Monday, January 07, 2008

1993 Bowman

One of the perks of writing your own blog is reading your fan mail. It's great to hear from folks who appreciate what you do. It's even better to hear from folks who show that appreciation by giving you free stuff.

Two such fans are Steve Swinehart and his son. They're both getting back into The Hobby after a long absence and stumbled across Stale Gum. Both are now regular readers.

A couple of days ago Steve sent me an e-mail asking for my mailing address. It seems that Steve and his son like my blog so much that, as a token of their appreciation, they wanted to give me some free cards. Pretty cool, huh? Yep, blogging has its privileges.

But what to ask for? I told them -- in so many words -- to surprise me.

Boy, did they.

One pack of 1993 Bowman.

Butch Huskey
Bill Haselman
Rheal Cormier
Keith Gordon
Chris Holt
Matt Whiteside
John Franco
Tim Bogar
Wade Boggs
Ed Sprague
Mike Devereaux
Raul Mondesi
Dan Frye Foil
Checklist #1

Remember when Bowman didn't suck? I do, and opening this pack brought back memories of what the once-great Bowman brand was, and can be again.

If anyone from Topps is reading this (and hopefully they are), 1993 Bowman is what the 2008 Bowman set should be modeled after. 708 cards, no short-prints, no annoying base-set autographs, no meaningless Chromes, no gimmicks. In other words, no BS.

And although I didn't pull either the Derek Jeter or Andy Pettitte RCs, and although the only card from this pack that was on my wantlist was the checklist, this was the best pack I've ripped in a LONG time. I got a fifteen-year-old card of a Hall-of-Famer, a Raul Mondesi that would have been worth something a decade ago, and a card of the 1992 Appalachian League MVP that looks like the Exxon Valdez dropped its load onto it.

Steve & son, you're welcome.

2 comments:

SJ said...

Poor Dan Frye. It looks like the wheels fell of in '94 and he was out of baseball in '95. (http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/F/Dan-Frye.shtml)

Scott

dayf said...

I would love for 2008 Bowman to be 700-something cards with no short prints or nonsense. Just all the players and all the rookies, even if they had to segregate the minor leaguers into an "insert" set to get around the Rookie rules. Put it out at the end of the season so all the rookies and draft picks make the set and bring back "Home of the Rookie Card".