2017 JustCommons purchase: just Morrises

Previously:  Jim Abbott, Kirk Gibson, Barry Larkin

Back in late May I made my largest JustCommons purchase yet:  around 330 cards for about $57.  That total included a few things heading into trade packages, but overall I added almost 300 new cards to some of my baseball PCs.  Over something like seven different posts I'll cover those new cards, player by player!

Today on Too Many Reds, we're featuring Hal Morris, another one of those future good-to-great players the Yankees gave away in the 80s while wondering why they weren't making the playoffs (Fred McGriff and Jay Buhner say hi too!).  It just so happens that Hal is one of three existing PC guys (the second is Mike Matheny, who doesn't feature in this series, but you'll see the third guy in my next post) I'm promoting to a supercollection as his roughly 350-ish regular issue run feels like a reasonable chase.  Between what I already had and this JustCommons purchase, I've got a nice start, plus I should get a very nice boost from Sportlots and COMC before much longer.

So, about those JustCommons cards--let's see exactly what they are:

I'm missing just two of Hal's 1989 cards, so we'll kick things off with 1990 and that year's Classic Update and Score Rising Stars sets, the latter of which is one of just 10 regular issue cards I know of picturing him with the Bombers.  I added just a pair of '91s as well in Topps and Upper Deck, with the former awarding the young Red with its coveted Rookie Cup.  Five 1992 cards neatly finish out the scan:  Donruss, Fleer, Pinnacle, Score, and Triple Play (YES!  Got it right!).  Hal appeared on a decent amount of cardboard in his first three years with Cincy, likely because he finished third in the NL ROY balloting in '90 and won a ring with that year's squad.

As I've mentioned recently, things seemed to get more interesting design-wise in 1993, and while card #1 in this scan from Fleer doesn't really fit the bill, the trio of Leaf, Score, and Ultra are all improvements in my opinion.  1994 was pretty good too with examples from Bowman, Donruss, Fleer, Leaf, and Pinnacle.  Once again, I consider the '94 versions of Bowman, Donruss and Pinnacle to be better than their previous issues, while Fleer is still kind of Meh and Leaf is about the same.  One interesting note as I'm comparing this scan to the last one:  after zero fielding action photos up top, this one includes six.

Here the top row finishes up the 1994 products with Studio, Triple Play (right again!), and Upper Deck Collector's Choice (welp).  As usual, the mid-90s and later Studio designs look fantastic.  Moving on to 1995 we've got more solid entries from Bowman and Donruss, a strange-but-at-least-different Fleer, a Topps Cyberstats parallel, and another nice looking Ultra.  Finishing off the scan is a '96 Donruss base with the logo square comically looking like it's censoring something!

The first half of this eight-spot finishes up Hal's 1996 run with the debut of Metal Universe, a rather conservative Pacific design, a typically nice Stadium Club, and one of the better looks for Upper Deck Collector's Choice (aw h*ck).  The second half feels somewhat like a repeat with '97 and '98 Pacific (alternating gaudy and subtle), 1999 Metal Universe--with a lone Royals appearance--and 1999 Pacific Aurora (whatever).  That's a lotta Pacific!

And then of course we have some horizontal Hals:

Starting with 1992 O-Pee-Chee and a Topps Gold Winner parallel, let's start with a photo of Morris apparently sliding in a completely empty stadium; practice makes perfect!  1994 Score's photo makes it look like a close pick-off play at first for a Padre making a cameo.  A foil-heavy '95 Flair release gives us another close-up of the 1B sporting eye-black.  And finally, we're treated to a double play of Morris at the bat rack from '95 Score and its Gold Rush parallel.

In all I managed to grab 40 new Morris cards for his newly-minted supercollection, plus a fun oddball, giving me 144 of his 359-card checklist I pieced together, and 149 cards overall.  I had a Hal of a good time making these additions, and I'm looking forward to showing off the other three posts as well soon, including one more Red!