand's starting right fielder will begin on Monday at 6:30. My wife has an appointment at one of her pregnancy doctors earlier in the day, so we will probably head there after I get off work, grab some dinner, and then head to the ballpark. If I'm not zonked, I'll probably post a card and how I did at the game. High goals for this year will be to bat .400 with a hit in every game, an extra base hit, maybe a walk-off RBI, and a few decent plays in the field. Realistic ones are maybe hitting .300, scoring a few runs, driving in 3-5 RBIs, and making 2-3 putouts in the field. Hopefully my stats will fall somewhere inbetween and we will actually win a few games this year too.
Thanks for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy

Coaches Center Part 9: 1999 Topps #496 Frank Howard Coach

Frank Howard is a longtime player/coach/manager.  His career began in 1958 with the Dodgers. He stayed with them until 1965 when he was traded to the Washington Senators. He stayed with the franchise (which became the Tecas Rangers in 1972) until the middle of the aforementioned '72 season, when his contract was sold to the Detroit Tigers. He played the '73 season with Detroit before trying to keep playing by going to Japan in 1974. In his first At-Bat for the Taiheiyo Lions, he swung fiercely, and was injured, ending his playing career.
His coaching career started in 1977 with the Milwaukee Brewers. He stayed with the through the 1980 season. He managed the San Diego Padres for the 1982 season, and then became a coach for the New York Mets from 1982-1984. He also was the clubs manager for part of the '83 season. It was back to the Brew Crew for 1985 and 1986, then he went to Seattle in 1987 and 1988. He coached the Yankees in '89, skipped the 1990 season, before coming back to them for '91 and '92. He didn't coach in 1993, then came back to the Mets from 1994-1996. His final coaching stint came in 1998 and 1999 with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

'Hondo' appeared on many cards as a player, and even a few as a manager. Topps hasn't made coach cards since the mid '70's, so Frank is missing many cards as a coach. I will start with the '89 set since that's the set that my blog is starting with (the first set I remember getting packs of from my parents/grandparents as a kid). Howard is missing cards from the '89-'90 sets, the 1992 and 1993 sets, the '95-'97 sets, and the '99-'00 sets as a coach. This '99 custom crosses that one off of the list, and I made this '92 Topps card for my other blog.

I might try to work on some customs late tonight. I have a first time fathers class from 6-9, so maybe after I get back from that. Tomorrow I'll be stuck at the doctors for a while, so I might try to work on finilizing some rosters for the '01 set. This could be the last chance I have to work on customs the next week or five. It looks like we should close on the house next week, so that means all the craziness of packing/unpacking/painting should start, and between that, softball season, work, random doctor appointments, and preparing for the baby, I think I'll be just begging for time to sleep. If I can just get through the end of the year, I think I'll be fine. I'm sure someone can relate. Thanks for checking out the latest card in my custom set. 

-Jeremy

More customs from Richard

A few days ago, I got another batch of customs from Richard, a reader who enjoys making custom cards. He knocked a good number of cards off of my list of cards that are missing from Topps sets, and also put a good dent in Larry Rothschild's career Topps run. A few months ago, I tried to go through every post and find missing Topps cards from players I had already done cards of so I could add them to my list. Rothschild just happened to be one of the ones I did, and he coached for close to 20 seasons, so he is missing a good deal of Topps cards. I am now going team by team through the 2001 Topps set and listing each player missing from the set, and plan to do that for every year from 1989 through at least the '01 set. Back to Rothschild, in addition to the cards 7 Richard made for me (the 6 shown here and 1 in a previous post), I made his '92 and '99 cards, as well as his '91, '98 (Devil Rays), and '00 cards that I haven't posted. That gives him 10 cards (11 including the '01 that the Topps company made). He is still missing ones from the '89 and '90 sets, '93-'96, '98 (Marlins), '02 (Devils Rays), '03-'06, and '08-'11 for a total of 16 cards needed. Larry, if you are reading this, we are working on getting you that career Topps run, so stay tuned. 

I like the look of the '97 cards Richard made, and the ones from newer years almost look like they fell out of Topps packs. I look forward to seeing more of Richard's work, and if anyone wants to help knock some cards off of my list, please let me know. I can share the templates I have, and there are always plenty of cards on my list that need to be made.

Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy

Some templates for you

So here are some of those templates I was talking about in my last post. Some years I don't have many of, but here is most of what I have and some tips on each year's set. 

This first file has various Topps logos, Draft Pick insignias, and team logos that I have used so far in my customs. I know the Red Sox logo is pink. Without the pink, it will show the background behind it, so if you use it, leave it like it is, and fill it in with white once you place it where you want it.

The 1990 templates are fairly simple. Just place them over whatever photo you choose and when you type in the name, I believe it is the Arial Black font and it is italicized.

 I have a good number of teams for 1994. I use a Brussels font (once in black, and then again in white for the shadow effect). The Draft Pick card has the name go at an angle in the yellow box.

 The 1995 set is a little tricky. The first picture has most of the basic letters for the font. It's a pain to select every letter 1 by 1 and copy and paste them, but I got each letter off of a 1995 card, so I hope it helps. Some of the templates have a lot of white along the border, and the picture might leak through, so you may have to touch the border up with white.

 For 1996, this is the basic National League border. The team logo goes at the top right or left and the Topps logo goes above the picture box. I don't know another way to do it, so I usually copy a picture of the players face in MS Paint, and then cut out the background, and invert the colors and place it in the picture box.

 For 1997, NL players get green, and AL get the reddish one. The letters are the closest I got to the actual font in MS Paint, but whatever program you have may have better font selections.

 1999 is fairly simple. You basically put the photo behind the template, write the team name with a black shadow behind it, and write the player name sideways.

I hope these templates give any custom card makes that read this some new sets to try working in. If you need a list of players who need cards in a certain years' set, I have one here. Currently, I am working on the complete checklist for the 2001 Topps set, and then I will probably work on the 2000 set, followed by 1989-1999. I always appreciate help with making cards in any Topps set, and if you like, I would be happy to post some of your creations here on my blog, just email me at karensjer at gmail dot com. Please let me know if you have any questions on making customs or have any particular Topps sets you are just dying for templates of. Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy