1995 Donruss

If my memory isn't as faulty as I believe it to be at times, I think this is the third pack of 1995 Donruss I've ever purchased. Something about the full-bleed photos and the marked down price tags (currently 50 cents) keep bringing me back. The last two packs have each produced an Alex Rodriguez Rated Rookie card, which unfortunately doesn't bring me a whole lot of joy these days. Let's take a look at what I got the third time around.

4 - Luis Lopez (Lopez is shown with a position of "IF", which is never a good sign for a baseball player's longevity and notoriety.)
12 - William VanLandingham Rated Rookie (Wow. From Wikipedia: "On May 29, 1996, Van Landingham started against Jason Isringhausen, then a starter for the New York Mets. They tied a record for the longest combined names of two starting pitchers. Van Landingham also set the record for longest complete name in Major League Baseball, at twenty characters. The record has since been tied by Jarrod Saltalamacchia.")
194 - Darryl Strawberry (I had completely forgotten how awful Strawberry was after signing his big deal with the Dodgers in the early '90s. I wouldn't have guessed he played for the Giants, either, but I stopped paying much attention to baseball for a few years in the mid-'90s.)

253 - Ryan Klesko (I always thought Klesko had a bigger future than Chipper Jones.)
173 - Rey Sanchez
167 - Brian McRae (His rookie cards were good trade bait in 1991 for some reason.)
157 - Bobby Ayala

292 - Jose Rijo (Rijo was one of the most underrated pitchers of his era. He was extremely good. Unfortunately, he might be best remembered for his role in a recent recruiting scandal as a member of the Nationals front office.)

52 - Mike Piazza Elite Series 3454 / 10000 (I've never pulled a card like this. I bought boxes and countless numbers of packs of 1991 Donruss, but never found nor ever even witnessed an honest to goodness Elite card from that set. I don't know how the odds compared to the Elite cards in the 1995 set, where you apparently get one per 210 packs, but this was pretty surprising. Not bad for 50 cents.)

It seems like 10,000 of these cards floating around the world would make it fairly unremarkable, but I could only find one on eBay. I know that early '90s cards were incredibly overproduced and therefore worthless, but I don't see a lot of mid '90s to early '00s stuff floating around.

297 - Jeff Frye
121 - Pat Rapp
86 - Andy Ashby

95 - Felix Jose (I always think of him as a Cardinal, but he only spent 2+ seasons with them.)
108 - Jeff King
225 - Jose Lind (A surprising number of Royals graced this pack.)

14 - Walt Weiss (The former AL Rookie of the Year had the distinction of playing for both new expansion teams - Marlins and Rockies - in their first two seasons.)
39 - Shawon Dunston (Dunston was a walking strikeout machine and just a terrible baseball player and no one can convince me otherwise. He even made a stint with the Cards late in his career, but I will not be swayed by that. Sometimes Alfonso Soriano channels Shawon Dunston in his play, and I think that's hilarious.)
124 - Jose Oliva Rated Rookie