The Tigers were one of six franchises honored with a 10-card team greats insert set in this Fleer product, with the others being the Cardinals, Cubs, Dodgers, Red Sox, and Reds. At least in Detroit's case, nine of the players featured also made an appearance in the base set, and a 10th was thrown in--Ty Cobb, oddly enough! If you look at the list of players below and wonder why Lou Whitaker isn't included, for example, you're not alone, though to be fair, Sweet Lou appeared in very, very few products after '96. I would have probably made a couple replacements--where's Mickey Cochrane, Hank Greenberg and Charlie Gehringer, for instance?--but in a set of just 10 cards I think Fleer did a reasonably good job.
Card fronts are divided into two sections. The top 2/3 is a dark blue rectangle encompassing an inset classic photo of the player and a photo of old Tiger Stadium over which are placed the Fleer Greats logo, the iconic "Olde English 'D'", and the player's name and position.
The bottom third is a grayscale cropped photo with the years of the players' Tiger career (not including Gibby's second tenure, apparently) in the bottom right corner. Another logo with Detroit's "D" done up in a regal banner style sits between the player photo and this section.
The back is again divided in a 1/3-2/3 scheme. The smaller section is another dark blue rectangle that includes the card number (or lettering, as the case may be), player name, "D" logo, and biographic info. Another grayscale-type image sits in the other section, on top of which is a white box with an intricate silver border (topped by the previously-mentioned banner logo again), inside of which is the standard write-up.
This is a very classy insert set from a product with a classy reputation, and the Tigers theme is the icing on the cake for me. Here's your look at all 10 cards:
Beautiful set! 🐯⚾
ReplyDeleteThanks, Mr. Sharp!
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