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

Really, Topps?

I started working on the Baltimore Orioles roster for the 2016 Topps set, and noticed that Topps did something for apparently no reason at all. Last February, I did a post showing the first packs of 2016 Topps that I got. In one of those packs, I got a card of Steve Pearce (#303)

of the Orioles, who is one of my favorite players. Great. Now I have Pearce's 2016 card, and unless he gets traded in the 2016 season or selected to the All-Star team or does something worthy of a highlight card, I will have every Pearce card out of 2016 Topps that I need (unless you count all of the 1,000 freaking parallel cards).
Apparently, I was wrong. While researching the 2016 Topps Update set, I found another card of Pearce (#US51)

. It pictures him with the Orioles, which is ok. Pearce signed with the Rays for the 2016 season, but was traded back to the Orioles midseason. A weird situation, but I'm ok with him getting 2 cards picturing him with the same team in the same year. Then I scrolled down the page a little more, and found ANOTHER Steve Pearce Orioles card (#US64)

, featuring a photo taken either a second before or after the picture of his 2nd 2016 Topps card (US51). Why do you need a 3rd card of Pearce??  I'm probably one of the few Pearce player collectors out there, and I don't see the need for the 3rd one. If I was crazy and actually went after all of the parallels, that would be at least probably 15 extra Pearce cards I would have to get because of the 3rd unnecessary card. I'm not made of money Topps!  I get maybe a few packs of Series 1, 2, Update, and maybe a few of Donruss, with a few random blasters sprinkled in there.  I will probably get less this year now that I have a baby. I don't have extra money to spend on a extra Pearce card just because Topps decided to hire a guy to do the checklists who is just out of college, knows nothing about baseball, and has probably never collected cards a day in their life. I can make a checklist better than the one Topps is making, and this custom project for the '16 set is proof. I think Topps needs to hire a few people who actually collects cards. There are more collectors than they think who actually want cards of the entire roster of a team, not just the 5 most popular players (18 most popular for the Yankees, of course). There is just something about collecting the entire set and nothing else. Inserts are ok, but they take away from the actual base set. Sure, there are people who are flippers, and Topps can make their Topps Briefcase set for them. But come on!  The people who collect the base set don't want extra cards of players who already got a card in the set earlier in the year!  Put different guys in! Please!  They just don't get it. I'll probably keep buying cards in the years to come, but Topps needs to get on a different plan because soon, all of the people who actually collect and don't flip cards will die out and nobody will be there to buy their base set, and eventaully the flippers will die out too. Maybe all of us collectors should stage a protest at the Topps HQ in Duryea, PA or wherever they are now. That is the popular thing to do now, right?  Does anyone else feel the same way or am I the only one?

2016 Boston Red Sox team set by Michael

A month or two ago, I got a nice email from a reader named Michael who send me some Boston Red Sox customs for a few different sets. He is from the Custom Baseball Card Facebook group, and he posts some great stuff on it. Recently, I have been trying to update the 2016 Topps checklist, and I finished the Boston Red Sox checklist. Michael took it upon himself to do every Red Sox on the list, and now we have the rest of the 2016 Topps Boston Red Sox set. If you are into making customs or like viewing the work of guys who make them, I would suggest joining the group. There are a good number of people who joined the group and make posts, and I usually see a few new batches of customs every week. The themes are fairly diverse, from Topps Archives-type customs of today's players in vintage designs, customs of characters in baseball movies, and everything in between. I might post newer stuff of mine in the group, and just keep going through the checklist of my customs on this blog just to give each platform something different to see. The next card in my set is #206, and the last custom I've made is #363, so it will be awhile before this blog catches up to the posts I've made on the Facebook group page, so if you read both, you shouldn't see duplicate cards for a while. 

I finished crossing off all the latest customs I've been e-mailed or made, and at the very least, each sets' checklist is current, even if my checklist isn't. I'll try to keep working on the '16 Topps checklist now that I'm all caught up, and hopefully get a few teams done by the end of the week. I will leave you with Michael's Red Sox set. Much thanks to you Michael for the help with the '16 set. 

Thanks for checking out my latest post.

-Jeremy

World Series Winners Part 2: 1996 Topps #508 Charlie O'Brien

Charlie O'Brien made his Major League debut with the Athletics on 1985. He was traded to the Brewers in 1986, which he spent in the minors. He got back into the Majors in 1987 with the Brewers and played with them until the middle of 1990 when he was traded to the Mets. After spending 1991 1992, and 1993 with them, he signed with the Atlanta Braves as a free agent, and spent 1994 and 1995 with them, winning the World Series with them in 1995. He spent 1996 and 1997 with the Blue Jays, inventing the catchers mask that we now see on most players while with the club in 1996. Charlie spent 1998 with the White Sox and Angels, stayed in Anaheim in 1999, and played his final season in 2000 with the Expos.

Charlie got his first Topps card in the 1988 set, and was in the 1989-1995 sets, before being left off of the 1996 set, which I covered with this custom. He got one last card in 1997, and that was it. He also got a 1994 Topps Traded set. Charlie is missing cards from the 1986, 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001 Topps sets to complete his career career Topps run.

It's been pretty busy at the home. With a 2 month old, it's tough to find time to work on customs, but sometimes I can get a few hours while my wife is at work and I'm home with him. Right now, I am working on checking some customs that readers Richard and Michael sent me, and I've also am working on the 2016 Topps checklist. So far, I am done with all of the coaches and managers, and 11 teams. I've made a few new customs, and I'll post them to the blog eventually. I also haven't forgot about my 1992 Topps blog, and I'll post a new card soon. Thanks for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy

1995 Topps #689 Charlie Hough

Charlie Hough played in the Majors from 1970-1994. He played for the Dodgers from 1970 through the middle of 1980 when he was sold to the Texas Rangers. After a decade with the Rangers, he pitched in 1991 and 1992 for the White Sox, and finished his career with the Florida Marlins in 1993 and -994. Charlie was a knuckleballer,  and the pitch helped keep him in the Bigs for a long time.

Charlie got his first Topps card in the 1972 set, and then appeared in every set through 1994. He also got a 1991 Topps Traded card. The only cards needed to finish his career Topps run are a 1971 Topps rookie, and this 1995 Topps sunset card. I am also adding another 1993 Topps card of Charlie picturing him with the White Sox, since he spent 1992 with them. The 1993 expansion started the practice of Topps putting players in their new uniforms and not giving them a final card with their old team. In my opinion, Series 1 should always feature cards of players in the previous years team uniform. Series 2 also should, and the Traded set should be reserved for rookies and then and only then should players get new cards with updated uniforms and team info. I can't stand the recent practice of Topps where they give a player a card in Series 1 or 2 featuring them with team A, and then for whatever reason, giving them a Traded card still with teamA since they never changed teams. This is why 500+players don't have Topps cards every year. You may issue a 350  card series 1 set, a 350 card series 2 set, and a 350  card Traded set, but with all these duplicate cards of every player, the real player count is probably closer to 800 or 900, not 900 or 1000 like it should be. Just my opinion and one of the reasons I feel why I have to do all of these crazy customs.

It should be noted that after I made this card that I saw that GCRL did a post of the same card, this one featuring a back. I probably wouldn't have made this card had I known that one existed, but that's ok. The funny thing is that I think we found the same photo to use for the card. What are the odds?

I'm working slowly but surely on the 2016 Topps final checklist. 4 teams are done so far, but I'll get done eventually. I've been making a good number of customs too, as you can probably tell if you've noticed more names crossed off of some of the checklist pages. Thanks for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy 

1997 Topps #506 Ozzie Smith

When I made this card, I kept thinking about Ozzie's 2 cards in the 2001 Topps Archives set. The set featured among other things, the first and final Topps cards of many players. You would logically figure that Topps would've had Ozzie's '79 and '96 Topps cards in the set. They got the last one by having his 1996 card in the set, but for some reason, they put his 1980 card in the set instead of his 1979 rookie. To make things worse, Topps missed out on making Ozzie's sunset 1997 card, so technically, neither his rookie nor his sunset Topps card appeared in the '01 Archives set.

This card turned out pretty good. The lettering came out great and really looks like it is the gold foil used by Topps in 1997. The logo has a few issues, but now that I have the 1997 templates done, I could easily go back and fix it. The photo looks nice, and features Ozzie during one of his final seasons in his career. This actually isn't the first custom I've done of the Wizard. I did a 1978 Topps rookie stars card with Ozzie, Eddie Murray, Paul Molitor, and Alan Trammell.

I have finally finished the templates to every set from 1989-2001. Now, it will be so much easier to make customs, because you won't have to make a template every time you make a custom, now you will just have to figure out the card you want to make, grab the design from whatever year it is in, find a photo, add the photo and player/team info, and you are set. I also made pages for every set from 1989-2001, and have begun to work on the checklist for the 2016 Topps set. Topps offers a way to make custom Topps cards on their website, but the sets are limited. Off of the top of my head, I can remember that they had the '68, '86, '15, and '16 designs on their site. If only they did every set.  The 2016 design, though, is amazing. The cards I've seen made with the design templates look just like pack-pulled 2016 cards, complete with team logos, the Topps logo, and you can even add the Rookie Card logo to them. Those are some of the reasons why I am trying to finalize the 2016 Topps checklist. I also kind of think that as the 2017 card year goes by that Topps may take the 2016 design away from the site in favor of the 2017 design. In 2009, me and a group of autograph collectors from SportsCollectors.net made a set of customs from the Topps website, and there were many more sets offered, including the 1982, 1987, 2008, and 2009 Topps designs. All of those are gone, so it makes me wonder.  Right now, I have every manager and coach, and the Detroit Tigers and Tampa Bay Rays done for the 2016 set. Hopefully in the next month or 2 I can knock the checklist out and with help I can possibly complete the '16 set. Thanks for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy

1994 Topps Season Highlights Jose Canseco

This is another cool Season Highlights card that Topps missed out on in the early '90's. On May 29th of 1993, Jose convinced his manager Kevin Kennedy to let him pitch an inning in a blowout. Canseco ended up injuring his arm and missing a decent amount of time in 1993, possibly costing him a shot at 500 Home Runs in his career. Score highlighted the moment ok Jose's 1994 Score base card with a photo of him pitching in the game.

This card was pretty simple to make. I used a 1994 Topps preview design which is different from the '94 regular set because of the brown background behind the player name instead of green. I've made a few other season highlights cards for other teams in this set, and they look pretty cool.

I am almost completely finished with the templates for every team from 1989-2001. I just have the NL teams in the 1997 set, and I will be finished. After that, I may do some easy copy and paste sets such as 2007 and 2008, but I'll probably take a break from templates and actually do some customs after that. I also want to possibly work on finalizing a checklist for the 2016 Topps set since Topps has templates on their website and those are pretty easy to make. Plus, I would think those designs could be taken off of the page sooner than later, especially with the 2017 set coming out in a month or two. I remember when Topps first started offering the customizable trading cards that they had the 2007-2009 designs available, and now those templates are nowhere to be found.

I put up a page for the 1998 Topps set, and after I finish the '97 templates, I'll put up pages for the other sets that are missing pages up through 2001. It's a bunch of pages, but I feel that's the best way to go. That way I can put templates up with each set, and the main page won't be as long as Santa's naughty list. Thanks for checking out my latest post.
-Jeremy