2018 Sportlots purchases: Junior's Jargon

I may have asked this before, but did anyone else look forward to starting off their post-cartoon Saturday afternoons in the 90s with Fox's In the Zone--featuring the Junior's Jargon segment which had the title music above--along with the pregame show and Saturday game of the week?

On this late summer Saturday afternoon let's look at a big pile of Ken Griffey Jr. cardboard from Sportlots:

This first scan includes a nice bunch of early 90s Stadium Club with a pair of '92s, a '93 "Murphy" boxed set base, and a couple more from '94.  Lots of great looks at Kenny's sweet swing plus a home run derby victory there.  Besides those, down the middle is a fun '94 trio of Pinnacle and both of his Sportflics appearances that year.  Hooray, Sportflics!  Last up is a '95 Leaf Great Gloves insert, a reminder of his 10 straight Gold Glove Awards.

In the next scan we get another example of UD's 1995 SP Championship for this series, then a couple more Stadium Club issues from the same year.  1996 brings one of Bowman's Best's cooler designs, a typically strong Studio look, and a Topps Classic Confrontations insert, which shows how he'd performed against a mix of "aces" such as Mike Mussina (zero hits in 14 ABs) and Roger Clemens (17/36 with two homers).  The bottom row comprises 1997 cards from Donruss Signature, Studio once again, and the first of a bunch of excellent Topps Gallery appearances.

The first two cards here finish off '97 with an Ultra Checklist insert and Upper Deck Defensive Gems subset from the excellent base set that year.  Then '98 opens with the base version of Donruss Elite (as opposed to the iconic insert), then a pair of base cards from one of my favorite 90s brands, Fleer's Sports Illustrated (and its variants such as Then and Now).  Another fantastic Stadium Club issue joins the beautiful Topps Gold Label (Class 1) and card #1 from Ultra to finish up 1998.  That Ultra example is one of the best in the product's whole run, if you ask me, and Gold Label's debut couldn't have gone any better either.  Another Fleer SI card from 1999 gives us a very popular 90s duo with Junior joined by guy-who-hit-dingers Mark McGwire.

Now we're into the last of the Mariners cards for a bit with a few more '99s:  an SP Authentic insert called Home Run Chronicles, a high-flyin' Topps Gallery base (with a cameo by utility guy Charles Gipson), and a cross-manufacturer insert called Home Run Heroes, in this case from Upper Deck.  Then there's a quick look at early Reds cards from 2000 out of Fleer's E-X and Topps Gallery once gain.  A great shot of a backwards-hatted, laughing Kid on that Gallery card, no?  2001 opens with Donruss' classy, uh, Classics, and then there's a little run of Fleer in the form of E-X, Focus, and Genuine.  I'm not sure why I like that Focus design as much as I do, but anyway that's a cool snapshot of what I have to assume is the ivy at Wrigley.

Here's what I'm calling the "artistic" scan.  The top trio closes out 2001 with Fleer Premium, Topps Gallery, and Ultra.  That year is when Gallery went to a painting look instead of simple photos, and I'd describe what's going on in the Ultra photo as interpretive dance.  2002 then begins and opens with masterpieces from Diamond Kings and Topps Gallery (it really was a great brand back then!), with Donruss' Classics and an Originals base plus Flair in-between.  Flair's excellent design kind of fits the artsy theme as well!  This scan then finishes up with Griffey's Reds base from Donruss Team Heroes, and I need to see if I need the Mariners version as well.

2003 goes out quickly with Flair, Playoff's amazing one-and-done Portraits, and a Topps-branded Bazooka comic.  Even more art!  Portraits may have been a bit redundant with Diamond Kings around but looked fantastic in its own right.  The rest of the scan jumps a bit into the future with UD base from 2006-08 (including a cameo by some guy in a Giants hat, right, arpsmith?) plus Elite Extra, Leaf Certified, and Topps Gallery cards from 2004, '05, and '08, respectively.

The last of the vertical cards makes a stop in 1999 for the always excellent SP Legendary Cuts, SPx and a short-term stop with the White Sox (barf), and a pair of UD base cards, one of which captures Junior's return to Seattle.  Also having him rep Seattle are a 2016 Diamond Kings base and Topps Berger's Best insert.  Serious question:  if I hadn't told you which Topps reprint insert that was, would you have been able to guess?

The group of horizontal Griffeys was small this time, but fortunately I ended up with a few nice photos.  #1 is a second example from Fleer's Sports Illustrated Then and Now product from '98.  Second is an insert I've found for a few of my PC guys, Pacific's 1999 Invincible Sandlot Heroes.  2002's Ultra base features arguably the best image of the bunch.  2003 UD's design is nothing to write home about but I value the product enough to have included as many examples as I could find for some of my bigger PC guys.  And finally, 2017 Stadium Club brings us in its time machine back to very early in a future HOFer's career with a great shot of the Kid batting.

And yet we're not quite done.  First I have one of those fold-out posters that Fleer liked to insert back in the day, this one from 1998 SI Then and Now's Great Shots.  Griffey was one of those guys who actually showed joy in playing the game sometimes, but he could also be as focused as he needed to be.

And finally, once again I tracked down a Collect-a-Books oddball issue of one of my favorites, in this case from 1991.  These are fun to own and surprisingly cheap, though I don't suppose they're exceedingly rare.  As always I'm scanning every page for your reading enjoyment:

This gaggle of Griffeys was a blast to put together and show off, plus it was very productive toward his collection which now stands at 742 items and growing!

I now have three posts left in the series on this here blog (and four to get to on TMM), including two more solo projects and an ensemble cast as well.