10/7/17 card show report: card show mad libs with Kendy Griffson and friends

Honestly at this point these show posts write themselves:

I went to the monthly show in Taylor A. (date of show) to hit up my favorite dealer's table and spent about an hour and a half combing through his various boxes.  In the end I came out with B. (quantity and type of cards), and the seller gave me a nice little discount by only charging me C. (price).  I had a great time as always picking up some cards for myself and some trade bait for a few of you while I was at it.  You'll see a bunch of the cards below and even more over on TMM!

A. a couple Saturdays ago
B. 50 dime cards, 140 quarters, and a pair from the $0.50 box
C. $30

Sure, the intros to these posts aren't terribly imaginative, but I don't really care since the cards are different every time and that's the point--they are the stars of the posts after all!

Though I didn't set out with this goal in mind, everything I grabbed from this here blog comes from the holy PC quartet of Griffey/Gwynn/Maddux/Ripken.  As an added bonus for me, each player's cards fit on one scan--woohoo!  Less work!  And woohoo for those of you that especially love stuff from the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s:

Let's kick things off with 15 years of Griffey in one scan.  Representing 1992 is Pinnacle's solid Team 2000 insert, better looking than a lot of chase cards at the time.  Jumping ahead to '95 there's one of Junior's Silver Signature parallels from the second Collector's Choice product of that year, SE (Special Edition).  I'm wondering if the records mentioned on the front refer to his home run pace in '94.

Meanwhile, 1998 is represented by four cards:  Flair Showcase Row 2 and 3 (second easiest and easiest to find), half of the Mariners' Pinnacle Inside Stand-Up Guys insert, and Pacific's Revolution.  The former two are stunning and offer ample evidence that Fleer still needs to be producing baseball cards.  The Pinnacle card, however, was a goofy insert from a fun product--when you got the accompanying card and slid the two together along their notches you got a complete look at all four players.  Griffey actually appears on the back, so I threw in the full scan here:

I for one think Kendy Griffson would have given Babe Ruth a run for his pitching/hitting money.  Kenny's power and speed paired with Randy's left arm would have been unstoppable, especially given that this Star Trek transporter accident has the benefit (I'm assuming) of three arms!  Small problem:  no head.  We'll let the scientists figure that one out.

Anyway, Revolution's in-your-face eye-blasting gaudy design is so typical of Pacific's LSD-induced insanity that you can't help but love it!

The bottom third includes a 1999 Skybox Premium Live Bats insert, which is fairly emblematic of Fleer's Skybox stuff at the time; Ken's Magic Moments subset card (#475B) from 2000 Topps, one of the several variations I'm chasing; and a 2007 Fleer Year in Review insert highlighting the Kid matching Reggie Jackson in career homers.  He'd finish his career in 6th place with 630, with Albert Pujols getting close, plus Alex Rodriguez and Jim Thome helping to push Mr. October down to 14th.

Now we'll stick with the letter "G" and look at six cards of Mr. Padre, Tony Gwynn.  Again these are mostly from the heyday of inserts, the 90s-early 2000s.  The first two are from one of my favorite years for collecting, 1997:  an unscratched Upper Deck Predictor and Topps Season's Best issue.  That's right, younger collectors:  20 years ago, Upper Deck was still allowed to produce baseball cards and Topps inserts didn't suck!

Moving on to 1999 I grabbed a couple eye-popping (or any other damage you prefer) inserts:  Pacific's Aurora Pennant Fever and Skybox Thunder www.batterz.com.  Gwynn's Padres, of course, won the '98 NL pennant (only to lose to the Yankees in Tony's second and final attempt at a ring), so the Aurora card was plenty relevant.  Meanwhile, don't you love the positively ancient looking web browser design on the Skybox insert?  Almost 20 years later I still think Apple stuff is stupid.

The last two are from 2001 Upper Deck Midsummer Classic Moments and 2010 Topps Cards Your Mom Threw Out (regular, not Original back).  The former highlights Gwynn's day at the 1994 All-Star Game, in which he chipped in two each of runs, hits, and RBI.  After Fred McGriff tied things up in the bottom of the 9th with a two-run bomb, Gwynn singled to lead off the bottom of the 10th and scored the winning run on a Moises Alou double.  The latter is a reprint of his 1986 Topps base and therefore not terribly interesting.

Not only did I nab nine new Griffeys, I repeated the feat with Greg Maddux!  While inserts were generally the story of the day, this scan starts off with a couple base cards from the very nice '94 Stadium Club set.  Then I jumped a head a few years with one of Greg's '97 Ultra Checklist inserts and a parallel I've always admired, 1998 Score Showcase.

After that we move up to Maddux's return to Chicago with some mid-aughts examples:  a Total Topps insert from 2005 Topps Total, 2006 Flair Showcase Hot Numbers, and 2006 Fleer Smooth Leather.  The Total insert isn't bad for as basic as the product was, but the Flair Showcase card looks absolutely fantastic (as the product often did), and even the more subtle Fleer insert looks great.

The last two cover Mad Dog's final two teams in San Diego and L.A.  The first card, a 2007 Topps Trading Places insert, actually includes both franchises, though of course, just as he did with the Cubs, he returned to the Dodgers for a second stint.  The other, exclusively Padres, card is a 2008 Upper Deck 20th Anniversary offering from a four-sport dealer program.  I much prefer the 10th Anniversary cards, but this one's still pretty cool.

Cal Ripken Jr. isn't the player for whom I found the most cards this time, but he is responsible for the largest span between sets today.  That's because I found his '85 Donruss Diamond King subset (still love those to this day!) and base card from the subsequent year.  Then I moved all the way up to his '98 Finest base--not one of my favorite designs for the product, but still solid.

As with Griffey, I also found one of Cal's 2000 Topps Magic Moments subset variations, this one highlighting his 400th   He finished 1999 with 402 then put up 29 more before hanging up his cleats.  Joining that one from the early aughts is a Heroes of Baseball insert that actually hails from the minor league-centric 2002 Upper Deck Prospect Premieres product.

I was then pleasantly surprised to turn up another good example of one of those well done artistically-themed sets in that 2009 Upper Deck Goudey base.  Very cool of UD to bring that classic name back to collecting!  And speaking of bringing things back, this scan comes full circle--with evidence of 30 years of progress--with Cal's 2017 Donruss Optic base.  I at least find it very cool to see the '85 and '86 cards next to the 2017 version!

That's it for this month's show, but please make sure to see the rest of what I found on TMM, then stay tuned for lots of incoming stuff that I'm behind on scanning and posting!