This is the
#1 early 90's set according to Ben Henry, and I kind of have to agree. I paid five bucks for one of these packs when it came out and my big hit was Teddy Higuera. Still, the cards were bad-ass and not like anything else out at the time. Plus they had a picture of the player's Topps Rookie card on the back which sort of tied it into Topps' history. Oh what I wouldn't give for a 1991 Stadium Club Chipper Jones Rookie card. Another reason to hurry up and invent my time machine.
295 Matt Williams - Gotta love the photography. Brett Butler congratulates Matt at home plate.
161 Kevin Tapani - One of my favorite things in this set is the picture of the rookie card on the back. Unfortunately Topps often used it to pimp their crummy Topps Debut set like on this card. Nobody considers these things rookie cards. Nobody considers them at
all actually.
208 Jose Gonzalez - Who is this guy? The picture is sweet, though I'm wondering where the heck it was taken. It looks like a park or something with the grassy hill in the background.
101 Lou Whitaker - The front is a great shot of Lou's swing, but I want to show of the BARS stat gimmick thingy on the back. This was pretty innovative stuff for 1991, but I wasn't crazy about how it shows the hitting for
just fastballs. Seriously, why just fastballs? It makes hitters like Pedro Cerrano look like Ted Williams. The strengths and weaknesses sections was awesome especially in the days before you could pull up 8000 scouting reports all sabermetricized on the interwebs. I also want to show off Lou's rookie card. I got that card for 2 bucks back in the 80's!
Stadium Club Membership card - In retrospect, I sort of regret being too cheap to go for any of these cheezy marketing schemes.
284 Dave Henderson - Nice swing from Hendu.
34 Dave West - There's Gaetti manning third in the background. The full bleed really puts some oomph into the photos. That's a reason why I begrudgingly have to admit that '08 UD looks a lot better than '08 Topps.
62 Dave Stieb - We have a rash of
Daves in this pack. Stieb is one of those really undderated players from the 70s and 80's that everyone forgets about until some bored stat geek runs the numbers through some algorithm and proves to the world that they are awesome. Then they write a blog post about it and everyone is impressed for a week and they forget about him again.
68 Joe Oliver - Mullet man! Ok, so not all Stadium Club photographs were awesome.
32 Dave Valle - BARS can't make
him look like Ted Williams.
235 Tom Browning - Pitcher's cards didn't get BARS breakdowns, they have something insanely useful instead. The types of pitches they throw broken down into percentages. The lefty/righty splits show Tom throws the scrooge almost exclusively to righties. I wish I knew where to find this data for today's pitchers.
5 Will Clark - Will sliding into third. This is one of those photos that caused people to gawk in 1991. I was about to wax nostalgic about how we don't see cards like this anymore but actually it reminds me a little of
Kenny Lofton's 2008 Topps card.
42 Lee Smith - Now that's a smile. Cards like this is why
Stadium Club needs to be resurrected.
This is the #1 early 90's set according to Ben Henry, and I kind of have to agree. I paid five bucks for one of these packs when it came out and my big hit was Teddy Higuera. Still, the cards were bad-ass and not like anything else out at the time. Plus they had a picture of the player's Topps Rookie card on the back which sort of tied it into Topps' history. Oh what I wouldn't give for a 1991 Stadium Club Chipper Jones Rookie card. Another reason to hurry up and invent my time machine.
295 Matt Williams - Gotta love the photography. Brett Butler congratulates Matt at home plate.
161 Kevin Tapani - One of my favorite things in this set is the picture of the rookie card on the back. Unfortunately Topps often used it to pimp their crummy Topps Debut set like on this card. Nobody considers these things rookie cards. Nobody considers them at all actually.
208 Jose Gonzalez - Who is this guy? The picture is sweet, though I'm wondering where the heck it was taken. It looks like a park or something with the grassy hill in the background.
101 Lou Whitaker - The front is a great shot of Lou's swing, but I want to show of the BARS stat gimmick thingy on the back. This was pretty innovative stuff for 1991, but I wasn't crazy about how it shows the hitting for just fastballs. Seriously, why just fastballs? It makes hitters like Pedro Cerrano look like Ted Williams. The strengths and weaknesses sections was awesome especially in the days before you could pull up 8000 scouting reports all sabermetricized on the interwebs. I also want to show off Lou's rookie card. I got that card for 2 bucks back in the 80's!
Stadium Club Membership card - In retrospect, I sort of regret being too cheap to go for any of these cheezy marketing schemes.
284 Dave Henderson - Nice swing from Hendu.
34 Dave West - There's Gaetti manning third in the background. The full bleed really puts some oomph into the photos. That's a reason why I begrudgingly have to admit that '08 UD looks a lot better than '08 Topps.
62 Dave Stieb - We have a rash of Daves in this pack. Stieb is one of those really undderated players from the 70s and 80's that everyone forgets about until some bored stat geek runs the numbers through some algorithm and proves to the world that they are awesome. Then they write a blog post about it and everyone is impressed for a week and they forget about him again.
68 Joe Oliver - Mullet man! Ok, so not all Stadium Club photographs were awesome.
32 Dave Valle - BARS can't make him look like Ted Williams.
235 Tom Browning - Pitcher's cards didn't get BARS breakdowns, they have something insanely useful instead. The types of pitches they throw broken down into percentages. The lefty/righty splits show Tom throws the scrooge almost exclusively to righties. I wish I knew where to find this data for today's pitchers.
5 Will Clark - Will sliding into third. This is one of those photos that caused people to gawk in 1991. I was about to wax nostalgic about how we don't see cards like this anymore but actually it reminds me a little of Kenny Lofton's 2008 Topps card.
42 Lee Smith - Now that's a smile. Cards like this is why Stadium Club needs to be resurrected.
Nice post, I completely agree that '08 Upper Deck looks better than '08 Topps. Sorry Topps...
ReplyDeleteWhitaker and Tramell should go into the Hall-of-Fame together. Most games played by teammates and most double plays turned. Lou's stats compare favorably to all the 2nd sackers in the Hall.
ReplyDelete