1995 Topps Stadium Club High Series

Hello, A Pack A Day. It's been a little while. The boss is back, so I figured I'd better look busy. I received a box of 1995 Stadium Club High Series as a gift awhile back and I thought I'd show off the first pack. At least, I think it was the first pack. I'm just going to go with that.

526 - Alex Gonzalez (Of all the Alex Gonzalezes that played professional baseball over the years, this is the one that played for the Blue Jays in 1995.)

569 - Jim Abbott (Enough said.)

540 - Mickey Tettleton

593 - Mark McLemore (Nice shot of McLemore making the turn. This is what we all come to Stadium Club for.

546 - Pat Borders

625 - Gregg Jefferies Trans-Action (As noted on the wrapper, each pack promises four "Extreme Corps" or "Trans-Action" theme cards per pack with rainbow and silver foil stamping. If you replace the word "rainbow" with "red" then it makes sense.)

625 - Gregg Jefferies Trans-Action (Again? Arrrgh. This is a nice photo, at least. Unfortunately, it commemorates when the underrated Jefferies made his exit from St. Louis.)

501 - Jeff Bagwell Extreme Corps (First off, what does "Extreme Corps" actually mean? Secondly... did they really need to go with the ransom note font?)

510 - Cal Ripken Extreme Corps

581 - Mark Kiefer (Just a few cards left... can I get a fist pump?)

536 - Joey Cora (Hell yeah!)

529 - Jason Bates

558 - Mike Perez

1995 Topps Stadium Club Series 2

14 Super Premium Baseball Cards. 50 cents. Series 2. Let's go back 14 years and see what living was like.

430 - Kevin Mitchell (Mitchell was pretty huge in the late '80s, but then he floated around a few ballclubs in the '90s. He's probably best known for that 1-handed catch.)
389 - Juan Castillo

274 - Todd Zeile (I wish this photo didn't have most of the baseball cropped out of it.)

288 - Paul Shuey (This is both Shuey's "MLB Debut" card and his "League Leader" card. The card fails to mention exactly what he led the league in, however.)
432 - Brian Anderson
293 - David Hulse
335 - Devon White (Devo was a pretty solid player.)

413 - Josias Manzanillo (Not only am I not convinced that Josias was a real player, I'm fairly sure that's not even a real Mets uniform.)

318 - Frank Thomas Best Seat in the House (Wow.)

309 - Cecil Fielder (Cecil is feeling contemplative, wondering what his relationship with his son will be like in the future perhaps.)
365 - Bill Swift
- Club Membership form

188 - Pedro Astacio Virtual Reality (Last time I posted a pack from this era someone explained to me that "virtual reality" meant that a player's stats were extrapolated for a full season as if the strike of 1994 never happened. Maybe that was "cyberstats", though. I'm confused. In any case, I don't understand these parallels.)
379 - Jesus Tavarez

403 - Carlos Baerga Cover Story (The cover is better than the story, I think. I wonder if Baerga has ever been to wherever he's supposed to be perched in front of.)

1995 Score Series 2

And on we go with my seemingly endless string of 50 cent packs. These sets are, by and large, all pretty much new to me because I lost interest in collecting after I graduated from high school in 1993. Let's see if I can opt in to the "4 Tier Chase Program" advertised on the wrapper.

390 - Dave Gallagher (According to the back of the card, Gallagher platooned with Ryan Klesko in left field in 1994. I wonder if he'll tell that to his grandchildren.)

401 - Cliff Floyd (Any guesses as to what Floyd just did in this photo?)
359 - Lenny Harris (Pinch-hit specialist and occasional reserve.)

385 - Chris Sabo (Wow, this isn't the Chris Sabo I know... knew. Who knew that Chris Sabo had a life after the Reds?)

336 - Kevin Mitchell Gold Rush (This is a one-per-pack parallel card. The foil is gold-ish and the background is faded and slightly chrome-ified. Mitchell hit 30 HRs in only 310 ABs in 1994.)

563 - Mo Vaughn Hitters Inc. (Wow, this is creepy.)

586 - Nate Minchey (This is what the Rookie cards look like. Minchey appeared in 15 games over 4 major league seasons.)

572 - Moises Alou (Still creepy.)
475 - Dave Magadan

508 - Scott Sanders (The backs of the cards are pretty nice looking by Score standards. Much better than the '96 cards, anyway.)
549 - Mike Huff
470 - Luis Sojo

No Cardinals in the pack, so any of these cards are up for grabs as usual.

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

1995 Donruss

Lots of great posts lately on APAD, so I feel somewhat guilty for bumping all of those down a notch and putting this up here. I'm in a lousy mood after a horrendous showing by the Cardinals last night against the Pirates in their quest to stay in playoff contention, so I decided to bust out this pack of 1995 Donruss that I bought awhile back along with some other mid-90s stuff that I missed during the many years where I lost interest in collecting cards.


9 - Mike Mussina
Well, well, well. This isn't the Donruss that I used to know. Full bleed photos, silver foil, and a deviation from the horizontal card back format that they used for all of the 80s and the early 90s. 18 cards for $2.49 (marked down to $1.50, and found in a 50% off box...) still means some value for the collector, though. It's nice to start things off with an active player. Moose, with his funky delivery, was a pitcher I liked even before he was a Yankee.
231 - Jeffrey Hammonds
Hammonds enjoyed a 13-year career but didn't quite live up to the hype he carried with him coming out of college.
244 - Hector Fajardo

260 - John Mabry Rated Rookie
It's nice to see they still did the Rated Rookies in '95. I love this card. Mabry came up with the Cardinals and had 3 separate stints with them in his 14 year career. He is probably my all-time favorite bench/utility/all-around guy in team history, along with Jose Oquendo, of course.
179 - Tim Davis Rated Rookie
279 - Roberto Hernandez

157 - Bobby Ayala
Teal was big in the mid-90s. Ayala's star shined brightly in the abomination year of 1994 and the Mariners playoff run in 1995. But that was about it for him.
143 - Ricky Bones
Dude, bonus! This era of Brewers unis is totally unrecognizeable to me.
70 - Kurt Abbott
Continuing with the teal theme...
292 - Jose Rijo
320 - Matt Walbeck
84 - Geronimo Berroa
96 - Mike Kingery

114 - Alex Rodriguez Rated Rookie
Alex Rodriguez. Rated Rookie. Not a "rookie card." Such is life, I suppose. It still looks like a nice card. I didn't have any of him as a Mariner.

315 - Pedro Martinez
I think I might miss the Expos. This is Pedro still in jheri curl form.
17 - Aaron Sele
186 - Steve Buechele
222 - Matt Whiteside

1995 Stadium Club Series 1

I picked up a pack of 1995 Stadium Club (Series 1) as part of a rare trip to a hobby shop a couple of weeks back. This was one of the packs that I bought that was sitting, desperately, in a large box amongst many other packs with gawdy 90's colors and other non-baseball sports like hockey, basketball... etc. I had never seen, let alone laid eyes upon a card from this set, so it sparked my curiosity. Unfortunately, the pack did not promise the EXTREME that the 1996 Stadium Club set had to offer, but I'm sure it will stand on its own.

83 - David Segui
234 - Rafael Belliard

104 - Orland Merced Virtual Reality
Each pack promises 1 "Virtual Reality" parallel. Apparently, "virtual reality" was something that many people talked about in the mid-90s. There is a logical conclusion that this phenomenon would somehow extend to trading cards with baseball players depicted.

- Club Membership ad
72 - Dennis Eckersley
Along with Lee Smith, one of my favorite all-time relievers of his era. Relievers were definitely under-appreciated at the time. I bet there are a lot more Jonathan Papelbon posters than there were Lee Smith posters.
46 - Greg Maddux Statistical Extreme
Wow... okay... OVERLOAD. This is definitely EXTREME. This is surprisingly EXTREME. This card is like the crazy animation sequence when a Pokemon is first sent into battle. At least, that's how I imagine it would be, since I have no idea what Pokemon is, of course! Okay, wait, hold on... let's get another look at Maddux:

AHH! There is another Maddux, in the shadow of the regular Maddux. Let's call him "Super Maddux" for now. Super Maddux has a molten elbow and forearm, which has also quadrupled in girth for some reason and should probably be checked out by a doctor.


238 - Sammy Sosa Cause and Effect
This card tells a story, but I'm not entirely sure what that story is.


51 - Rex Hudler
Hudler, a former Cardinal, is a modern day Bob Uecker, I guess. You just don't see Jimmy Rollins making faces like that on cards.

235 - Randy Myers
8 - David McCarty
160 - Lee Tinsley
207 - Alex Cole

224 - Doug Drabek
The many faces of Drabek are pictured here.

74 - Darren Lewis
268 - Brady Anderson

1995 Topps Finest

I picked up this pack a couple of weeks ago before A&G was out. I wanted a pack of something, but wasn't thrilled by crappy Topps base or $5 packs of Upper Deck. I almost got a pack of A Piece of History, but looked behind the counter and saw 1995 Finest for $3.50. It was a no brainer. I pulled a pack out of the dusty box and got that instead. This is from the glory days of Finest - No prospect autos, no redemption cards, no Rip Masters. Just "Brilliant Uncirculated" "High Tech" cards with peel off card protectors on the front. It's even got a few bells and whistles in it - Refractors (1:12), Power Kings (1:24) and Flame Throwers (1:48).


193 Joe Girardi
17 Jim Edmonds
FT6 Pedro Martinez Flame Throwers
112 Eddie Murray
5 Rondell White
88 Chuck Knoblauch
140 Shawon Dunston

WOOHOO! Case hit! Well, a two box case at least. This is a pretty slick looking Mid '90s insert right here. And it's a decent player too, looking at the checklist in my SCD shows me I could have gotten stuck with John Hudek or Jason Bere. The Power Kings are really cool looking though with big honking lightning bolts in the background. I'll pull a Chris Harris and reproduce the copy on the back for you.

Fastball has natural chasing action to righthanders... Blows hitters off the plate... Needs to use the circle-change and curve more on lefties... Mental toughness belied by wispy body... Terriffic all-around athlete.

SKILLS RATINGS:
Velocity-----------------(4)
Movement------------------(4.5)
Intimidation------(3)
Strikeout Rate--------------(4.5)
Endurance--------(3)
Durability------------(3.5)

Some nifty scouting info there. Insert aside, this is a pretty good pack. Hall of Famer Eddie Murray leads off the lineup, there's an active manager in Joe Girardi, an active player in Jim Edmonds and a handful of solid players. I always liked this design too with the diamond and circles and what appears to be artificial turf with pinstripes. Two of the cards have a textured pattern in the diamond behind the player as you can see with the Edmonds card. Thankfully I got two of them, I thought it was a parallel at first. The card companies have trained me too well to be on the lookout for gimmicks.