2021 Sportlots purchases part 4: a Tettle-ton of Froot Loops

Previously: Quick summary and set wants; Big and small we have them all!; Better off Ted

While I received my highly anticipated recent eBay purchase this afternoon I'd already scanned the cards for this post, so I'll be going back to the Sportlots well before showing those off.

Looking over at my desk where my "in-process" cards sit, I see eight stacks of Sportlots pickups that need to be posted, currently split evenly between single players and groups. The post you're reading right now focuses on one specific PC: Mickey Tettleton.

Thanks to this latest Sportlots haul I scored 56 55 new cards of the player they called "Froot Loops". There should have been 56 but I appear to have misplaced one. Oh well, it happens.

As usual I ended up with a nice bunch for his collection, spanning pretty much his entire career and encompassing lots of brands, inserts, etc. It's definitely a cool group of items with an added bonus of lots of great catcher cards, which are always nice to add to a collection like mine.

Here's a quick look at what I added to his PC:

1985-1989: we start with a pair of "XRCs" out of '85 Fleer Update and Topps Traded, his first two mainstream cards after a trio of Minor League issues. Then we have two of what are considered his "true" RCs: '86 Donruss and Fleer. I own the Topps first-year by way of a complete set. The rest here are shiny parallel versions of junk wax products: '87 Fleer Glossy, '88 Fleer Glossy and Topps Traded Tiffany, and '89 Fleer Glossy and Topps Tiffany. For those of you who are curious, '88 Topps Tiffany is the card that seems to have walked away. These leave me with a relatively reasonable '80s wantlist of mainstream Tettleton items, mostly other Tiffany/Glossy cards.

This is the most catcher-heavy scan at six cards plus it includes the second highest percentage of Tigers issues. The years 1991-93 are covered here, and the first of those three is represented by a couple items that are more oddball than anything: 1991 Classic and Collegiate Collection Oklahoma State. Tettleton was born in Oklahoma and named after another Mickey from that state, Mr. Mantle (who was named after HOF Tigers catcher Cochrane. Full circle, man!) He wasn't exactly a star for OK State but Oakland picked him in the fifth round in '81 (one pick after hobby favorite Bip Roberts, who didn't sign with the Pirates that year) and he produced a very respectable career.

1991 was the first of four seasons he played in Detroit after the O's flipped him to the Tigers for the somewhat forgettable Jeff Robinson. That year's stats appear on his 1992 cards like the Bowman and Fleer All-Stars insert you see above. The rest of the items you see here are from 1993: Pacific Spanish, Stadium Club Members Only, and a trio of Topps versions: Gold plus both the Marlins and Rockies inaugural factory sets. Like I said, lots of great catching action!

So, uh, did the number of brands increase again in 1994? How come nobody told me?! This whole scan is just enough to contain the new items I acquired from that year. Premium products like Flair, Leaf Limited, and SP combine with Bowman, Score (Gold Rush parallel), Stadium Club (Golden Rainbow and Members Only versions), Ultra, and Upper Deck's Fun Pack to give you a nice sampler for what could be had back then. Here I'd award Flair the best looking card, but photo-wise I'm a bigger fan of the orange Detroit chest protector on the Bowman and Score pieces.

That creative explosion (which admittedly led to a biiiiit too many products) continued into 1995, as you can tell here by the fact that one scan wasn't enough to corral everything new to his collection from that year. A pair of Collector's Choice issues, Donruss' CCG, Fleer, and Pacific, aren't much to write home about design-wise, though the latter includes a nice play at the plate image that would be light years better if the card was done horizontally. A quick search has me thinking he's attempting to tag former Tigers first-rounder and current Oakland manager Bob Melvin at the dish.

Anyway, for me the other four cards here are highlights to some degree. 1994 was Mickey's final year in Detroit before heading to the Rangers as a free agent, so he began to appear with the latter team the following season. A pair of Finest cards cover both franchises nicely, and that year's Leaf, which is still one of the brand's better designs in my opinion, has a great shot of him at the plate with Texas. Then we get to my all time favorite Pinnacle flagship product and the final card I needed for the "rainbow"--base, Museum Collection, and the very coveted Artist's Proof parallel you see above. I was happy to splurge on a good few of those APs in this purchase for around a buck each because they're often hard to track down for cheaper than that. You'll definitely be seeing more of them in this series!

Before we can move on to another year we need to finish off '95, and the top row here does just that with parallels from Score (Hall of Gold) and SP (Silver, or "Superbafoil" to some), plus a very cool frozen-in-time shot of a ball about to get socked!

The six-pack of 1996s to kick off that group here is right up my alley. Fleer's E-Motion XL was a very interesting experiment that did a great job of evolving over its existence instead of sticking to one thing. That year's Finest is one of the better ones in my opinion, and I'll be happy when I can land the Refractor to go with it. The Fleer item looks like a Tiffany parallel but is actually from a Rangers team set. A Metal Universe Platinum parallel unintentionally looks pretty similar to the Pacific Prisms base next to it. And Score's down-to-earth design looks extremely plain next to the rest here, but I'm still a fan.

This scan finishes up the vertical stuff, starting with two more '96s: Stadium Club and Ultra. Hey Tim, if you're reading this, were you aware of this "guy holding a cup in the dugout" card?

1997 was the last year Tettleton appeared on cards produced while he was still playing; Collector's Choice and Upper Deck included him in '98 but he was done by then. The '97 contingent offers another good mix, such as three very different brands down the middle in Metal Universe, Pacific, and Stadium Club. It also is responsible for three of my favorite cards in the package. #1 is a '97 Donruss Silver Press Proof. That was a fun affordable product I busted a good amount of back then, and those cards "limited" to 2000 copies look sweet. The other two are excellent examples of Topps designs I still admire from that era: Chrome and Gallery. They're both works of art in their own ways, and I need to add to them an eye-popping parallel at some point--Refractor and Players Private Issue.

We're not quite done until we include these two horizontal cards that didn't fit nicely into the groups above. I mentioned being done with one small '95 rainbow above, and here's another: the Gold and Silver Signatures I needed from 1995 Collector's Choice. As a matter of fact, if you include the Collector's Choice SE product, the only one I'm lacking is that version's Gold Signature.

Other than possibly misplacing the previously mentioned '88 Topps Tiffany, I'm very pleased with the progress I made on Mick's collection here. I crossed the 200-card mark and vaulted into first place on TCDB with a new total of 239 out of 441 he has listed. My wantlist there currently includes 146 items, but a good number of those are minors and oddball items I wouldn't miss nearly as much as the mainstream stuff, which I estimate at closer to 100.

I hope you all enjoyed another fun romp through the mid-80s and -90s, and as usual I'm curious to see what everyone's favorites and dislikes were, so please leave a comment if you're so inclined.

I expect to be back next with the much-hyped eBay purchase unless I happen to go to a show this weekend and get the urge to post those. Either way I should be here with another post soon!