A little detective work – 1994 Topps George Brett

Every now and then I come across a card that I realize – hey you can definitely figure out the exact game and play that’s captured on that card.  I’ve done this a couple other times, and it’s always fun.  My card of the decade for the 90’s is one of those cards!

Kevin Polcovich was the last player I did.  This one is a much more memorable name!  George Brett was a first ballot hall of famer and this is his last Topps card.  Similar to Robin Yount & Nolan Ryan – who with Brett made for a hell of a memorable first ballot class in 1999 – Brett got a 1994 card with his full line of statistics.

The scoreboard here is key, it enables me to narrow down which game this occurred and the surrounding circumstances.  And I’ve got to say – it was an interesting game!  I’ll blow the card up so you can see it better.

I figured from the scoreboard they were playing the Brewers.  I don’t know if I could have known that otherwise.  Maybe you can tell from the pitcher, but otherwise it just looks like a classic gray/blue road uniform that could be quite a few teams.  You know from Brett’s uniform and the background that it’s a home game.  That in and of itself narrows it down to 6 games (MIL @ KC in Brett’s game log from 1993).  They played in Kansas City early September and early June.

The scoreboard itself is the key.  The royals lost both the September games Brett played in by the scores of 3-2 and 2-1.  They scored less than 3 runs, so those aren’t possibilities.  On June 5th they lost 10-2, so that’s also not a possibility.  That leaves Thursday June 3rd (6-5 victory), Friday June 4th (3-2 victory) and Sunday June 6th (8-7 victory).

Sunday June 3, 1993 turned out to be the winner here.  And like I said, it was a topsy-turvy game!  That’s Jamie Navarro on the hill for the Brewers, with Joe Kmak behind the plate.  Brett was in at DH, which was the only position he played in 1993.  Navarro had given up 3 runs in the bottom of the first, including an RBI sac fly by Brett.  You can’t see it here, but Brian McRae was standing on 3rd after tripling home another run in the bottom of the 2nd.  Brett worked a 2-2 count – as you can see on the scoreboard or in the Baseball Reference game summary.  Then he grounded to 2nd, which you’d think was a veteran move to get the run home.  But for whatever reason, McRae wasn’t able to advance, and the Brewers were able to get out of that inning without any additional damage.

Navarro settled down until Brett’s lineup slot came up in the 4th.  I’m not sure why, but with a runner on first Brett was lifted for pinch hitter Hubie Brooks at that time.  Perhaps given his age and that he’d played 7 straight days at this point, getting the aging vet an early exit made sense.  Whatever the reason, the play worked – Brooks knocked a 2-run shot that put the Royals up 6-1.

The game looked to be in hand at that point, but in the top of the 6th the Brewers exploded for 6 runs off starter Chris Haney and reliever Mark Gubicza to take a 7-6 lead.  The Royals pulled even in the bottom of the 7th, and won the game in walk-off fashion in the bottom of the 9th.  Brooks singled to start the inning, and Jesse Orosco came in.  Orosco got one out, but then gave up a double to Chris Gwynn that scored Brooks and sent the Royal fans home happy.

1994 Topps parallels – George Brett

1994 Topps

Card I selected:  #180 – George Brett

A 4th straight Hall of Famer was my pick for the 1994 set.  This was Brett’s last Topps card, and it’s probably the best card in the set.  Fortunately or unfortunately depending on your point of view, there were a lot fewer parallels now.  The Micro cards were thankfully gone, and the inaugural team sets were gone.  The only new set was the one-time Topps Spanish set.

# of cards (including the Topps card):  3

The parallel sets in 1994 include:

• Gold
• Spanish

Scans:

1994 Topps #180

1994 Topps Gold #180

Topps Gold was back for the 3rd time in 1994, though this would be the last time in this format where the only difference was gold foil stamping of the name and the Topps logo.  These came 1 per pack again, the same as 1993.  The back of the card was exactly the same as the regular Topps card.

1994 Topps Spanish #180

Topps produced a special factory sets of bilingual cards as a test in markets with larger Hispanic populations.  There were about 5,000 of these sets produced.  The front of the cards are the same, but any writing on the back was in both English and Spanish.

The “Rainbow”:

Any sets I didn’t get:  None that I know of.

Other cards I would have liked to do:  I used Roberto Alomar for 1993, but he really could have been the selection here as well – he’s turning a double play on his brother Sandy in the 1994 card.  Nolan Ryan’s last card is also in this set, and there’s a Hank Aaron card that’s pretty cool.  Jose Rijo and Kenny Lofton had really cool cards as well.  Since there are only 2 parallels and they’re both full parallels – I kind of had my pick here.

Completed master set – one last look at 1994 Topps

I’m changing up how I do these master set posts a little bit.  In the past, I’ve basically reposted my base card set and added a “master set” section at the end of that post.  That seems a little silly in this case – I just posted about the 1994 Topps base set.  So I don’t need the repeat, I’ll just link to the completed set post.

OK, enough with the administrative stuff – I finished up the master set to 1994 Topps.  I’ve now completed all my Topps master sets through 1994!

I’m going to give myself the proverbial pat on the back, I’m gonna toot my own horn, I’ll grandstand, gloat and shout a little cock-a-doodle-doo.  I kind of assumed this would either be the last “master set” I’d finish, or I wouldn’t even finish it at all.  There were 2 major obstacles here.  The first was the Topps Spanish Legends set.  I had been 2 cards short for what seemed like forever (probably only 3 years – but still).  I finally finished that up with an eBay purchase.

The other, even more challenging portion was the Darren Dreifort Topps Golden Spikes promo.  I probably didn’t even need to consider that part of the master set (and the same could be said for the Spanish Legends set).  But both of those seemed affiliated to 1994 Topps flagship to me, so I kept my eyes open.  When I finally got the Dreifort – I was ecstatic!  So enough gasconading!  Without further ado, here’s the info for this master set.

Info about my base set:

How I put the base set together:

• 307 cards from series 1 wax box
• 259 cards from series 2 wax box
• 222 cards from trades
• 2 cards I already had from back in the day
• 1 card from a card show
• 1 card from Sportlots

Card that completed my set: #379 – Mark McLemore

Best card (my opinion): #180 – George Brett

Check out this link to see the rest of the base set post.

My “Master” Set Info:

1,005 cards – 792 “base”, 132 “update”, 62 “insert”, 19 “other”

• Update set:  Traded
• Insert sets:  Black Gold, Leyendas, Traded Finest
• Promo sets:  Pre-Production, Factory Pre-Production, Golden Spikes

How I put the additional sets together:

• Traded & Finest Traded – factory set from a card show
• Promos – all 19 cards from eBay
• Black Gold – 2 from wax boxes (1 each series), 3 from trades, 39 from Sportlots
• Leyendas – 3 from Sportlots, 5 from COMC, 2 from eBay

Traded Set info (since I didn’t do a completed set post):

Update set composition:  132 cards (107 players*, 19 Draft Picks, 1 Prospects card, 2 Anatomy of a Trade, 2 Sandberg Tribute, 1 checklist)

*Paul Shuey’s card has the Future Star design

In the update set not in the base set:  50 players (including the 4 players on the Prospect card)

Total in base and update sets:  812 different players, 53 draft picks

There were 783 guys in the regular and Traded sets who played in MLB in 1993.  The 783 players represent 70.9% out of the 1,104 players who played in MLB in 1993.

Completed insert set – 1994 Topps Leyendas (aka: Spanish Legends)

Earlier this year I completed another Topps insert set that’s kind of the “oddball” fashion.  I have been going after these cards as part of my Topps project, though in fairness I probably could argue against collecting these as not really being part of the Topps flagship set.

Info about the set:

Set description: This set of Spanish-born retired baseball players was inserted into factory sets of the the Topps Spanish bilingual set, which paralleled the 792-card 1994 Topps flagship set.  Entitled “Topps Legends”, it has some of the greatest hispanic players of the 1950s, 60s and 70s.  Blue lettering “Topps Leyendas” is at the top in block form with a shadowing effect.  Topps Legends is also at the bottom in the same manner.  The player’s name is at the bottom as well.  The photos have a distinct 1960’s feel to them.  The backs, on the other hand, have the feel of 1994 Topps.  They are bilingual with the player’s complete MLB record, biographical info and a write-up.

Set composition: 10 cards, 1 set per 1994 Topps Spanish factory set

Hall of Famers:  4.  Luis Aparicio, Rod Carew, Orlando Cepeda, Juan Marichal.  I hope some day Minnie Minoso gets in as well.

How I put the set together:

• 3 cards from Sportlots
• 5 cards from COMC
• 2 cards from eBay

Card that completed my set: #L3 – Luis Aparicio

I got this and the Chico Carrasquel cards on eBay in May.  I had been looking for them on COMC and other places for a really long time, but I changed my search parameters on eBay and found somebody selling team sets.  I had to get a few duplicates, but that’s fine by me!  If anyone is interested in the Minoso or Tiant cards, I’ve got an extra!

Thoughts on the set:  The design is humble, which makes it all the better.  It’s a great subject matter, and features an interesting selection of 10 players. Since it was issued back in 1994, it’s one of the earlier sets where Topps dove into cards of retired players.  In fact, it’s one of the few products where you could find retired players as an “insert” in a product with current players.  About the only thing this set is missing is Roberto Clemente.  The 1994 Topps Spanish set hearkens back to the days of Topps Venezuelan sets from the 1960’s.

Best card (my opinion): #L10 – Luis Tiant

I love sleeveless uniforms.

My Favorite Reds card:  There are none.

Another white whale! Darren Dreifort’s Topps Golden Spikes card

I have been looking for the Topps Golden Spikes promotional cards for quite a while now.  There were 4 of these cards made in the early 1990’s, done to promote the annual awards dinner for the Golden Spikes winner.  The Golden Spikes award honors the best amateur baseball player in the country, and it’s an impressive list if you check it out.

The 1990-1993 winners were immortalized on cardboard by Topps, in each case done in a way to preview the next year’s flagship set design.  The cards were given out at the November banquet, and supposedly there are ~600 in existence.  The 4 winners from those years are not as some of the other winners, though all of these guys did make a good amount of money in their Major League careers.

• 1990 – Alex Fernandez (1991 Topps)
• 1991 – Mike Kelly (1992 Topps)
• 1992 – Phil Nevin (1993 Topps)
• 1993 – Darren Dreifort (1994 Topps)

I found the 1991 card (for 1990 Golden Spikes winner) of Alex Fernandez about 3 years ago.  Earlier this year, I found the 1992 card for ’91 winner Mike Kelly and the 1993 card for ’92 winner Phil Nevin.  I paid a pretty penny for the Nevin card, around 10 bucks for the Kelly.  But the Dreifort has alluded me until now.

From what I’ve seen, the Fernandez card is the easiest to find.  Unlike the others, I think Topps printed as a promotion for the Topps ML debut set that was new in 1991, which had players that made their ML debut in 1990.  Fernandez was called up to the Big Leagues the same year he was drafted, so he was the perfect guy for this.  I’ve seen the Fernandez on eBay far more than any of the others.  I think there are more than 600 of these cards out there.

The other 3 probably are limited to that print run of only 600 – as distributed for the Awards Dinner – according to what I’ve read.  Kelly seems to be the next easiest to obtain – but is still a very difficult card to find.  I’ve seen it on eBay probably 6 or 7 different times.  The Nevin I’ve seen only once – the time I bought it.  I’ve read it’s the hardest to find.  This brings me back to the Dreifort, which seems close to the Nevin as far as how many are out there on the market.  I had only seen this card for sale with an autograph.  The seller was asking 200 bucks – which isn’t worth it to me.  Last month, I finally saw another Dreifort with no autograph.  In fact, there was one seller listing 3 different PSA graded versions.  I put in various bids on all 3 and ended up with 2 of them, for less than 20 bucks combined.  That seems like a steal to me.

Before

That’s a hammer in the top left of that picture.  I’m liberating one from my case to go in my binder.  The other I’ll keep in the case for now.

After

Here’s scans of the front and back for this card.

I’ve updated my pre-production posts from 1994 Topps.  Finally, here’s the binder page with all 4 cards, front and back.  I’m super-excited I got these cards.  A few years ago, I just figured these were unobtainable.  All told, I paid less than $100 for the quartet, which seems like a great deal to me.

Completed set – 1994 Topps

A few months ago I finished the 1994 Topps set.  Finishing one of the base Topps sets is a big step toward the Lifetime Topps project!

Info about my set:

How I put the set together:

• 307 cards from series 1 wax box
• 259 cards from series 2 wax box
• 222 cards from trades
• 2 cards I already had from back in the day
• 1 card from a card show
• 1 card from Sportlots

Card that completed my set: #379 – Mark McLemore (one of 3 cards received from a trade with Highly Subjective and Completely Arbitrary)

I didn’t realize it at first, but McLemore’s card is an uncorrected error because the card # is one of two cards, along with Benito Santiago, bearing number 370 in the set.  McLemore is supposed to be 379.

Set composition: 792 cards (695 individual ML player cards*, 28 Coming Attractions, 10 Prospects, 34 Draft Picks, 9 Measures of Greatness, 11 All-Stars, 1 Aaron Tribute, 4 checklists)

*The 695 individual player cards include 10 All-Star Rookies, 26 Future Stars and Nolan Ryan’s final season tribute

Representation of ’93 MLB season:  The Coming Attractions is a dual-player subset, and the Prospects cards have 4 players, one from each level of the minor leagues.  If you do the math, and exclude the Aaron card, that means there are 825 player cards in Topps.  One of the Draft Pick players did make the majors in 1993 (Jeff Granger) – leaving 33 who did not.  19 of the players in the Coming Attractions subset did not make it to the Majors, 8 of the Future Stars didn’t, and 38 (all but 2) of the players from the Prospect subset didn’t actually make it.

That leaves 733 guys in the set who played in MLB in 1993.  The 733 players represent 66.4% out of the 1,104 players who played in MLB in 1993.  It’s worth noting – the 1,104 players was a huge increase since there were 2 expansion teams in 1993.

Earliest active player from this set: #715 – Hank Aaron, #34 – Nolan Ryan (active players)

As usual – there are two answers to this.  I’m taking a minor liberty when I say Nolan Ryan is the earliest active player.  He retired in 1993, and thus Topps gave him something of a tribute as card #34 in the set.  But this is really just his final card, showcasing his full statline on the back.  Ryan made his debut on September 11, 1966 for the Mets – pitching 2 innings of an 8-3 loss to the Braves.  He faced 3 fellow Hall of Famers in his debut – striking out Eddie Mathews, getting Hank Aaron (SEE BELOW!!!) to ground out, but giving up a homer to Joe Torre for his only run of the day.  He also faced Felipe Alou and Rico Carty.

Hank Aaron had a tribute card for the 20th anniversary of his 715th home run – his debut was April 13, 1954, a game he went 0-for-5 in a loss to the Reds.

Last active player from this set: #158 – Derek Jeter

There are no players in this set currently active.  Derek Jeter wast the last active player from the set – he played the final game of his historic career at Fenway park on September 28th last year, which was the final day of the season.  He singled in his second at bat to knock in Ichiro Suzuki and was pulled for Brian McCann to replace him as DH.  That has to be the only time Brian McCann ever pinch ran for anyone.

There were 2 other players who played their last game at the end of the 2014 season.  Jason Giambi played as a DH for the Indians on September 27th and has since retired.  Jamey Wright pitched for the Dodgers and notched a hold in his last game on September 27th.  He wasn’t on the team’s postseason roster.  Wright tried to latch on with the Rangers last spring training but missed out on the team’s final cut.

Player with the most cards in the set:  5 players with 3 cards:

There are 2 “extra card” subsets, and 5 players have a card in both the All-Star and Measure of Greatness subset – Frank Thomas, Wade Boggs, Cal Ripken, Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr.

Ripken – #200, #387 (All-Star), #604 (Measure of Greatness)

Thomas – #270, #384 (AS), #601 (MoG)

Griffey – #400, #388 (AS), #606 (MoG)

Boggs – #520, #386 (AS), #603 (MoG)

Bonds – #700, #390 (AS), #605 (MoG)

First Card and the Hundreds: #1 – Mike Piazza, #100 – Kirby Puckett, #200 – Cal Ripken, #300 – Ryne Sandberg, #400 – Ken Griffey Jr., #500 – Bo Jackson, #600 – Don Mattingly, #700 – Barry Bonds

Three of the 5 guys from the “most card” category made the special card section.

Highest book value: #158 – Orlando Miller, Brandon Wilson, Derek Jeter, Mike Neal PROS

It’s not his rookie card, but this prospect is Jeter’s second card.

Most notable card: #34 – Nolan Ryan

This was Ryan’s last card – his 27th card since he shared card #177 with Jerry Koosman back in 1968.  Topps created a card with Ryan’s full statistical background on the back, and a logo on the front for Ryan’s 27 season.

Best card (my opinion): #180 – George Brett

This is Brett’s 20th and final Topps flagship card.  And it’s his best.  Pure majesty.

Second best card (also my opinion): #675 – Roberto Alomar

Back when I did my scans of cards from this set, I picked this card as my favorite.  I’ve since changed my mind – I think the Brett is too good.  But it’s got really good competition from this card, where Roberto Alomar forced out his brother and then threw on to first in an attempt at a double play.  This play occurred on April 17, 1993, though I can’t narrow it down between two separate plays.

Best subset card: #715 – Hank Aaron TRIB

Aside from this card and those that are guys’ actual cards for the set are Measures of Greatness and All-Star cards.  Nothing in those subsets beats out the tribute card for Hank Aaron, which was put into the set to honor the 20th anniversary of his record-breaking 715th homer.

Favorite action photo: #149 – Kenny Lofton

Though I considered just putting the Alomar card from above as the winner here, I don’t think it’s the best card based purely on the action shot.  It’s amazing because he’s forcing out his brother, but I think this Lofton is better if you just go on the action shot.  It looks like he’s about to make a diving catch, after losing his hat a few seconds earlier!

Favorite non-action photo: #80 – Jose Canseco

From the wood-clippings at his feet, Canseco seems to be shaving down the handles of his bats.  I’m not sure how many players do this, and this might be the only card where that’s done!

My Favorite Reds card: #705 – Jose Rijo

There are a lot of good cards in this set, and a lot of those good cards feature Reds.  I really liked Barry Larkin’s card where he’s going back on a fly ball, and Chris Sabo has a cool photo where he’s legging out a ground ball.  Joe Oliver has a very good play at the plate card.  But Rijo’s card is the best.  If I think about it, I probably prefer this card to the Canseco card above as far as non-action photos go.

This is a cool photo of the times; the Super Soaker had just come out in 1992 and I remember all the kids getting them, even though at 12 or 13 years old I was getting a bit old to play with high-powered squirt guns.  There are 2 other cards that I’ve found that have water guns on them.  The first is another Rijo card.  On the back of his 1994 Stadium Club Member’s Only card, Rijo has upgraded to a souped-up version of the super soaker with 3 “cartridges”.  The other is a Roger McDowell card, also from 1994.  His collector’s choice card shows him taking a picture with a couple of water guns shoved into his belt.

Other Notable Cards: Here’s some of the other cards that I really liked and/or are memorable.  A number of these were considered for the “honors” above.  The Mitch Williams is probably my favorite; I really thought about putting that as the best action photo.

Topps Reprints and others:

• 1999 Ryan reprints – Nolan Ryan
• 2001 Through the Years – Barry Bonds
• 2001 Archives – Jack Morris, George Brett, Robin Yount, Ryan
• 2001 Topps Traded – Terrence Long (’94T), Ben Grieve (’94T)
• 2002 Archives – Jason Giambi
• 2005 Rookie Cup Reprints – Jeff Conine, J.T. Snow, Mike Piazza
• 2010 CMT – Tony Gwynn, Bo Jackson, Billy Wagner
• 2011 60YOT – Piazza, Manny Ramirez

Both Mike Piazza and Nolan Ryan have multiple reprints.

Completed insert set – 1994 Topps Black Gold

Topps came out with their second year of Topps Black Gold in 1994, and it never seemed as popular as the first year.  By 1994 there were much shinier things out there – Upper Deck had Michael Jordan baseball cards for crying out loud! I finished this set back in November 2013.  And it’s been sitting in my queue as a “I need to do this” draft post since then.  It seems less than that, but time can get away from you.  Well, I’m using these completed set posts to get me back into the Lifetime Topps project – so this is certainly a good one for that!

Info about the set:

Set description:  Staying in line with the Gold theme that Topps adopted in the early 90’s in the flagship product for all 4 sports, the Black Gold cards had gold foilboard at the top (the team) and bottom (the player).  The background is completely blacked out of the player photo on the front.  The Topps Black Gold logo is shown next to the photo on series 1 but is mysteriously missing on the series 2 cards.  The back of the card has another photo of the player with a his statistics and positional ranking for those stats against a wood background.  The set has 22 players from each league.

Set composition:  44 cards

Inserted: All packs of 1994 Topps.  1:72 hobby odds.  22 cards per each series (AL in series 1, NL in series 2).

There were also redemption cards inserted at a more difficult rate that could be exchanged for 11, 22 or all 44 cards in the set.

Hall of Famers: 9

Roberto Alomar, Paul Molitor, Kirby Puckett, Cal Ripken, Frank Thomas, Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Craig Biggio

How I put the set together:

• 2 from my series 1 & 2 wax boxes
• 3 cards from trades
• 39 cards from Sportlots

Thoughts on the set:  I like the 1993 set better.  I always thought Topps was pretty inferior to Upper Deck for card technology and for inserts in the early and mid-90’s (because they were).  And while these are decent cards, they aren’t as nice as the first year.  That may be why they didn’t stick around into 1995.

Card that completed my set:  #41 – Mike Piazza

One of 3 cards I picked up on Sportlots back in November.

Highest book value:  #18 – Cal Ripken, #27 – Barry Bonds

Best card (my opinion):  #43 – Robby Thompson

How often will you ever see a non-parallel insert card of Robby Thompson?  And it’s a pretty good photo?  Count me in.

My Favorite Reds card:  There are none.  I knew there was a reason I didn’t like this set.

1994 Topps Traded

Topps again issued a 132-card “Traded” set in 1994 the same as previous years; cards were numbered separately from the base set with a “T” suffix as #1-132.  The set contains cards of rookies, draft picks, free agents and traded players (no new managers this year) and a 2-card tribute to Ryne Sandberg, who retired in the middle of 1994.  The design is the same as the base set.

The set was issued again as a factory set, but the box design was no longer quite as square – this year it was only available in a colorful blue and black flat box with 3 rows for the cards once you opened it.  There were actually 140 cards in the box – there was an 8-card “Topps Finest” insert set of 6 MVP and 2 Rookie of the Year candidates.  They did OK in “guessing” these – they got Raul Mondesi for the NL RoY and Frank Thomas for the AL MVP, while Griffey (2nd) and Lofton (4th) were up there in the final MVP tally.  But they missed on the unanimous Jeff Bagwell for NL MVP.  Matt Williams was close (2nd); but Maddux (5th) and Piazza (6th) weren’t really.  They also missed on Bob Hamelin for Manny Ramirez.  Ramirez was 2nd, but it wasn’t a close vote.  I like that the Maddux card shows him batting.

After a lot of cards in the previous seasons, there is only one cards of Reds 1990 World Champion members.

• Chris Sabo signed as a free agent with Baltimore in the 93/94 offseason.

There are 6 (was 3 initially) Hall of Famers in the set.

• As mentioned, Ryne Sandberg retired in the middle of 1994 and had a 2-card tribute set.  This was pretty cool – they had him pictured as a Phillie for the first time on a Topps card.  The backs of the cards match the front – his Phillies stats are shown on the first card and his Cubs stats on the 2nd card.
• After being sent from the A’s to Toronto and contributing to the Blue Jays’ second straight World Series title, Rickey Henderson signed back with Oakland in the offseason for his third stint with the team.
• Eddie Murray signed as a free agent with Cleveland in the 93/94 offseason.  He would have 2½ solid seasons as the Tribe’s DH, and he picked up his 3,000th hit with the team in 1995.
• Pedro Martinez is in the anatomy of a trade subset – see the picture further down in this post.
• Jack Morris is in the set after leaving Toronto for a final season in Cleveland.
• Lee Smith is in the set after signing with Baltimore after spending 1993 with both the Cardinals and Yankees.

There’s also an NFL Hall-of-Famer: see anatomy of a trade cards below for more info.

Topps didn’t feature players from Team USA after doing so in the previous 3 Traded sets.  They did have a number of Draft Picks from the 1994 summer draft.  Paul Wilson was actually given the #1 card.  I didn’t know that Ben Grieve had a brother drafted the same year as him – kind of interesting.  Ben was in high school, while his brother was 4 years older, so that’s what led to this.

There are also some other “rookie” players worth showing here.  The biggest by far – and the only one that really gives this set any “value” – is the Paul Konerko rookie card.  He’s starting to get into borderline HOF territory – and I remember when the Reds had him very briefly!  Jason Schmidt has a rookie card – it’s the only card dressed as the Top Prospects subset in the Traded set.  The biggest rookie at the time was probably Chan Ho Park.  I remember when he was a big deal – the first Korean born pitcher to make the big leagues.  Park pitched in the majors last in 2010 for the Pirates.  He pitched in Japan last year and issigned to pitch in the Korean major leagues next season.

There were some big free agent / traded players in this set.  I remember Will Clark being the biggest name – though he only had a couple of good seasons in Texas and left in his career.  Palmeiro and Vizquel had the most left – it will be interesting to see if Omar hangs on for another year (he’s 150 hits from 3,000).  Ellis Burks and Bret Boone both had some near-MVP seasons left, though Boone’s best came when he went back to Seattle.  And the Reds got Gant for very cheap in the middle of 1994 after he was hurt in a motorcycle accident and the Braves got out of the big contract he’d just signed.  He won the Comeback PoY and helped them to the 1995 playoffs.

There were also the typical guys who were really hanging on to long – though El Presidente did have a couple of decent seasons with Cleveland and Lee Smith did the same with Baltimore.

Topps added a few subsets to this Traded set – like the Sandberg, Draft Pick and Prospects cards shown above.  They also had one Future Stars card of Paul Shuey, who didn’t end up fitting that bill.  The most interesting subset was the “Anatomy of a Trade”.  This was 2 cards that looked at trades between Montreal/Los Angeles and Cincinnati/Atlanta.  It’s interesting – both were trades that helped each team, though the DeShields trade wasn’t nearly as good for LA in the long run.  And if Pedro had become as dominant in LA, they would have had a much better chance signing him long-term.  I remember when the Reds got Neon Deion – it was pretty exciting.

Lastly, Shawon Dunston is in this set with the Cubs.  I find this interesting because he doesn’t fit the bill for a Traded set in any way.  He played for the Cubs in 1993, and he was still with them in 1994.

1994 Topps inserts

Topps again included a Black Gold insert set as its primary insert set.  The cards come 22 per series, with the American League in series 1 and the National League in series 2.  The insert set has a totally black background with a gold foil team name on the top, the player name in gold foil at the bottom, and white outline around the player.

Black Gold (44 cards, 1:72)

There are also some winner cards possible – though I didn’t pull one this year. Just as the year before, there were 7 different winner cards possible – 4 different 11-card winners, 2 different 22-cards winners, and a full set winner.

Randy Myers is a 90 Reds World Series member who has a card in this set.   I don’t have it yet – so I can’t display it.

Finest Pre-production (40 cards, 1:36)

Topps capitalized on the popularity from its finest brand from the year before by inserting preview cards into series 2.  I believe the pictures are exactly the same as their base cards for Finest.

Spanish Leyendas (10 cards, included in Spanish Factory set)

Topps issued a bilingual factory set paralleling the base set with Spanish writing as well.  The factory set included a 10-card “Legends” insert set of retired Latin stars.  I’m going to try to get the insert set eventually, but don’t have any at the moment.

1994 Topps parallel sets

Topps Gold was back for its 3rd year in 1994, again as a roughly 1 per pack insert.  From the box I opened – it was really more of a 5 in 4 packs insert.  The “Gold” cards was the same idea – the player name was printed in gold foil.  The cards also came 4 per cello, 3 per rack, 5 per jumbo, 2 per mini-jumbo and 10 per factory set.

The 4 checklists were again replaced with players who weren’t part of the base set for Topps Gold.

• 395 – Bill Brennan
• 396 – Jeff Bronkey
• 791 – Mike Cook
• 792 – Dan Pasqua

Topps Gold– 792 cards (1:1)

Topps also produced a special factory sets of bilingual cards as a test in markets with larger hispanic populations.  I’ve read there were about 5,000 of these sets, which also came with a 10-card “Leyendas” insert of retired legends.