1994 Topps Sparky Anderson

1993 was the last year Topps included Manager cards in their sets until 2001. I think we missed out on a bunch of cool cards during that period. We missed a 1995 Topps card of Felipe Alou (manager of the great 1994 Montreal Expos team, we missed a 1996 Bobby Cox card (manager of the 1995 World Series winning Atlanta Braves), and we missed out on manager cards of the expansion Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays during their first seasons (I fixed half of that mistake with a 1998 Topps Buck Showalter custom that I made a few weeks ago).

I decided to try to make a 1994 Topps card of Sparky Anderson. I made the front basically the same as a normal card, but messed around a little on the back so it didn't have a picture and had more room for stats. I like how it turned out. I will be doing more manager cards in the future, and if you have any ideas for manager cards (or anything else), feel free to leave me a comment and let me know. Thanks for checking out my blog.

-Jeremy

1996 Topps Dave Winfield

A little over a month ago, Nick from the Dime Box blog did a post on Dave Winfield's sunset cards. Topps made their last Winfield card in 1995, so I put a 1996 Topps Winfield on my list of cards to make. His card finally came up, so here it is. I really like how it turned out. It was a little bit of a challenge, but not so much that it wasn't fun to make.

1991 Topps Todd Van Poppel Draft Pick

Todd Van Poppel was the next big pitcher when he was drafted by the Oakland A's in 1990. He would've been the first overall pick if the Atlanta Braves thought he was signable. Instead, he slipped down to #14 and Oakland took him. He was rushed to the Majors quickly, and could've used a few years experience in the minors. Todd bounced around to a few different teams, and played into the mid '00's, but never was the ace pitcher everyone expected him to be.

I had the pleasure of meeting Todd in 1996 or 1997 when he was with the Texas Rangers organization. He was playing with the Charlotte Rangers, and I saw them take on my hometown Lakeland Tigers. Todd was nice enough to sign my 2 baseball cards in the rain, and I've been a fan of his ever since.

I think that Todd's 1991 Topps Draft Pick card would've been hot had it been issued that year. Here's what mine turned out like.

1993 Topps Charles Johnson Coming Attractions, and I'm getting Surge today!

1993 Topps is an important set to me. I was 8 in 1992, and had just started purchasing packs of cards with my own money. I remember the next year, 1993, that Topps put the Topps Gold cards in every pack, and I liked getting them. I liked getting the All-Star, Draft Pick, Manager, Top Prospect, and Coming Attraction cards. Topps also put cards of the Colorado Rockies and Florida Marlins in their set in Series 2, and being from Central Florida, I loved getting Marlin cards. I always found it funny, though, that Topps never gave a Coming Attraction subset card to the Rockies or Marlins. They gave each team a Draft Pick card, had a few Rockies and Marlins in the Top Prospect cards, and even had cards of their managers. Todays card fixes half of the problem, giving Charles Johnson the Marlins Top Prospect card. Charles was the Marlins #1 Draft Choice in 1992, but Topps chose to give left-hander Rich Ireland the Draft Pick card instead. CJ was one of the finest defensive catchers to play the game, and I remember him being a big part of the Marlins 1997 World Championship team. He appeared in the 1991 Topps Traded set when he was with Team USA, but (I believe due to contract negotiations with Topps) didn't appear on another Topps card until years later.

This card was a little easier to work with on the back due to the fact that the Marlins had Charlie Hough and John Johnstone on 1993 Topps cards, so I used their cards to help me with the name on the back. It also helped that Bret Boone of the Seattle Mariners had a Coming Attraction card. His card, instead of having the Mariners team colors on the back, had the Marlins team colors on the back, so I didn't have to use the back of a Marlins card and try to paste the Coming Attractions logo in the picture area. Maybe one of these days, I'll do a post showing the making of a card from start to finish.

I'll be traveling in the next few days, so I'll try to do a post tomorrow, and then will pretty much be off the radar for a week. And finally, I'm super excited to be recieving my package of Surge soda from Amazon today! I loved Surge when I was in high school in the late '90's! The citrus taste was legendary. I probably had one of my last Surge's sometime in the late '90's (probably out of the vending machine in my church's hallway). I searched for it for the next 4-5 years, and while driving around town with my friend Joe, we stopped to get some gas, and I found some in the fountain drinks that had to be way past the expiration date. I got a 64-oz cup, a 6-pack of Krispy Kreme donuts (which I had also been trying to find for a year or so), and chugged the soda and had 2 donuts. I got a huge sugar headache and was almost late for work. That was the last time I had Surge. I probably won't have any Krispy Kreme's with it, but I am sure going to enjoy having my first Surge since 2002 or so! Thanks for checking out my blog.

-Jeremy

1990 Topps Pete Rose

Topps never gave Pete Rose a 1990 card, and it's not difficult to see why. Tommy Helms managed the Reds for the rest of the 1989 season, so he got the Manager card in the 1990 set. Pete was banned from baseball, which also meant that he was banned from any MLB-licensed card sets, including 1990 Topps. I met Pete at a celebrity softball game in 2005, and he seemed like a nice guy, signing tons of autographs. I decided to dream a little and give him a final card from 1990 Topps.

1952 Topps Johnny Podres/Jim Gilliam

In 2006, Topps made a set called Topps '52, featuring every rookie from 2006 on a card with the 1952 Topps design. It was a great set, and if Topps isn't going to bring back the MLB Debut set, Topps '52 is a good alternative.
In the Topps '52 set, there was an insert set featuring 2 players from the same team called Dynamic Duos. It used various aspects of the 1952 Topps design, and I really liked it. I was wondering the other day what it would've looked like if Topps had used the Dynamic Duos design in the original 1952 set. They could've paired Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford (if Ford would've had a contract with Topps), and that would've been one amazing card. I chose to pair teammates who were rookies in 1952 and didn't get a 1952 Topps card. The best pair I could come up with were Johnny Podres and Jim Gilliam. I used photos from their 1953 Topps cards (to stay true to the painted effect of the '52 set), and changed the wording on the card from Dynamic Duos to 1952 Rookies. I might try to make more 2-player rookie cards from early Topps sets. I have some great cards coming up next, so stay tuned.

1998 Topps Ron Karkovice

I think I am getting to know myself better as a card collector and a custom card maker. I think that like many other card collectors, that I am mainly interested in cards that came out during the years I collected (1988-2012 or so). While I have many cards from before 1988, and I will always be fascinated with older cards, I guess you could say that sets that I remember busting packs of, or seeing in a beckett, or seeing in friends collections are ones that I enjoy. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised that I have been deviating from my set checklists when it comes to making custom cards. This card was supposed to be a 1984 Topps Traded Kirby Puckett. While Puckett was a great player, I know other bloggers have made this card before, and I guess I kind of want to be different and make cards nobody else will make. I loved the 1998 Topps set, and I had Ron Karkovice in my list of final cards to make from that set, so I decided to do his '98 Topps card for card #34.
I have been a fan of "Karko" for a while now. I got his 1989 Topps card out of one of the first packs of cards I ever opened, I watched him and the Chicago White Sox on WGN games since probably 1993 or so, but the real thing that sticks out in my mind about Ron was the 1994 Post-Season. "But wait. There wasn't a Post-season in 1994", you say. Oh yes there was. In 1994, Dateline NBC simulated the rest of the 1994 season on a computer program, and if I'm not mistaken, they had the New York Banee$ beating the Cincinatti Reds in the World Series. Topps also did the same thing with a computer system, and they actually kept the stats that were made, added them to players' 1994 regular stats, and put versions of cards with the computer-simulated stats added into their 1995 Topps sets in the paralell set called 'Cyberstats' or 'Spectra Light', whichever you prefer to call it. In their simulations, they had the Cleveland Indians beating the Atlanta Braves in the World Series. They also made a 7-card insert set that was placed in factory sets, which highlighted the Playoffs and World Series. I had wanted that set ever since it came out, but since I only had a small card shop, and haven't really been on eBay much, I wasn't able to get the set until 2009 when I finally got the set off of COMC.
Around that time, I had got Strategic Baseball Simulator for my laptop, and decided I wanted to do my own version of the 1994 season. I simmed the season, and the playoffs, and the Chicago White Sox and Cincinatti Reds were the last 2 teams standing. The playoffs had some great moments, including a Paul O'Neill walkoff HR off of Dennis Eckersley, a Sean Berry series-clinching walkoff HR, and a Complete-Game Shutout by Cleveland Indians pitcher Denny Martinez against the Baltimore Orioles in a 1-game playoff to determine the AL Wild Card. In the World Series, the White Sox took on the Reds. In Game 1, the Sox won 19-2. Robin Ventura had 2 HRs and 7 RBIs, and Ozzie Guillen had 5 hits. Karkovice hit a 2-run HR in the bottom of the 8th to give the White Sox a lead they would never relinquish. Bret Boone hit a Sac-Fly to give the Reds a 3-2 lead in the 8th of Game 3, that would prove to be the winning run. Boone also won Game 4 with a RBI hit in the bottom of the 10th Inning. Jose Rijo pitched 7 innings of 3-run ball, and had 2 RBIs at the plate to give the Reds a 5-3 win in Game 5. In a must-win game for the White Sox, Julio Franco came through with a game-winning Sac-Fly in the bottom of the 12th inning of Game 6. Game 7 was never in doubt, as the White Sox took an early lead, and ended up winning 12-4. Karko had 3 Home Runs in Game 7, and was named the World Series MVP with a .310 Batting Average, 4 Home Runs, and 11 RBIs.
I was in the midst of making an ill-fated custom set featuring me, some of my friends, places I've been to, and great memories I've had at the time, and decided to make a set similar to the Cyberstats 7-card playoff insert in my set. The whole custom set turned out to be a waste of time, but I still have the photo of the Karkovice World Series card.

Hope this post wasn't too long or too confusing to understand. In the end, Karko gets his final Topps card, a World Series ring, a 3-HR World Series game, and an extra Cyberstats card.